Nosy neighbors, you’re invited to look inside more than 70 Center City homes this Saturday

Attention potential home buyers and nosy neighbors: You’re invited to more than 70 open houses happening in one day across greater Center City this weekend.

Philadelphia’s top real estate firms, including Coldwell Banker Realty and Kurfiss Sotheby’s International Realty, which usually compete for business, have teamed up to show off properties for sale Saturday afternoon.

The region’s curious residents can walk through condos in the iconic Two Liberty Place and the Residences at the Ritz-Carlton and ones that overlook Rittenhouse Square. They can visit more modest homes but also tour a $2.2 million section of the Joseph Horn Mansion in Fitler Square and a historical townhome in Queen Village.

Saturday’s event was conceived to showcase Center City as a housing destination at a variety of price points and to bring attention to a real estate market that has cooled off.

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“We all have a common goal, which is promoting the city and promoting why it’s a wonderful opportunity to buy and live in the city,” said Andy Oei, luxury home specialist with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Fox & Roach, Realtors. “Obviously, there are always areas that can be improved. For most of us selling real estate in the city, we are obviously passionate about what the city offers. The more buyers see that as well, the more beneficial it is for everyone involved.”

One of the properties Oei is promoting is a condo on the 51st floor of Two Liberty Place. “It’s not every day that you can have a view that high up of the city,” he said.

Featured homes are sprinkled from the Schuylkill to the Delaware River and from Race to Christian Streets. They range from a $217,000, 462-square-foot studio at 1919 Chestnut St. to a $15.1 million bi-level penthouse at the top of the Arthaus condominium building on South Broad Street.

A 2023 survey by the National Association of Realtors found that two-thirds of their members didn’t get any business through open houses in 2022, and the rest got hardly any. But agents participating in Saturday’s open house event hope that collective hype will translate into sold homes or new clients.

Oei called the event “a very low-pressure environment” open to everyone who wants to see what greater Center City neighborhoods such as Old City, Society Hill, Washington Square West, and Rittenhouse Square have to offer.

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Like the housing market nationally, the Philadelphia market has a low supply of homes for sale, which potential buyers have been hearing for the last several years, said Lisa Sturtevant, chief economist for the multiple listing service Bright MLS.

“Something like this big, mega open house kind of shakes up the narrative,” she said.

Also, in a post-pandemic, “complicated, not-very-clear housing market right now,” real estate agents “really need to demonstrate their value” to prospective clients, Sturtevant said.

Demand for homes has been pretty resilient, she said, and the Philadelphia-area market is still seeing strong home price growth. But in the last few months of the year, average mortgage interest rates are more likely to hit 8% than they are to drop back down to 6%, she said.

Both lack of housing supply and slowing demand as fewer households can afford to buy will restrict home sales. Sturtevant predicts this fall will be “probably one of the slowest fourth-quarter housing markets we’ve seen probably since 2010.″

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“Normally, I would say Center City is bulletproof,” said Drexel University economist Kevin Gillen. “But that’s changed since COVID.”

The downtown market isn’t bad, he said, but “it’s just not as robust as it used to be.” Skyrocketing prices and lack of homes for sale help explain why. Older, wealthy homeowners in Center City who are retiring and looking to sell don’t have a big demographic behind them looking to buy.

Dranoff Properties, which is sponsoring Saturday’s event and paying for trolley shuttles, has seven of its new multimillion-dollar condos in Arthaus on the list of open houses. An Inquirer analysis earlier this month found that about 85% of the building’s condos were unsold four years after marketing began.

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Overall, “the market has definitely cooled off and leveled off this year. It’s not just a seasonal thing. It’s largely driven by increased unaffordability, higher interest rates, and the fact that people have just become more reluctant,” Gillen said. “Why are you going to pay top dollar at a high interest rate for what is your fourth-best choice for a home? Cause there’s so few listed.”

He said the market is “just locked up,” because potential buyers can’t afford to buy and potential sellers can’t afford to sell, since homeowners are sitting on low mortgage rates.

Long term in Center City, “I think it’s one step back, but it’ll be two steps forward” as prices cool off, he said. Quality-of-life issues such as public safety and cleanliness, walkability, and amenities such as restaurants and entertainment are what ultimately will make or break the downtown housing market, he said.

“Center City has to be a safe and desirable place to be,” he said.

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The driving force behind Saturday’s open house event is Marianne Harris, vice president of sales and marketing for Dranoff Properties.

As a real estate agent with more than 45 years of experience who sells homes in Arthaus, Harris has close relationships with real estate firms. She said agents kept telling her, “I wish we could get the word out more about how we have great homes available in the city.”

Harris said she got the idea for the day of open houses in early September while looking at an ad for Center City District’s Restaurant Week and thinking about how restaurants work together to attract customers to a variety of places they might not have known about.

Soon after, she started talking to agents about her open house plan.

“I think our biggest hope is to make people aware of what a great diversity of home pricing, product, location we have for for-sale homes,” Harris said.

Although real estate agents compete for clients, it’s not uncommon for them to collaborate to get their clients the best deals. But cooperative marketing events are “rarely on this scale,” said Josh Solow, associate sales manager at Compass Real Estate.

“Her general philosophy behind it is a wonderful, refreshing sort of approach to what can generally be a really competitive business,” he said.

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This isn’t Harris’ first time bringing real estate professionals together in a big way. In the early 1990s, she organized a citywide open house event that included more than 100 homes.

Harris hopes this year’s version could grow into an annual or biannual event that includes more Philadelphia neighborhoods.

On Saturday, homes are available for visits from noon to 5 p.m., noon to 2:30 p.m., or 2:30 p.m. to 5 p.m., depending on the property. A full list of properties and their time windows can be found at openhousephilly.com.