Gauging Sunday Open Traffic

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

What does a Realtor with some spare time in a new city do on a Sunday afternoon?

Check out some open houses!

In fact, I just had time to go through a few, but here are a couple stray observations:

--The Southwestern equivalent to the Midwestern "ranch" or "rambler" is a "villa-style" one story (Spanish architecture, tile roof, open floor plan, lots of patio's and sliding doors, etc.).

However, with no basement or upper level, a Scottsdale home (pictured above) with 4,000 finished square feet actually has a foundation size of . . . . 4,000 square feet!

By contrast, in the Midwest, a typical 4,000 square foot home would be a two-story, with perhaps a 1,700 square foot foundation.

The much more vertical floor plan would then typically have about 800 FSF in the lower level, 1,700 on the main, and the remaining 1,500 up.

--How do you tell if the agent hosting the open is accurately reporting traffic?

Put it this way: if the open is advertised as 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., and you arrive at 3:40 p.m. to find the Realtor hitting all the lights . . . it wasn't great, no matter what they say.

That's especially the case if they don't appear to be especially stressed or rushing somewhere -- in other words, you can rule out an emergency for their having to leave early.