By Eric Berman, REALTOR® | The Eric Berman Team at Compass
TL;DR:
Open houses still work on Long Island, but not for the reason most sellers think. They rarely produce the buyer directly — serious buyers with agents schedule private showings. What they do produce is concentrated first-weekend traffic, unfiltered feedback about how the home actually reads in person, and access for unrepresented buyers, a group that has grown since the August 2024 rule changes made buyers sign an agreement before touring with an agent. Whether one makes sense depends on price band, how deep the buyer pool is in that band, and what the seller is trying to learn. A launch-weekend open house is usually worth doing. A fourth open house on a listing that has sat for two months is a substitute for a pricing conversation.
What an Open House Actually Produces
The common belief is that an open house sells the house — that somewhere in the Saturday afternoon foot traffic is the buyer who writes the offer. That does happen. It is not the main reason to hold one, and a seller who measures an open house solely by whether the buyer came from it will usually conclude, incorrectly, that it failed.
Most serious buyers on Long Island are working with an agent and schedule private showings. They have saved searches, they see new listings within hours, and they do not wait for a Sunday window to view a home they are seriously considering. What the open house delivers instead is three other things: concentrated traffic in the first weekend when a listing's momentum is being established, direct observation of how strangers move through the home and what they react to, and access for the portion of the buyer pool that is not yet working with an agent.
That third category has grown, and it is worth understanding why. Since August 17, 2024, buyers must sign a written agreement with an agent before touring homes with that agent. A buyer who is early in the process, still deciding whether they are serious, or simply not ready to commit to representation has one place they can walk through a house without signing anything first — the open house. Whatever else the rule change did, it made the open house the front door for unrepresented buyers in a way it was not before.
Where Open Houses Perform on Long Island
Open house performance tracks buyer demand depth relative to available inventory in a specific price band. Where there are many active buyers competing for few listings in a range, an open house draws real traffic. Where inventory is plentiful relative to demand in that range, it draws neighbors.
That plays out unevenly across the island. A Levittown listing in the entry range typically sits in a band with a deep buyer pool, many of whom are first-time buyers who may not yet have representation — close to ideal open house conditions. A Bayside listing in a similar band behaves comparably. Move up to the North Shore at $2 million and above and the dynamic inverts: that buyer pool is small, almost entirely represented, and inclined to view privately. The open house at that price point functions more as a broker preview than a public event, which is why the agents-only version is often the better tool there.
Timing matters as much as price band. The first weekend a listing is live is when the accumulated interest of everyone watching that price range converges. An open house on that weekend captures a wave that will not come again. An open house in week seven is capturing whatever is left, which is usually thin — and if a listing has been sitting, the honest read is that the issue is pricing rather than exposure. More opens will not fix that. Sellers in that position will find the question of when a listing needs a strategic reset more useful than another Saturday.
The Feedback Nobody Else Will Give You
The most undervalued thing an open house produces is honest information about how the home reads to people who have no relationship with the seller.
Twenty strangers walking through a house in two hours generate a pattern. They pause in the same spot. They comment on the same room. They step into the kitchen and then step back out. They ask the same question three times, which means the listing photos are not answering it. None of this shows up in showing feedback from buyer agents, which tends toward the polite and the vague — "they liked it, they're considering options" — because the agent's job is not to critique someone else's listing.
For a seller, that pattern is actionable in a way that price feedback is not. If four separate visitors comment that the primary bedroom feels dark, the fix is a lamp and a photo reshoot, not a price reduction. If the recurring comment is about the layout, that is structural and the answer is a pricing conversation. Being able to tell those two apart in week one rather than week eight is worth a Saturday afternoon.
The Real Drawbacks
Not everyone who attends is a buyer. Neighbors come, and their curiosity is genuine and harmless but does not advance the sale. People who are two years from moving come. Some sellers find that mix demoralizing, particularly on a first weekend that draws thirty people and no offers — but thirty people is not a failure, it is a data set.
Security requires actual planning rather than a passing thought. Strangers move through the home with limited supervision. Prescription medications should be out of the house entirely, not in a drawer — the medicine cabinet is the single most common target and it is a two-minute fix. The same applies to small valuables, jewelry, checkbooks, passports, mail with account numbers on it, and anything with the family's schedule visible. Laptops and tablets should not be sitting out. Sellers should also call their insurance carrier before the first open house and ask directly how their policy treats a public event at the property versus a scheduled showing, because the answer varies by carrier and by policy form and is not something to assume.
The third drawback is subtler. An open house can become a substitute for the harder conversation. When a listing is not moving and the plan is another open house, another round of social promotion, another weekend — the activity feels like progress while the underlying problem goes unaddressed. There is no marketing volume that fixes a price the market has already rejected.
Broker Opens, Virtual Tours, and Private Showings
The public open house is one option among several, and for a meaningful share of Long Island listings it is not the right one.
The broker open — agents only, usually a weekday midday window — reaches the people who actually control buyer traffic. In the upper price bands where nearly every buyer is represented, twelve agents walking through and forming an opinion is worth considerably more than forty members of the public. Those agents have clients in that range right now, and a listing they have seen in person is a listing they remember.
