Every seller eventually asks some version of the same question: is the open house really worth it? The cleaning, the staging, the lost Sunday, the stream of visitors who may be more curious than committed — it’s fair to wonder whether all of that effort changes anything.
New research suggests it does. The catch is that when you hold it matters more than whether you hold it.
What the research found
In a 2026 working paper titled Agent Effort in Housing Search: Evidence from Open Houses, researchers from George Washington and Villanova Universities (Carrillo, Kenney & Martinez) examined residential listings across the Washington, D.C. metro area from 2018 through 2024. Their aim wasn’t simply to compare homes that held open houses against those that didn’t — better, more marketable homes tend to get open houses in the first place, which would skew any naïve comparison. Instead, they isolated the effect of the open house itself by leaning on factors like forecasted weather and individual agents’ open-house habits.
Their strongest finding concerned the first week on the market. Homes that held an open house during that opening week were 17 percentage points more likely to sell within 30 days. According to economist Jonah Coste’s Compass summary of the paper, that works out to roughly a 36% increase in the probability of selling in the first month — a substantial effect by any measure.
Why the first week matters even more in New York
For a New York seller, that timing finding lands especially hard. A new listing draws its greatest attention in its first few days: buyers get alerts, agents forward it to clients, and the property surfaces in searches for the first time. That early wave of interest arrives whether or not you’re ready to meet it.
A well-run first-week open house gathers all of that momentum into a single, defined moment rather than letting it trickle in appointment by appointment. It lets buyers walk through while the home still feels new, and it gives your agent early, honest information about how the market is responding to the price, the presentation, and the layout — while there’s still time to act on it.
Two honest caveats
The same research found that first-week open houses were associated with sale prices roughly 2% to 4% higher. That result, however, fell just short of statistical significance. The distinction is worth respecting: the evidence that an early open house improves the speed of a sale is strong; the evidence that it lifts the price is suggestive, not settled.
The study also found that open houses were most effective when fewer competing open houses were nearby. In New York — where a buyer might line up five showings across one neighborhood on a single Sunday — that matters. An open house isn’t automatically effective just because the doors are open. Presentation and promotion still decide whether it stands out.
One final note of caution: the study examined the Washington, D.C. area, not New York City, so its exact figures shouldn’t be treated as a forecast for any particular Manhattan or Brooklyn property. Still, the practical lesson travels well. An open house isn’t a dated ritual or merely a way to meet future clients. Built into a deliberate first-week launch, it can meaningfully improve the odds that a home finds its buyer quickly.