Video Killed The Radio Star…Did It Kill The Open House As Well?

On August 1, 1981, the music industry was forever changed and the methodology of how music would be marketed was redefined.

“They took the credit for your second symphony.
Rewritten by machine and new technology,
and now I understand the problems you can see.
…we can’t rewind we’ve come too far”

“Video Killed the Radio Star“is a song by the British New Wave group Buggles released in 1979. Trevor Horn wrote this after reading a science fiction story about an opera singer in a world without sound in which the star performer was rendered obsolete.

The lyrics refer to a period of technological change in the 1960s, the desire to remember the past and the disappointment that children of the current generation would not appreciate the past. In the 1950s and early 1960s, radio was an important medium for many, through which “stars” were created.

Little did Horn know that his song would be such an identifying piece of genius. The memory of this song is one that many of us realize is a defining moment in music history. We remember the days of music before this song, and those days thereafter. Why?

This was the first video to air on MTV.

Do you remember open houses? I know you do. In fact many real estate agents still find them to be quite valuable. I’m sure that sitting around in an empty house for 3 or 4 hours on a lovely Saturday or Sunday afternoon is what most people want to do. In fact there are probably quite a few real estate old schoolers out there that stand by this legendary approach to selling homes.

I’m also sure that there are quite a few sellers out there who ask their agents when and how often they will be hosting open houses. Perhaps the sellers ask this because it’s the only true measurement that their agent even exists. That’s a bit sad in itself but how true.

Agents, get out there and take your weekends back! Educate your sellers and take note yourself. Video killed the open house! Well maybe not video alone but let’s add in virtual tours, flip video, wellcomemat, slide shows, real estate shows, you tube and on and on and on.

As Trevor Horn announced in his ode to the radio star of long ago, the open house has also been “rewritten by machine and new technology”. Put the nail in the coffin of the open house. We most assuredly have come too far technologically to rewind. As if you’d want to anyway.

According to the latest buyer’s research released by the National Association of Realtors, only 7 percent of buyers visited open houses as a first step in their hunt. While that’s not to say that an open house might have it’s place in the marketing toolbox of some agents.

In fact open houses sometimes provide an agent to market themselves and find buyers for other properties much to the chagrin of the homeowner who hired you to market their home.

I’m sure that there are quite a few agents out there who swear by open houses. Many of whom I bet still think that AOL is the Internet.

In the glory days of real estate, when appreciation rose like gas prices, you could host an open house on a Saturday and receive multiple offers by Monday. Buyers, many of whom were speculators, felt compelled or they might lose out.

Today’s market does not have such urgency. “There is no need for buyers to see a home on our timetable,” says Don Fabrizio-Garcia of Keller Williams Realty in Danbury, Connecticut, “They can view homes with their agent on their own schedule.”

It’s amazing how emerging technology coupled with a ton of inventory can really influence buying patterns and urgency. I think it revolves around some old theory called supply and demand.

The alternative to an open house? The options are plenty and varied. I am sure that the technologically advanced real estate agent can find a myriad of ways to market a home to a potential worldwide audience in the 3 or 4 hours that are wasted hosting an open house for 3 or 4 people.

Take a lesson or two from the music industry. they were confronted by change and instead of reacting in a positive way they were slow and aggressively resistant to the change that the consumer wanted and would eventually demand.

How ironic that the catalyst for change in the music industry no longer plays music. The parallels between the technological advancement in music and that here in real estate are quite similar. Unfortunately so is the reaction.

While many have been slow to react and as well aggressively resistant, the change is still most assuredly coming. You can see it everyday.

The real estate industry is under attack. Not by any one person, but rather by an animal that must be fed or it will simply eat those in its path. Technology, like time, waits for no one.

While many in the RE.net and in the real estate industry debate and question…even lament, time and technology and consumer appeal will dictate how the real estate business will be run.

With an average age of 52 years of age (and growing), many of you reading this know exactly where you were when you first heard of MTV. Many of us saw that first video and were awed at what we saw. We knew it then that our lives had changed before our eyes.

A couple of years later many of us became hooked on being able to download our own music. We didn’t need a store, didn’t need anything but our imagination and an Internet connection to find AND obtain all that we wanted.

The open house is dead. Let it rest in peace.

Industry, in order to stay effective and fresh with its consumer base must evolve along with it’s consumers growing and inquisitive desires and demands.

You must keep yourself challenged to find new ways to interact with your prospective consumers. The open house is yesterday’s radio star. It hearkens back to a different age and time.

Like when music television networks actually played music.

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