Virtual walkthroughs handle a different problem. Out-of-area buyers, relocating buyers, and adult children helping a parent evaluate a sale from another state can all tour without traveling. On Long Island, where a meaningful portion of buyers come from Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Westchester, this is not a niche accommodation.
Private showings remain the mechanism through which most Long Island homes actually sell. The strategic question is not open house versus private showings — it is whether an open house adds anything on top of a private showing schedule that is already running. Sometimes it does. On a quiet street where a listing needs visibility, or in a launch weekend where momentum matters, it clearly does. On a listing already generating six private showings a week, the marginal value is small.
A Worked Example
Consider a composite case — a Nassau County seller listing a split-level in the mid-$800,000s, a price band with a deep and largely first-time buyer pool.
The launch-weekend open house drew thirty-one visitors across two hours. Eleven were neighbors. Four were early-stage and unrepresented, exactly the group the current rules push toward open houses. Six had agents and had already scheduled private showings, using the open house as a first look. The remainder were not serious.
The offer, when it came nine days later, came from a buyer who had toured privately and never attended. By the narrow measure, the open house produced nothing. What it actually produced was a pattern: five separate visitors commented that the finished basement felt closed off, and three asked whether the room off the kitchen was a bedroom or an office — a question the listing photos plainly were not answering. The seller reshot two photos, rewrote the room description, and swapped in brighter bulbs downstairs. Showing volume in week two ran higher than week one, which almost never happens.
Where to Start
The sequence that works for most Long Island sellers: hold one open house on the launch weekend, in nearly every price band, because that is when the accumulated interest is highest and the information return is best. Above roughly $1.5 million, weigh a broker open as the primary event with the public open as secondary or skipped entirely. Prepare the house for strangers rather than for guests — medications and valuables out, personal documents secured, insurance carrier called. Treat the visitor comments as a data set and look for repetition rather than reacting to any single remark.
Then stop. A second open house two or three weeks in is reasonable if traffic warranted it. A fourth is a signal to have a different conversation. Sellers wanting a current read on where their home sits in its band can start with a quiet look at present value, and more Long Island market and process coverage lives in Local Insights.
The Honest Bottom Line
Open houses are neither essential nor obsolete. They are a tool with a specific job, and the job is not usually finding the buyer. It is generating first-weekend momentum, learning how the home reads to people with no stake in flattering the seller, and staying accessible to buyers who have not committed to representation — a group the 2024 rule changes made more significant than it used to be.
A seller who holds one launch-weekend open house, pays attention to what repeats, and adjusts accordingly has extracted nearly all the available value. A seller holding a sixth open house on a listing that has been live since April is doing something else. Sellers who want to think through whether one fits their particular situation, with no pressure attached, are welcome to start that conversation whenever it suits them.
FAQs
Do open houses actually sell homes on Long Island?
Rarely in the direct sense. Most Long Island homes sell to buyers who toured privately with their agent, and a seller who measures an open house only by whether the eventual buyer attended will usually conclude it failed. The value is elsewhere: concentrated traffic during the launch weekend when a listing's momentum is set, unfiltered observation of how strangers respond to the home, and access for unrepresented buyers. That last group has grown since the August 2024 rule changes, because an open house is now the one place a buyer can tour without first signing an agreement with an agent.
How many open houses should a Long Island seller hold?
Usually one, on the launch weekend. That is when everyone watching the price range converges, and the information return is highest. A second open house two or three weeks later can make sense if the first drew strong traffic. Beyond that, additional open houses tend to substitute for a conversation the seller needs to have about price. A listing that has been active for two months without offers has a pricing or positioning problem, and no amount of additional exposure resolves that — the activity feels productive while the underlying issue stays untouched.
Are open houses worth it for higher-priced Long Island homes?
Less often. Above roughly $1.5 million the buyer pool is smaller and almost entirely represented, and those buyers prefer private showings. A broker open — agents only, typically a weekday midday window — usually delivers more at that level, because the agents attending have clients in that range right now and a listing they have walked through is one they remember. Some sellers in the upper bands hold both, using the broker open as the primary event. Others skip the public open house entirely without any cost to the outcome.
What should a seller do to prepare for an open house?
Prepare for strangers rather than for guests. Prescription medications should leave the house entirely rather than sit in a cabinet, since that is the most common target and the fix takes two minutes. The same applies to jewelry, checkbooks, passports, laptops, mail showing account numbers, and anything displaying the family's schedule. Beyond security, the home should be lit brighter than feels natural and cleared of enough personal material that visitors can picture themselves in the space. Sellers should also call their insurance carrier and ask how their specific policy treats a public event at the property.
Did the 2024 real estate rule changes affect open houses?
Yes, in a way many sellers have not registered. Since August 17, 2024, buyers must sign a written agreement with an agent before touring homes with that agent. That pushed early-stage buyers who are not ready to commit to representation toward open houses, which remain the one setting where someone can walk through a property without signing anything first. The practical effect for sellers is that open house attendance now skews slightly earlier in the buyer journey than it used to, which changes what a seller should expect from the traffic and how to read it.
By Eric Berman, REALTOR® | The Eric Berman Team at Compass
Eric Berman | Long Island & Queens Associate Broker | Compass
1468 Northern Blvd, Manhasset, NY 11030
(917) 225-8596 | eric@ericbermanre.com | theericbermanteam.com
