Open House Advice

Today many of you will search open house listings, visit an open house or speak with an agent about a house you saw in the paper or online. As you have those conversations with agents, please remember a few key facts about Open Houses.

1) When you call an agent about a property they have advertised that ad becomes the "procuring cause" of your contact with the property, and your rights to use a buyer's agent have been lost.

2) When you visit an open house and do not sign in as working with an agent, that open house becomes the procuring cause, and again your rights to use a buyer's agent have been lost.

3) When you search Boston Homes, the Globe or Boston.com you need to remember that you are not seeing a large portion of the homes currently on the market. Since Open Houses don't usually lead to the sale of that specific property offices are cutting back more and more on their weekend advertising. The open house is almost exclusively seen as a tool for agents to generate contacts with potential buyer clients these days. This means the office, as property sits on the market longer, has to take a good hard look at how many properties go in the weekend publications.

These three facts make it critical that you employ a buyers agent. You need to have a contract signed with this agent to make sure you get your full protection. This contract, except for the most rare situations, is free and the obligation (99.9% of the time) to pay your buyer's agent falls to the seller. I suggest you use this weekend to interview an agent or two. The top agents today will not be sitting in open houses, they will be out viewing property for clients or in the office writing offers for their clients. Remember this as you go out, and make sure you stack the cards as much as you can in your favor. Happy Sunday!

Go Sox! Go Pats!