I would like to know how you feel about open houses in our neighborhood. My husband and I have had our house on the market for almost two months and we have had several open houses to date. Since we can't open the gates for this purpose, we are putting our personal gate code (which rings directly to our phone) on a notice on the code box at the entrance. I'm just wondering if anyone has a problem with this, as we've noticed a few times the notice had been removed. We plan on having the house open every Sunday (weather permitting) until we sell.

Thanks for your feedback. GK

Marketability

To the extent that the gates being closed is affecting the marketability of the homes in our neighborhood, I think this is something that needs to be addressed (especially since increased marketability is one of the reasons given by proponents of the 24/7 gate closure). I've also noted the previous posting regarding the real estate agent's difficulty in showing houses. I'm not sure about anyone else, but I am getting very alarmed by the number of houses in our neighborhood that seem to have been on the market for very long periods of time. It seems that opening the gates on the weekends could help tremendously in making our community appear more inviting to potential home buyers both for open houses and for those buyers, who, like I did, prefer observing houses and surrounding neighborhoods prior to any formal contact with the seller. So many homeowners are out and about in their yards and in the common areas on the weekends, there could hardly be a security issue to opening the front gate during the daytime. I've raised this issue before, but thought it would be useful to raise it again in light of the recent postings. Does anyone have thoughts on this?

Open Gates

Hi What is the problem with giving the realtor that you are dealing with the gate code, that can then go on the MLS system that realtors use?
Also Gail herslf in the original posting was burgaled on a Saturday and said in her posting
''They may not keep out determined criminals, but having those gates closed 24/7 might help keep out the amateurs. Just a little late for us''.

I think that the slowness in sales may be related to other issues than that the gates are closed

By Steve Daniels

Home Sales

My concern is that many potential buyers do not use real estate agents, but instead attend open houses and otherwise look at houses on the market on their own, so they would not have access to the MLS listings that are available only to realtors. Gail's solution of displaying her personal gate code that rings to her house is creative (and a feature that I didn't know was even available), and I find it hard to believe that anyone would remove the signs that were intended to increase attendance at her open houses. However, my experience is that most of the time (at the insistence of realtors) the sellers are not around for open houses, which would make this procedure less useful.

As for the gates being opened on the weekends, the person that burglarized Gail's home was on foot--the gates at most may deter cars since there are numerous ways to access the neighborhood on foot. So, while I am sympathetic about what happened, I don't agree that the gates being opened or closed made a difference. What I am talking about is giving a window of time during the day on the weekends to allow potential homebuyers entrance into our neighborhood even though they are not in a position to gain access through a resident or realtor. The difference between a potential criminal and a potential homebuyer is that the criminal is just going to wait around and follow someone in, the homebuyer is going to cross the house off their list because it's just too much trouble. Bottom line is that the criminal gets in and the potential homebuyer is deterred--a bad result all around.

Having said all of that, I would be interested to know what ''other issues'' may contribute to the slowness in sales in the neighborhood, especially given the fact that home sales in Dallas for 2001 and first quarter 2002 have consistently been reported as healthy.