the-open-house

The Open House Skill

The open house runs in both directions: you're evaluating the house, and the listing agent — who works for the seller — is evaluating you. Every friendly question ("been looking long?", "would you need to sell first?", "what's your range?") feeds a profile: budget ceiling, urgency, attachment, negotiating sophistication. Meanwhile the house itself is presenting its best self, staged to move eyes away from exactly what inspections find. This skill runs the visit: the agent's profile of you building line by line, the house's misdirections cataloged, and a debrief on the only discipline that matters — gather everything, volunteer nothing.

What This Skill Produces

• The walkthrough transcript — the friendly interrogation, with the agent's private profile note after each of your answers
• The staging decode — what the presentation choices in this listing typically redirect attention from
• The offer-pressure act — "we're expecting multiple offers" and its cousins, played on you
• The debrief — every over-share with its neutral replacement, plus the ask-list you should have run

Required Inputs

Ask for these if not provided:

• The situation — actual budget and pre-approval status, current-home status (need to sell first?), timeline pressure, and how much you already love this house (the simulation prices your tells honestly)
• The listing — the house as advertised: price, days on market, the photos' emphasis, any disclosed history (days-on-market changes the whole power balance and the agent's script)
• Your read so far — what charmed you at the listing stage; charm is where the decode starts

Framework: The Two Evaluations

1. Their profile of you assembles from small talk: "what's your range?" (ceiling captured — every counter now knows it) · "need to sell first?" (contingency weakness noted) · "how soon are you hoping to move?" (urgency priced) · "isn't this kitchen amazing?" (attachment test — enthusiasm is negotiation currency, spent in front of the seller's agent). The trained answers are warm and empty: "we're flexible," "depends on the house," "it's a nice kitchen — what's the roof's age?"
2. Everything you say reaches the seller: the listing agent's job is relaying buyer intelligence — the simulation shows a gushed comment surfacing later inside a firm counter-offer. The rule installed: talk to your own agent in the car, not in the kitchen.
3. Staging decodes by redirection: fresh paint in one room (what did it cover?) · rugs placed oddly (floors) · music and candles (sound and smell — traffic? damp?) · furniture scaled small (room size) · every light on at noon (natural light) · "cozy" (small), "charming" (old), "motivated seller" (leverage — for you). Each observed choice gets its check-instead item, feeding the [inspection-report-decoder](../inspection-report-decoder/SKILL.md) later.
4. The ask-list flips the visit: age of roof/HVAC/water heater · days on market and price history · "why are they selling?" (the answer's shape is the information) · what's excluded · offer deadlines actually in writing? — questions cost nothing at an open house and are conspicuously absent from most visits; the simulation shows the agent recalibrating their profile of a buyer who asks them.
5. Offer pressure is choreography until verified: "multiple offers expected," "another showing at 4," "offers reviewed Monday" — sometimes true, always deployed; the counter is process, not speed ("we'll decide on our timeline; our agent will confirm the offer situation in writing"). The debrief names which pressure lines in the run were verifiable and which were fog.

Output Format

Open House: [listing — price, days on market]

> Simulation — a plausible adversarial reading, not a prediction.

The Walkthrough

[Transcript. Agent's profile note: after each exchange — what got captured: "budget ceiling ~X · needs to sell · emotionally attached to the yard"]

The Staging Decode

| Presentation choice | Typically redirects from | Check instead |

|---|---|---|

The Pressure Act

[The urgency lines, played · which were verifiable · the process-answer holding]

Debrief — out of character

| You said | What it cost | The neutral version |

|---|---|---|

[Plus: the ask-list you should have run · the talk-in-the-car rule · the agent-works-for-the-seller reminder, once, plainly]

Quality Checks

• [ ] Every profile note names the captured variable (ceiling, urgency, attachment, contingency)
• [ ] The staging decode ties each choice to a specific check-instead action
• [ ] The pressure act distinguishes verifiable claims from choreography
• [ ] Debrief replacements stay warm — information discipline, not rudeness
• [ ] The whose-agent-is-this fact appears exactly once, plainly

Anti-Patterns

• [ ] Do not make the agent sinister — they're doing their job for their client; the lesson is whose client you aren't
• [ ] Do not coach coldness — warm and unrevealing is the skill; hostile buyers get worse deals too
• [ ] Do not let enthusiasm pass unpriced — the simulation's job is showing what the gush costs later
• [ ] Do not treat staging as fraud — it's presentation; the decode is diligence, not accusation
• [ ] Do not stay in character in the debrief