Sally K. & David L. Hanson We don't.  We're honest with the Sellers - in this area Open Houses do nothing for the Seller and everything to generate additional business for the agent sitting the Open House.  If they want one, we'll have an agent from our office hold it open for them.

Hi Sally, thank goodness I don't do open houses anymore. 

Whether a house is an open house candidate is the first consideration.

Many houses are poor candidates, so the day and time are irrelevant.

Alternatives I have used with variable success

1. if the property is around a business center, national and/or international companies, that are certain to have mid-management positions, consider a weekday, "HAVE LUNCH WITH ME" open house.  Put the signs out for 3 consecutive days before the event. This allows the prospect to see the invitation when driving in to work and when leaving.  If you place signage only on the day of the event, the turn out will be poor. (HINT: make inquiry if the company HR department provides relocation assistance. If the answer is NO, you should hear knocking)

2. Critical mass. Just like brokers opens, the more open houses that occur in the same area the greater the public response. Collaboration with other agents you trust is essential. Make sure you know about and FSBOs in the area. This is a good Saturday option but certainly works well on Sunday.

3. I have held after work open houses that did not produce results. Seems folks just want to go home.

I'll sometimes do something on a Thursday for agents. Preferred time is weekends.

I will sometimes do late in the afternoon on a Tuesday or Thursday. Open houses do not get a lot of traffic on any day of the week in my area.

the only other day would be a saturday for an open house....afternoon...

I like Saturdays noon - 2 or 1-3 myself. Doesn't work so well in the fall when you're competing with college football, though.

Wednesday or Thursday evenings from 5pm to 7pm generally gets the weekend warrior or worker to come out.

Most of mine are Sunday.  If my listing is in a great neighborhood, I mean active and safe, I will hold an open house on Friday Mornings.  Many people are out looking for garage sales and this helps.  Someone knows someone or is thinking about moving.  A couple weeks ago, I was leaving and a lady stopped by explained she was in the middle of a divorce and had to stay in that school district.  Also Thursday evenings.  That will stop soon because it's getting dark earlier. 

It's been proven over and over again that open houses don't work in my area. We've all tried everything. So we don't do them. 

I do Sundays. I have done Saturdays and ealry on I experimented with evening open houses duing the week. My best traffic however, comes from Sunday.

We tried  a midweek evening Open House a few times with mixed results. Not sure we'll bother again.

Open houses do not work in our area, if they did we would never do Sundays.

Sally and David -- we still have weekday broker opens/caravans in our area and I treat them like an open house event for the public.  I hold them, when appropriate on Saturdays as well as Sundays.  

Later in the afternnon on Thursdays and Fridays to catch people on the way home from work. The bikini girl with the placard sign helps alot!