Thursday, January 30, 2020

Halstead Open House Index - report from weekend of January 26, 2020



Good morning Halstead Open House Index subscribers and contributors!

It is Thursday, which means my open house report is hitting your inbox…….right now! What happened last weekend?

The numbers are in! The average attendance in NYC jumped again – to 5.23 per open house. January saw total see-saw attendance: first weekend 4.48, 2nd weekend 5.35, 3rd weekend 4.17 and this last weekend 5.23. (See the chart on the bottom, comparing January 2020 vs. January 2019). Last year, on January 27, 2019, the average attendance stood at 4.22. We received 258 reports, the most this year, but still far from good old days when I sometimes received over 400 replies. Short of me paying you, any ideas on how to increase the participation? 

28 open houses reported zero attendance, this is 10%. Not bad. When this number hits over 15%, it will be the sign of slow weekends.

The largest attendance mention this week goes to Peter Grazioli of Halstead’s Brooklyn office. He reported 55 parties at his first open house for a multi-unit building in Park Slope for $2,500,000. Yes, his first open house. 10 open houses reported attendance larger than 20 and one reported 37!

According to my analysis, roughly 7861 prospective buyers were hopping from one open house to another last weekend. Here's the dataset. Let’s check what happened in each borough:

Manhattan – the average jumped to 4.90, from 3.98 the weekend before. Huge 23% increase in traffic in Manhattan. (don’t ask me why. If you sort data in the Dataset by area, you will notice a number of open houses reporting 20+ attendance in Manhattan). Large attendance in Other Upper Manhattan Areas (20.00) and Soho & Tribeca (13.00), but from just 2 and 3 open houses reported, respectively. Remember my old saying: beware of small samples! Washington Heights (8.29) above the average, and so were Other Downtown Areas (6.86) and Chelsea (6.00). Interesting that UES (5.36) beat UWS (4.83) again. I wonder if the buyers are finding better values on UES and this drives the traffic? Opinions? Slow in Gramercy Park area (2.67) and Midtown East (2.77). See the rest below. Last year on January 27, 2019, Halstead Index recorded 4.04 for Manhattan.

Brooklyn – the number jumped to 9.73, from 5.44 the weekend prior. But primarily thanks to that record open house from Peter. Without it the Brooklyn average would have been still very strong 7.92 per open house. Super strong in Park Slope (15.71) (we know why), and Bed Stuy (11.67). Slow(er) in Fort Greene (5.33). See the rest below and again, beware of small sample sizes. We received just 26 replies from Brooklyn. Last year, on the same weekend, Brooklyn reported 4.93.

Bronx – the average dropped to 1.77, from just 13 open houses that arrived from the Bronx.

Queens – the average jumped to 5.67, from 5.43 the weekend earlier. But from just 3 open houses reported, so not sure if it should be taken seriously.

Staten Island – no open houses there.

Size – Multi-unit buildings off the chart with 16.60 thanks to Peter, the average would have been 7.00 without it. From apartments, the best attendance at 2BR open houses (6.36), then JR4s (5.56). The slowest was at studio open houses (3.48) and 4BRs (3.60).

Price – most traffic in $2M-$3M range (7.83). Even without Peter’s open house, this price range would be the best with 6.15 per open house. Slowest in $3M+ range (2.55) – see the rest below.

Condition – properties described as “good, but some work needed” took the top spot with 5.86. The worst? “Mint” condition with 4.87. Again, are you guys putting too much premium on mint condition?

First Open House – huge 332% more traffic at first open houses. There were 38 last weekend in the total sample of 258.

By Appointment Only – just 49% more traffic at “normal” open houses than at those labeled “by appointment only”. Busy weekend lifts all open houses.

This is all for today my fellow followers. Thank you for patiently submitting your results each week.

As promised, see the chart below for the average attendance in NYC in January 2020 vs. January 2019.


Write with suggestions on how to make this project working better for everyone in the industry. We all win when we share data.

Offer of the week: tomorrow, Friday, I will be teaching at Halstead’s Training Program the following topic: “How to Prepare Scattergram in Excel. I am convinced this is probably one of the most powerful visual tools available to real estate agents when presenting values and prices to their sellers (or to their buyers!). Bring your writing pads. I will guide you step by step not only how to produce great looking scattergram chart – I will teach how to have a dialogue with the seller about pricing your next exclusive! (or how to talk with your buyer who is asking you to make ridiculously low offers).” I have room for two agents to be my guests at this session tomorrow, January 31. This is perfect for rental agents who are branching into sales, but I am convinced that even sales pros will walk away with powerful selling technique. E-mail me if interested.

Best of luck at your open houses this coming weekend! Warm weather this weekend should lure the buyers out!

PS: Do not forget to check my reports on my blog at https://halsteadopenhouseindex.blogspot.com/. You can easily view the reports from previous weeks and leave comments. Also, check the link to dataset. Great suggestion from one of our readers: write in the comment section how many visitors were direct buyers and how many came with brokers. Those of you comfortable, you can write here the exact address of your exclusive, so it becomes visible to all. 

