It’s Open House Season!

You can read a lot of different opinions on open houses, seller opinions, buyer opinions and especially fellow advisor opinions.

Most buyers love open houses. They love the idea of starting to casually look by going through a few open houses, not committing to an agent or occupying an agents time if they are just kicking it around. They love viewing homes without planning because their schedule opened up for a couple hours on Sunday.

Most sellers are open to having open houses. They may have heard that houses are not often sold via an open house but what sells homes is visitors. And open houses attract visitors. Occasionally you do have a seller that prefers to not have "tire-kickers" through their home or an open house for all their neighbors. But most sellers are either looking for open houses or at least open to them.

When it comes to real estate advisors you will hear a myriad of responses, likes and dislikes. But we've all heard of those advisors that closed their first real estate deal by holding an open house. And we've all heard of those advisors that can spend three hours at an open house and pick up three new buyers and one eager seller.

A few scenarios to keep in mind:

• You've just listed a new home, having four, five or 12 parties through touring the home and openly discussing feedback with you sounds like a great way to gather some important initial intel.

• You have a new listing, the seller is your client but your marketing, your expert advice and the outcome has an effect on the neighbors, why not spend a couple hours conversing with them.

• Speaking of the neighbors, why not use the opportunity to find out what they love about the neighborhood? How long have they lived there? These conversations can come in handy as you talk with potential buyers.

So if you need to create quick momentum, there is a proven track record with open houses. This is because people who attend open houses are already in the active state of considering a move. This means you can have client opportunity immediately.

Individuals first come into the market as a buyer, shopping for alternative home options. But keep in mind many of these potential buyers will have a home to sell. That means open houses aren’t just attracting buyers.

Open houses can be held any day and time but weekends are most popular for attracting people actively looking for homes. It's even possible to hold multiple different properties open in one weekend, for those wanting to create exponential momentum in their business. The opportunity is there!

Don't have any listings? Borrow one. Ask other advisors if you can hold an open house on their listing. 

One Week Before The Open House:

• Check the weather and local events to confirm you’re selecting a good day & time.

• Complete a walk through of the home, making notes of questions or concerns.

• Discuss and plan for any needed staging requirements.

• Create an open house strategy and timeline. 

• Create a list of property and neighborhood highlights.

• Define your demographic for the property.

• Map out optimal places and the number of open house pointer signs.

• Discuss necessary steps or a plan for sellers pets, if applicable.

• List the open house on MLS.

•  Verify open house information funneled correctly to all syndicated websites, such as Zillow and Realtor.com.

• Create and email an open house email announcement to your contact list, brokers and potential buyers.

• Create appropriate digital or social media ads.

• Place an open house rider on the yard sign to start driving traffic early.

• Design and print property exposé / brochure if not already completed.

• Find or curate a playlist that will appeal to the property demographic.

• Have Lender business cards on hand for financing information for prospective buyers.

A Few Days Before The Open House:

• Create property highlight notecards to place throughout the home, pointing out updates and special features.

• Share open house information through your social media channels.

• Prepare a comparative market analysis to reference active competition, under contract and recently sold properties.

• Conduct neighborhood research in order to highlight its top attributes. 

• Know the local hot spots, look into events and community organizations. 

• Print any relevant documents you find such as neighborhood walking trail maps.

• Door knock or drop flyers 1-2 or even 3 blocks around the subject property. 

• Post in any applicable community or neighborhood facebook groups.

• Gather the needed pointer sign count.

• Send email blast to your database.

• Create a home features and community amenity list for prospective buyers.

• Pack portable speaker(s) and charger for playing music.

• Print copies of the sellers disclosure.

• Gather Balloons for signs.

• Create a QR code that takes prospective buyers to the sellers disclosure.

• Create a QR code for comparables, area open houses, recently sold, etc.

• Consider having a small takeaway for the traffic.

• Consider having a video brochure with aerial or possible seasonal footage.

• Make sure you have some form of sign in sheets on hand.

Prior to The Open House:

• Place all open house directional signs around the neighborhood.

• Balloons attached to pointer signs.

• Consider going live on Facebook. 

• Have Market Reports on hand for prospective buyers.

• Business Cards on hand.

• Sign-in sheets.

• Prepare a list of public open houses for a mile or two radius to your open house to share with prospective buyers who might be up to viewing others nearby. This will be great for engaging in conversations when a prospective buyers.

• Turn on all lights throughout the house and open all window blinds/curtains, assess the view from inside the window and adjust blinds if needed to block or distract from something in view.

• Place the listing highlight note cards throughout the property to feature any amenities or updates.

• Tidy up the property as needed so the property looks as neat and presentable as possible.

• Make sure that all toilet seats are closed and towels are in its place. 

• Make sure that all trash cans are empty and/or not visible.

• Put away your personal belongings (including any purses, phones, notebooks, computers, drinks, coats, etc.) so they are not visible at any time to visitors.

Collecting Leads:

When people arrive, welcome them and introduce yourself. Tell them about one or two special feature of the home and let them tour it leisurely as you check in here and there. Before they leave, ask them to tell you what they thought about that special feature(s). This should open up the conversation, allowing you to speak to them easily regarding their real estate goals.

Once you’ve opened a dialogue and created rapport, you can start to dig for more feedback. At first regarding the sellers home but then altering to gather more on what the buyers are looking for, or what they have seen in their online searches. If they are under any specific timeline. etc.

After the open house, follow up with every single lead. Follow-up is one of the most essential parts of the open house. You spent the time preparing and holding the open house; don’t stop there. Reach out to every person that left you their contact info.

Just like every other form of marketing, consistency is vital in ensuring a healthy career in real estate. If you commit to doing at least one open house a week for at least 45 weeks out of the year, you’ll have many clients!

Many agents struggle to stay committed to doing open houses regularly. Remember, there is not a better platform for capturing leads. If more advisors liked holding open houses and was passionate about connecting with the community and traffic, Zillow would have never become a 10 billion dollar company off of selling leads to advisors.

Now days most everyone finds the open houses through an online source but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a need for real estate open house signs. Open house signs are good for reminding prospects and for staying in front of neighbors.

Every open house is an incredible opportunity to market, connect with the community and to capture leads. The more open houses, the more real estate leads, sales, and referrals you’ll get!

Don't let yourself get discouraged, not every open house will be a huge successful. If attendance is low, remember you're going to have good opens and bad opens, do them consistently anyway, they are part of being a pillar advisor in your community.

Completely blindsided about not getting good traffic? Check your photos! Potential buyers won't go to an open house if they don't feel the home has potential and one big reason could be something in your photos is not showing the home in its best light. If you have at some point updated these photos on MLS make sure Zillow was updated, many times the updates will not filter over to Zillow from MLS.