Do Open Houses Still Work in Toronto?

By Jatin Dua · Broker of Record, RE/MAX Quantum Realty · Updated 10 September 2026 · 10 min read — what an open house does and does not do, who actually attends, the security and privacy realities, and the property types where it genuinely earns its Sunday.

What does an open house actually do?

An open house does three real things and one imagined thing, and it is worth separating them before you decide.

The real things:

• It removes friction. Anyone curious can walk in without booking, without an agent, and without committing to anything. For buyers who are early in their search, that matters more than it should.
• It compresses traffic. Twenty showings in two hours is easier on a household than twenty showings across nine days, and easier on a tenant.
• It creates a visible event. Neighbours notice. Neighbours tell people who want to live on that street. That channel is genuinely useful on streets people wait to get onto.

The imagined thing is the one that sells the idea: that the open house produces the buyer. Occasionally it does. More often the buyer who attends an open house and then purchases would have booked a private showing anyway, because they were a serious buyer working with an agent, and the open house simply happened to be the first convenient slot.

That is the honest frame. An open house is a convenience channel, not a demand generator. It widens the top of the funnel. It does not create people who want to own your house.

Who actually attends an open house?

Anyone who wants to. That is the whole design and it is also the whole problem. In a typical Toronto open house, the room contains a mix of these groups, in rough proportion:

Nobody publishes reliable figures on that mix, and any agent who quotes you a precise percentage is making it up. What is not in dispute is that most of the room is not a buyer for that house on that day. The question is whether the minority who are justify the cost.

What are the security and privacy realities?

This is where I part company with the cheerful version of the open house. You are inviting unscreened strangers into your home, and depending on the layout, one person cannot see every room at once.

The exposures are ordinary rather than dramatic, which is exactly why they get overlooked:

• Small valuables. Jewellery, watches, cash, small electronics. Anything pocketable in a room that is briefly unwatched.
• Medication. Prescription drugs in bathroom cabinets are among the most commonly taken items in any home shown to the public. Buyers open bathroom cabinets. So does everyone else.
• Documents. Mail, cheque books, passports, tax papers, anything with an account number on it. A photograph of a document takes a second and leaves no trace.
• Keys. Spare house keys, car keys, garage remotes, and the hook by the back door.
• Information about the household. Calendars, school timetables, a child’s name on a bedroom door, a work badge on the counter. Some of that is a privacy matter rather than a theft matter, and it is still yours to control.
• Access points. A basement window latch quietly unlocked during a visit is a known technique. Check them afterwards.

There is a second privacy question people rarely think about: your own cameras. If you have interior recording devices, treat their presence carefully — recording visitors, and particularly recording audio, raises legal considerations that are outside what a real estate agent can advise on. If you plan to record during an open house, ask your lawyer first.

Does an open house serve the agent more than the sale?

Often, and I would rather say so plainly than pretend otherwise.

An open house puts one agent in a room with a stream of unrepresented people who are interested in property and willing to talk. That is a genuinely effective way to meet future clients. It is one of the oldest lead-generation methods in the business and it works — for the agent.

That does not make it dishonest. The interests can align: the same event that produces contacts for the agent can produce a buyer for you. But you are entitled to know which interest is doing the work, and to ask directly: what specifically do you expect this open house to do for my sale that private showings will not? A good answer is concrete, mentions your property type and price band, and does not consist mainly of the words “exposure” and “buzz”.

One structural point worth understanding. If you attend an open house without your own representation, you are very likely a self-represented party in that conversation under TRESA, in force since 1 December 2023. The listing brokerage represents the seller. It must not give you advice or opinions, and anything you volunteer about your budget, your motivation or your timeline is information the listing agent owes to their seller. That is not a trap; it is the design. But it is worth knowing before you tell a stranger in a kitchen what your maximum is.

What does the current market say about it?

Context decides this question more than principle does. TRREB’s August 2026 Market Watch, released 3 September 2026, reported 24,482 active GTA listings, down 11.3 per cent year over year, and 12,075 new listings, down 14.1 per cent. Sales were 5,057. Homes that sold went at 97 per cent of asking, in 35 days on the listing and 51 days on market overall.