Best regards,

Fritz Frigan
To Sign Up to Receive Halstead’s Open House Index Report Click Here









Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Halstead Open House Index - report from weekend of January 19, 2020



Good morning Halstead Open House Index subscribers and contributors!

Here is the summary of results from the open house on January 18-19:

We received 245 replies (hi everyone: do I sense a fatigue in participation? How do we increase the number of replies we receive each week? I have some of you e-mailing your results to me. Sorry, you need to complete the survey. I am just too busy to enter the results in for you. If you enjoy reading my weekly reports and find them useful, the least you can do is to submit your data after you hold an open house, fair?). Last year on January 20, 2019, we received 228 responses.

These are the numbers. The average attendance for all of NYC last weekend was 4.17. Significant drop from the weekend before when we recorded 5.35. It has occurred to me that there was just incredible weather over the weekend of January 12th, which must have contributed to the much larger open houses attendance. Last year on the same weekend we recorded 3.45 per open house, so this is still much stronger.

19 open houses reported zero attendance, this is just 7.7% of all open houses. Remember, when the percentage of zero open houses falls below 10%, it appears the weekend was good. I suggest using time productively to a) land another exclusive within the building or b) read or listen to some interesting strategies on how to find buyers in this buyers’ market.

Not one, but four open houses reported the record traffic this week. The magical number was 15. There were 15 parties that showed up at the following open houses: 170 w 81st street by Konstantin Zaliznyak of Triplemint, 54 E 8th Street by Abe Rosenberg of Halstead, 304 W 88th St by Kay Moon of Douglas Elliman and 7 4th Place in Brooklyn by Ari Harkov’s team of Halstead. You can see details about each property in the dataset link. Here is from Abe Rosenberg, in his own words: “Thank you Fritz, What I can say is , price, location & condition matter. Our photography is almost like condo-new construction in the heart ❤️ of the village. There are certainly negatives, we had 2 open houses first was 22 , last week 15 and I have a good planning to come to my third on Sunday. Finally, I’m expecting an offer today.” And here is from Ari Harkov, in his own words: “Good morning, The property is a top floor renovated coop with a roof deck on a beautiful block in Carroll Gardens. We’ve had excellent traffic the first few weekends. We have a number of buyers circling but no offers in hand as of yet.”

There were 5415 open houses held in the City last weekend, and, per my unscientific method, roughly 5976 buyers were hopping from one open house to another. Let’s check the action in each borough:

Manhattan – we received 193 open houses in Manhattan. The average attendance dropped to 3.98, from 5.02 reported the weekend earlier. Busy in Chelsea (5.88 – surprise!), Central & West Village (5.75), Flatiron (5.00) and East Village (5.67). Beware of small samples in East Village and Flatiron. Upper East Side was below the average with 3.93 (Excellent 55 replies were received from UES), UWS better than the average with 4.77 from 31 open houses. Midtown East and Midtown West were identical this week with 3.09. See the rest of Manhattan below.

Brooklyn – the average dropped to 5.44, from 6.68 the weekend before. Last year we recorded 5.54 on the same weekend. We received 34 replies from Brooklyn (why can’t we get Brooklyn to 100+ participation?). Strong in Park Slope (6.60) and Williamsburg (6.40) and Cobble Hill (8.67), but beware of small sample sizes across the board. See the rest of Brooklyn below.

Bronx – the average dipped to 2.75 (last weekend it was 3.75), from just 8 open houses received. See details below.

Queens - the average dropped to 5.43, from 7.50 the weekend earlier. Just 7 open houses arrived from Queens.

Staten Island – no open houses down there.

Size – Multi-unit buildings saw strong attendance (5.80), as well as 3BR apartments (5.30). The slowest were 5BRs (2.25), JR4s (3.00) and 4BRs (3.33).

Price – the best attendance was in $2M-$3M range, the worst in $3M+ range.

Condition – the wrecks again on top with 6.09 average.

First Open House – 29 first open houses reported attendance of 6.86. Compare this attendance at your “stale” open houses with 3.81. 80% premium for being the first this weekend.

By Appointment Only – just 2.90 parties attended By Appointment Only, vs. 4.28 for the “normal” open houses.

This is all for today. The weather for this Saturday is rain and sunny on Sunday, but warm both days. Plan your open houses well and best of luck to you! May all your buyers come prepared, qualified with strong pre-approval letters and a lot of cash! Last year, on January 27, the average attendance in NYC was 4.22, in Manhattan 4.04 and in Brooklyn 4.93. Are we going to do better this year?

Encourage your colleagues in the industry to participate. The more data we get, the more reliable these statistics will be, and the more useful to you. Lastly, another reminder to report the total number of parties who attended, not just the number of bodies. A couple attending with their broker is 3 humans, but one party, for the purpose of our analysis. Big thank you to all of you who regularly and patiently submit your numbers.

PS: Do not forget to check my reports on my blog at https://halsteadopenhouseindex.blogspot.com/. You can easily view the reports from previous weeks and leave comments. Also, check the link to dataset.

Best regards,

Fritz Frigan
To Sign Up to Receive Halstead’s Open House Index Report Click Here