Open house tricks of the trade

From the May issue: When Groucho Marx said he didn’t want to belong to any club that would have him as a member, he was actually making a serious psychological point — being denied admittance to something can build interest in it. For many real estate brokers, a similar mentality applies to open houses, especially in a challenging market where a full-court press is required for nearly every sale and, even, rental. If apartment hunters enter a unit to find it chock-full of other buyers, the thinking goes, their level of intrigue will rise.