What to check at an open house once you stop looking at the furniture

I host open houses most weekends, and I watch the same thing happen every time. Visitors walk in, look at the furniture, comment on the counters, photograph the view and leave. They have seen the staging. They have not seen the home. Staging is built to be looked at, and it does its job on almost everyone. The information you actually need is underneath it, and it takes about fifteen minutes of deliberate attention to get.

Use your senses before your opinions

Start with light, at that hour. An open house is usually scheduled for the afternoon the home looks best. Note which rooms are bright and which rely on lamps. Ask yourself what the north-facing bedroom looks like on a grey morning in November.

Then noise. Stand still in the living room and in the main bedroom for a full minute with nobody talking. Traffic, a neighbour's television through a shared wall, the elevator, the parkade gate, a dog, a flight path. A staged home is silent by design because the music or the conversation covers the sound. Silence for one minute removes the cover.

Then smell. The first breath at the door tells you more than the listing. Fresh paint over a damp smell is common. Air fresheners in a specific room are a reason to look harder at that room. Open the bathroom fan and the under-sink cabinets and breathe.

Test what a staged home hides

Run the taps. Turn on the kitchen tap and the shower at the same time and see what the pressure does. Flush a toilet. Let the hot water run and time how long it takes to arrive. The answer tells you about the plumbing and, in a strata, about the building's hot water supply.

Open and close the windows. A window that sticks, a seal that has failed and shows fog between the panes, a screen that is missing, a latch that does not lock. Each one is a small cost by itself. A whole home of them is a project.

Look along the floors. Crouch at the end of a hallway and sight down it. A floor that slopes is a question for an inspector, not a reason to walk out, but it is a question you want written down before you write an offer, not after.

Open every closet and every cabinet. Staging removes belongings so that closets look large. A closet with one shirt in it is not evidence of storage. Measure the depth with your arm.

Then leave the suite and look at the parts the seller cannot stage. In a strata, walk the parkade and the hallway. Water stains on the parkade ceiling, cracked concrete, a bike room that is full, a garbage room that is not managed. In a house, walk the yard to the property line, look at the fence, the drainage, the roof from the ground, the gutters, and the condition of the neighbouring homes.

Listen to the room

The other visitors are a source of information. Listen to what they ask the agent. If three groups ask about the same thing, that thing matters. Notice whether visitors are neighbours, agents, or buyers who came with a purpose. A room full of people taking notes tells you something about interest. An empty room on a sunny Saturday tells you something too.

Listen to the agent, and listen for what is not said. The hosting agent works for the seller. That is not a criticism, it is the structure. Ask direct questions: how long has it been listed, why is the seller moving, has there been an offer, is there a depreciation report, when were the strata minutes last read. A clear answer is useful. A vague answer is also useful, because it tells you where to dig when you are back at your desk. Never treat an open house answer as a fact. Treat it as a lead.

Take notes that survive the drive home

Two open houses in one afternoon blur into each other by dinner. Fix this with a boring method. Before you leave each property, write the address at the top of a page and five lines under it: light, noise, smell, water, windows. One or two words each. Then a sixth line for the one thing that bothered you and a seventh for the one thing you liked. Photograph the electrical panel, the hot water tank label, the furnace label and any stain you saw. Those photos are the beginning of the conversation with the inspector if you go further.

Do not photograph the staging. You can see that online.

How I handle this

When I host, I watch the visitors who do the things above, and they are rare. I answer every direct question directly, including the ones the seller would prefer I did not get, because the answer comes out at subject removal anyway and a surprise then helps nobody.

When I attend with a buyer, I give them fifteen minutes on their own and then I do my own walk: the mechanical room, the parkade, the roofline, the strata notice board by the mailboxes, which often says more about the building than the listing does. Then we compare notes in the car before we drive to the next one, while the details are still separate.

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