Contrary to the advice of some real estate agents, it's OK for sellers to greet potential buyers, provided they do so under the guidance of their real estate agent.

While many real estate agents say home sellers should be invisible while the agent shows their house during open house, Sheila Brooks, a real estate agent with Koenig & Strey GMAC Real Estate in Libertyville, IL says sellers should put in an appearance, but buyers don't always agree.

Brooks says sellers meeting potential buyers can bring certain benefits to the deal.

"Most home buyers appreciate being met at the front door, invited in and being told by the sellers, 'We really enjoyed this house'," said Brooks.

"A warm greeting from the sellers makes a positive first impression and helps a home stand out from the crowd," she added.

Brooks says that only works if the seller is brief, spending no more than a couple of minutes with potential buyers, who may feel awkward walking through another person's home while they are present.

The seller-buyer meeting also can be beneficial when the sellers have positive experiences to share or the buyer discovers something in common with the seller.

"If you've been happy with the home or the neighborhood, buyers will like hearing about your experience. That's especially true if you have something in common, such as children or having moved because of a job transfer," said Brooks.

Any rapport that may develops from a brief meeting also can be helpful at negotiation time.

"It's very easy to look at negotiations as adversarial, but when buyers and sellers have met, they both know they're dealing with real people -- not some abstract thing that won't give them what they want," said Brooks. "A brief meeting isn't likely to affect aspects such as price, but it can ease the friction over the lesser details that are a part of nearly every sale."

Brooks concedes there are times when sellers should not greet potential buyers -- if the seller is a chatterbox or overly aggressive.

"I think that the sellers shouldn't be there at all," says Marie Sternberger an enrolled agent from Sunnyvale, CA.

"Maybe I am generalizing, but I remember an open house that I went to. The sellers hovered over me. They made me feel that they thought that I would steal something of value from their house. That was not my intention. I just wanted to see the house. Having the sellers there makes me uncomfortable," Sternberger said.

However, some buyers become suspicious if the seller isn't present.

"The agent didn't like the idea of our meeting the seller, either, and explained how sellers sometimes had regrets about selling if they didn't like the buyer for some reason. Really all we wanted was to buy her garden tools! It gave me the feeling the agent was hiding something," said Judith Wasserman, an architect with Bressack and Wasserman in Palo Alto, CA.

Wasserman went on to buy the home anyway.

"It hasn't changed our love for the house, though," she said.

Brooks said agents may request a seller not to be present if they potentially could scare off buyers by being too talkative or pushy. In any event, the agent should be in charge of the open house. Sellers who talk too much make buyers uncomfortable. They can also wind up inadvertently saying the wrong thing, causing buyers to worry about a problem that might not even exist.

"You don't want a seller who can't stop talking about their house or who invites buyers on a grand tour," Brooks said. "You always want the Realtor to conduct the showing. The goal for the seller is to be pleasant -- not to deliver a sales pitch."

Sellers who greet buyers must themselves be comfortable with the prospect. Sellers who are "people people" should be invisible.

In any event, the real estate agent's job is to manage the open house, first by considering the appropriateness of a seller greeting clients, based the seller's desires and personality. Then, for sellers given the nod, the agent must prepare the seller for the job.

"A positive to one person might be a negative to another, so it's important to explain how certain comments can come across to a buyer," said Brooks.

"The thing to remember is that this is only meant to be a greeting. Introduce yourself, invite the buyer in, chat for a moment and politely excuse yourself. Short-and-sweet goes a long way," Brooks said.

Some agents agree with Brooks' approach -- with some of the same restrictions Brooks suggests.

"It is okay for the seller to make an appearance, as long as the seller is prepped by the agent not to discuss negotiations or motivation," says John V. Pinto a San Jose, CA real estate broker.

For more articles by Broderick Perkins, please press here.

Published: June 22, 2001

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Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.