After hours---
The twilight open house. The post-school showing. The invite to drop in -- to the pool -- any time. For real estate agents, a slow market calls for innovative thinking.
By Gayle Pollard-Terry, Times Staff Writer
November 12, 2006
FLICKERING candlelight reflected in the sheen of the glossy ebony grand piano. Tiny flames danced from scented candles perched in a cubbyhole above the mantel and on an end table in the living room.
As Tricia Bautista lighted dozens of ivory-colored tea candles along the railing of a split-level redwood deck that wrapped around the back of the home, a bottle of Cabernet breathed on the kitchen counter. Next to more candles, a trio of trays offered cheeses, fancy crackers, slices of imported sausage, big red, green and dark purple grapes and black olive tapenade in a delicate dish.
Near a cranberry-scented candle, she fluffed red accent pillows on the sofa and then arranged stargazer lilies in a vase on a nearby table. In the background, a songstress softly crooned mellow jazz. Clearly, Bautista wanted someone to fall in love. Not with her. With the house.
Welcome to a twilight open house, an end-of-the-workday sunset showing — one more way to make a listing stand out in a market glutted with them. These leisurely evening showings, complete with wine or Champagne and hors d'oeuvres, are targeted to young professionals and empty nesters, the type of buyers who don't have to rush home to make dinner for the children or check homework.
Twilight open houses are a relatively new tool being used by agents, who are trying to come up with different approaches in this slower market to attract buyers and allow them to experience a home — even if just for a few minutes.
"With the market the way it is right now, you have to be a little more creative," said Priscilla Gonzales, who shares the Silver Lake listing with her daughter, Bautista. Both are agents for Las Casas Realty Inc. in Los Angeles.
"It's just about setting a mood," she added, as she set out bottles of wine in anticipation of arriving visitors. "When they walk in, we want them to say, 'Wow! I want to live here.'
"The agents represent Joseph Lopez, who owns the two-bedroom, one-bathroom Spanish bungalow, listed at $660,000 for two months now. This is their second attempt at selling his 861-square-foot house. He asked $749,000 in January. After receiving no nibbles in eight months, he took it off the market, then listed it at the reduced asking price.
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