Open houses

kns1988

H and I are still unsure about buying a house, especially since I've taken to watching Holmes Inspection on Netflix - bad idea for home buying motivation.

We've started seriously considering it, though. We currently rent a 1 bedroom in a great neighborhood, but we'd like a 2 bedroom within the next year and the rent prices shoot up like crazy for 2 bedrooms. There are a bunch of houses for sale in our neighborhood, so we're checking it out. We're going to 3 open houses today; we went to our 1st one last Sunday.

Does anyone else get a kick out of open houses? I'm really excited for it. It's fun to go in and imagine living somewhere, and I don't feel like an ass since we're actually thinking about buying.

luckya23

I like them too, but chances are slim that you will find your house that way. My sister thought those were the only ones for sale and never got a buyers agent!
I met my realtor at an open house for a place four times my budget just because I was curious... So it's a good way to meet them without having to set something up. Just avoid dual agents, I made that mistake twice!

OliveOilsMom

We had our house for sale, but didn't want to seriously look (or waste our realtor's time) until it was under contract.  So we started attending open houses in our target areas.  It helped us figure out how far our money could go.  So when we started really house shopping with our realtor, I could use that reference against other houses we saw.  It also really helped us when we found our house and realized what a "bargain" it was.  So while our kitchen and bathrooms are original and dated, the rest of the house hit all of our must haves and more.  It also will allow us to put our stamp on two big areas of our house.

When you are ready for a realtor, ask family and friends for recommendations.  You can interview them to figure out which realtor will work best for you.  I did not do realtor interviews because my realtor is the aunt of a co-worker and pretty much everyone in my department at work has used her.  So by her reputation alone, I felt comfortable using her.

southernbelle0915

I think shopping via open house is fine if you have one foot in the "we want a house" world and the other in the "not quite sure yet" world.

But if you get serious about wanting to buy, get a realtor.

flyingfoxes

I always liked open houses, but I think I kinda liked going through a realtor and having the "private tour" more without other people there. Although I've only bought one house and I think if I would have heard comments from other buyers I might have realized the shortcomings my little house had.

lyndausvi

There are not a lot of open houses around here.  The few I see are on random days like Wed between 2-4.   Really?

I think they can be a good idea to get a feel for what you can get for your money.

kns1988

We ended up hitting 6 in our neighborhood today because we kept seeing them as we were driving around. I fell in love with one house that was double our target price. *sigh*

It's like wedding dress shopping... that's what I get for looking at houses out of my price range. 

It was still fun, though, and now we're closer to pegging down what we can afford in our neighborhood versus what our ideal is. 

huskypuppy14

I second, third, fourth everyone saying get a buyers agent. You also want to get preapproved by a bank, so if you find a house you like, you can make an offer right away.

I bought my house this year, and in my area it's a sellers market, so we had to be aggressive. We never would have gotten our house without our mortgage broker and our Realtor.

buttercup1958

There's no open houses around in the area but if there were V and I would be going to them! We aren't ready to buy a house though at all so that may be wrong ha.

JoanE2012

I love open houses.  Though I usually went to them before I was truly serious about buying.....I wanted to get an idea of what I liked/didn't like.  Before we bought our current house, we went around to a few open houses with the sole intention of finding an agent.  It worked!  We found someone wonderful who showed us this house before it hit the open house.

Confession: I will still occassionally pop in open houses if I'm looking for inspiration or ideas for our house.

kvruns

I think they are fun although I always feels bit bad if I'm really just checking it out for curiosity vs actually ready to buy Then again I've read that open houses are often more to get the sellers agent more clients, they often don't sell that actual house

dcbride86

I'm totally the minority here, but FI and I found our 2-bedroom, 3-bath condo by stumbling upon it at an open house.  We literally had to find a realtor after we went to the open house.  I definitely think they're a good way to get a general idea of what neighborhoods you want to be in, and price ranges - especially if you live in a city

climbingsingle

My parents actually sold their house right after their open house to a couple that was there. I was actually going to hit a few up in our neighborhood to get some ideas on our reno. 

Bubblegum5586

I went to open houses for months before we started actively looking. We disagreed on location so looking ahead of time was a great way to show what we could afford where. My Realtor wanted to take me out, but I wouldn't until I was pre-approved. I didn't want to waste anyone's time until I could make an offer.

It was fun, but someday I would hit like 8-10 in a day and that was EXHAUSTING!!!

When we finally went out with our Realtor, we found our house the first time. and was moving in 45 days later. Being so prepared (and of course some luck) really made a big difference!