Confessions of an Open House Addict
Featuring Marie Bromberg
I’m not planning to move, but I receive regular emails from my real estate broker with new listings in my area. And I open them. I forward the good ones — with stunning pictures of new kitchens and bathrooms with soaking tubs — to my husband.
I mark the date for the open houses and then I go.
On a miserable Sunday in late November, rather than curl up with a cup of hot cocoa, I dodged puddles to get to an open house for a four-bedroom colonial in my neighborhood.
I had noticed the house for years, with a handsome bay window and lush landscaping. I just had to see what was inside. Before you write this off as time wasted, let me tell you, dear reader, the visit was worth every moment spent out in the icy rain.
The living room, with recessed lighting and a coat of fresh paint, was dreamy, with a navy carpet and cream-colored sofa. Can I tell you about the kitchen? The listing described it as a chef’s kitchen. I’m no chef, but the soapstone countertops, wine fridge and that very fancy stovetop convinced me to consider becoming one. I sent my husband over next. He came home soggy, but swooning. Two fireplaces! Who has two fireplaces? We could. That’s who.
I guess you could call me an open house lookie-lou. Some people try on shoes for fun. I try on houses.
And I’m not the only one. Talk to any broker and they will tell you they have seen their fair share of fantasy shoppers. “People will walk in and they think, ‘If I lived here, my life would be so amazing and just perfect, because how could you have a bad life living here?’” said Christiane Degeorgis, a sales associate in the Halstead Hoboken, N.J., office.
Apparently, we’re easy to spot. We usually fall into one of three categories.
The Snooper: You live in the neighborhood or building and arrive without a coat or in your running clothes. You’re there to size up the competition.
The Confirmation Seeker: You recently bought a place and want to make sure you haven’t made a terrible mistake.
And finally, the Aspirational Buyer: You’re looking to see what a glossier version of your life might look like. Rather than ask about the carrying costs, you ask about that fabulous table lamp.
A broker can separate the wheat from the chaff by our accessories. “The serious buyers are carrying an armful of folders,” said Marie Bromberg, a saleswoman in the Corcoran Group’s Brooklyn Heights office, while window shoppers “are carrying their groceries.”
Karen Leibowitz, 40, an author and restaurateur, falls into the category of the Confirmation Seeker. She started visiting open houses in 2011, soon after she and her husband, Anthony Myint, bought a three-bedroom apartment in a two-family Victorian house in San Francisco’s Mission District. Ms. Leibowitz and Mr. Myint are joint owners of several restaurants, including Mission Chinese Food and the Perennial.
“It was absolutely that sense of life as a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ book,” said Ms. Leibowitz, who was also pregnant at the time, which, she said, fed her angst. “Certain paths were shut off and I wanted to look at them one more time.”
What if there was a better apartment out there than the one they had just bought? Or, better still, what if there wasn’t?
She saw one architecturally baffling apartment, a modern space that had a glass bridge cutting across a peaked living room ceiling. Inexplicably, the see-through walkway connected a lofted bedroom to a lofted dressing room on the opposite side of the apartment. “So that one made me feel better,” she said.
Eventually, her daughter was born and the open house urge went away.
Not all browsers leave empty-handed. Last spring, a couple aimlessly wandered into an open house for a two-bedroom co-op in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, that Ms. Bromberg was hosting. Despite initially having no intention of buying a new home, the couple fell in love, made an offer and bought the place for $1.295 million. “You never know who will end up being the real buyer,” Ms. Bromberg said.
As for me, I don’t visit just any open house. I’m not interested in homes that are out of my league or do not fit my needs — that $4.6 million two-bedroom condo overlooking the High Line? It’s not going to happen. I’m sure it’s lovely, but visiting it would just remind me that if I wanted that life, I should have gone into finance. Besides, where would I put the kids?
I also don’t want to see the homes with gold paisley wallpaper in the bathrooms. All that wallpaper makes me anxious — who’s going to take it all down?
No, I want to walk into a home where I can imagine a life about one paygrade above my own. No wiggly door handles and no chipping paint in the door frames. An extra room or two would be nice. I want to see a property that has been staged to look like my home — if I were to sink all my savings into it. In other words, my life, only better.
Professionals who stage homes go to great lengths to create that aura of aspiration. Brokers and stagers will tell you that a professionally staged home sells faster and for more money. “We want people to walk in and say, ‘Oh my God this is so beautiful, I want this! And I can have this!’” said Jane Saidenberg, the design director of Studio D, a staging company with offices in New York and San Francisco.
But, of course, a staged property is just an illusion — sinks will inevitably get clogged, walls will get grimy. Gretchen Rubin, the author whose books include “Happier at Home” and “Better Than Before,” sees open house browsing as an opportunity for self-improvement.
By Ms. Rubin’s reasoning, my better life isn’t one house away. Instead, I’m already living it. With a can of paint and a screwdriver, I could make my current life sparkle. “Get everything ready as if you were going to sell it and then just stay there,” she said.
But where’s the fun in that? Anyone who has ever put a property on the market knows that getting it ready for sale is a huge undertaking.
I’d rather spend an hour admiring the hard work someone else did, and then go back to my cluttered home, make that cup of hot cocoa and savor the fantasy.
Copyright © 2018 The New York Times Company. Reprinted with Permission. The New York Times.