Read that as a seller. Inventory is not abundant, which means the buyers who want your type of property are looking hard rather than idly, and they are perfectly capable of booking a showing. In a market of severe oversupply, an open house is a way to be noticed in a crowd. In a market where active listings fell 11.3 per cent, being noticed is a smaller problem than being priced correctly.

At the same time, 35 days on the listing is not a frenzy. Most homes are not selling in a weekend, which means the case for concentrating everything into one Sunday afternoon is weaker than it was in faster markets. You have time to run a proper set of showings.

When does an open house genuinely help?

It earns its place more often than the sceptics allow. The situations where I think it is clearly worth doing:

• Entry price bands. In Etobicoke, condo apartments averaged $598,570 across 101 sales in August 2026, and W10 — Rexdale-Kipling, West Humber-Clairville, Thistletown — averaged $743,477 on 42 sales. These bands contain more first-time buyers, more people searching without an agent yet, and more casual weekend viewing. Open houses reach them.
• Condominium apartments and stacked or condo townhouses. Buyers want to compare units in the same building, the security exposure is lower because there is less house to watch, and the concierge or the building already controls the front door.
• Low-inventory streets and small pockets. Where people actively wait for something to come up, the neighbour channel is real. Somebody’s sister has been trying to buy on that block for two years.
• Properties that photograph badly but show well. Odd layouts, split levels, homes where the light or the garden is the selling point. Getting people through the door is genuinely the job.
• The first weekend of a new listing. If you are going to do one, do it in the window when attention is highest, not in week five as a rescue attempt. A late open house on a stale listing mostly advertises that the listing is stale.
• Vacant properties. Nothing to steal, nobody displaced, no household to disrupt. The calculation changes completely.

And the situations where I would usually say no:

• Higher price bands. In W08 the August 2026 average was $1,256,380 across 99 sales; detached houses across Etobicoke averaged $1,511,870. Buyers at those levels are represented, they book, and the seller’s privacy is worth more than the incremental traffic.
• Occupied homes with valuables, medication or documents that cannot be fully cleared.
• Tenanted properties. A tenant’s right to reasonable enjoyment of their home is not a scheduling detail, and open houses require the tenant’s co-operation. Handle it properly or do not do it.
• Homes with a genuine security concern — a known dispute, a safety issue, or an occupant who has reason not to be located.
• Any property where the agent cannot see the whole floor plan from one position and is working alone.

What does a well-run set of private showings do better?

For most Etobicoke houses, this is where the sale actually happens, and it is worth naming why.

The decisive column is buyer feedback. After a private showing I can ask the buyer’s agent a direct question and get a usable answer: too close to the road, the third bedroom is too small, they liked it but they are waiting on a sale of their own. That is diagnostic information you can act on within the 35-day window. Open-house feedback is mostly a compliment about the kitchen from someone who lives four doors down.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• TRREB Market Watch, August 2026 (released 3 September 2026) — 24,482 active listings, 12,075 new listings, 5,057 sales, 97 per cent sale-to-list, 35 days on the listing and 51 days on market. Accessed 10 September 2026.
• TRREB district tables, August 2026 — the Etobicoke W06 to W10 figures by district and property type quoted here. Accessed 10 September 2026.
• RECO — Information for consumers — client and self-represented party status and what a listing brokerage may and may not do for an unrepresented visitor. Accessed 10 September 2026.
• Ontario — Trust in Real Estate Services Act, 2002 — the representation framework in force since 1 December 2023. Accessed 10 September 2026.
• Ontario — Renting in Ontario: your rights — background on tenants’ rights where a tenanted property is being shown or opened to the public. Accessed 10 September 2026.

Related reading

• Why your Etobicoke house isn’t selling
• Preparing an Etobicoke home for sale: what actually pays back
• Top realtors in Etobicoke: how to judge one properly
• Selling a home privately: privacy and confidentiality