How would you like to host the perfect open house as a real estate agent AND walk away with clients every single time you put that open house sign in a yard?
Well, it’s entirely possible! So many of our real estate agents in the Agent First Group are hosting open houses in the most optimized way and generating a massive amount of foot traffic that turns into clients on autopilot!
So, today I’ll show you exactly how to prepare an open house, host the open house, and—most importantly—follow up after the open house so you can actually close a transaction as a result of your weekend efforts!
The Open House Mindset
Okay, let’s first get into the perfect open house mindset. This is super important, so please do not gloss over this.
Why the heck are you going to spend your Saturday (and Sunday if you really want to maximize this strategy) away from your family and friends so you can work? Well, you’re building a real estate empire, that’s why!
But, more logically, you are getting in front of people who have a real estate motivation. These people are not spending time going from open house to open house during their free time for the fun of it. They want to see these homes because they are actually dedicated to finding a home to move into as soon as possible! THIS is your target audience.
The perfect open house strategy is NOT—and I mean NOT—to be done once and abandoned. The open house lead generation strategy should be done over and over again!
Our agents that deploy this strategy do 2-4 open houses per weekend! Yes…per weekend!
Think of it like you picking up a sport. You don’t try golf one time and then go onto another sport because it “didn’t work.” No, you start practicing regularly at the golf range, watching video tutorials, and implementing new things you learn. The point is—you stay after it until you improve. You must do the same with this open house strategy!
The Open House Benefits
The benefits of hosting open houses are many, but here are just a few to help you understand the open house potential:
- You are getting in front of people who are considering a real estate transaction.
- Open houses are almost free; the only investment is open house signs from Home Depot.
- The environment is low pressure as you are providing a service to buyers and your skillset does not need to be that high.
- You get to practice “real estating” (yes, it’s a word—look it up!). In other words, you get to be out on the field and get experience firsthand without needing to have a client
- Open house leads (if nurtured correctly) have some of the highest conversion rates—we’re talking 5%-10%!
Preparing for the Open House
Alright, now let’s get into preparation mode. We understand the mindset we need and the reasons we need open houses, but now it’s time to make them happen.
You want to set yourself up for success with open houses so you’re not stressed out every weekend, so you’re not forgetting the important stuff, and, most importantly, so you actually get clients!
Securing Permission to Host
First, we need the house where we’re going to be doing the perfect open house. Ideally, you have a listing and it’s going to be yours. However, we recognize that’s not a reality for many agents…and that’s okay.
You can secure a house to do an open house in multiple ways:
- Your Brokerage – Email your broker and real estate agent colleagues in your brokerage offering to host an open house on their listings
- Facebook Groups – Go to local real estate agent groups (Search for: {city} real estate agents) and make a post offering to host an open house for them. Make sure you put the city & date you want to do the open house. The more specific you are, the faster you’ll get to the end goal.
- MLS Search – Go to your MLS and search for homes that are actively for sale in the market. Then reach out to those listing agents who are selling a home in the area where you want to work. This is very important: you get to decide WHERE you want to work!
If you’re having a hard time getting a listing agent to agree to let you host an open house, then filter out the homes that were listed in the past 2 weeks. Going after homes with more days on market will get you more “yeses” because these agents want to do everything possible to get the home sold…except they no longer want to host an open house on the same house for the 40th time. And that’s where you come in!
Again, the ideal is to have your own listing to do the open house in, but I recognize that’s not a reality sometimes. So, I would recommend you deploy multiple strategies every week so you ensure you have the perfect open house ready to go by the weekend.
Scheduling the Open House
Now, remember, the real estate agents in our Agent First Group are doing up to 4 open houses per weekend. But note that they are NOT securing 4 different homes. They are securing 2 homes and doing an open house on each home on both Saturday and Sunday.
Here’s an example of how we are following an effective schedule for our open houses:
- Saturday
- Open House #1 12pm-2pm
- Open House #2 3pm-5pm
- Sunday
- Open House #1 12pm-2pm
- Open House #2 3pm-5pm
Yes, it may seem overwhelming at first to do 4 open houses, so you can start by doing at least 1-2 open houses per weekend. Now, if you are doing only 1-2, spend 3-4 hours hosting each open house so you have more time to see more potential clients.
Now, one question I get all of the time is, “How do I prepare for all of these open houses”? One tip is that we usually start securing homes for open houses on Tuesdays and Wednesdays to allow time to adequately market the home.
Then, by Friday morning, we do the final check-ins with the listing agents (or homeowners) to ensure that the houses are still good to go for the weekend.
Marketing the Open House
Marketing your perfect open house is so crucial. It’s the difference between seeing 1-2 people at an open house vs 10+! It’s tempting to just skip this section, thinking “I already know how to do this,” but please don’t.
Remember that your weekends are being consumed by open houses and you’re spending time away from your family. Why wouldn’t you want to maximize the exposure of these open homes and get a higher ROI? Here are a few steps to help you accomplish this:
Flyers
You want to create flyers with the listing’s key information and your contact information to ensure the attendees remember you. Most CRMs provide the capability to create quick and modern flyers for your perfect open house. If you do not have a CRM that does though, just use Agently or Canva. Now, here’s the PRO TIP to get these flyers into your client’s hands. On the back of the flyer, you want to put 3 similar homes that are in the neighborhood. Utilize this marketing tactic from other marketing companies—think online shops that offer you lists of “similar items you might like” after you search for something specific. This will attract those who can’t buy the home you’re showing but still like many of its features.
Open House Signs
You need open house yard signs…and PLENTY of them. Seriously, there’s no way you’ll be able to overdo it. But to cover the basics, you’ll need at least 6 of them per open house.
- 4 signs to place at each entry of the neighborhood from business streets (most neighborhoods have 4 entry points from heavy traffic areas) .
- 2 signs for the street on which you’re hosting the perfect open house (one at each end of the street).
- If your budget allows, consider purchasing a Open House Feather Flag from Amazon. This is what you will place in the front yard of the home.
Now, when do you put these signs out? Well, that depends a bit on whether you want to do more than one each day. Here are your options:
One open house – You can put the open house signs out the day before your open house in the evening (around 4 pm – 6 pm). You want to catch the eyes of the crowd coming home from work about that time. Of course, if your city is a HUGE stickler about signs, you can also put the open house signs right before your open house.
Two open houses – Now if you have multiple open houses in one day I strongly recommend you put out the open house signs for your SECOND open house the day prior. This way after you leave the FIRST open house you hosted, you have time to pick up the signs for it. Also, you most likely won’t have time to put out the open house signs on the SECOND open house if you’re coming straight there from the first one. For that FIRST open house, you still have the option of putting the signs out the day prior or right before you start the first open house. It’s your call. Ultimately, find what works for you. Now, if you only have enough open house signs for one open house at a time, that’s okay…just give yourself enough time in between open houses.
Facebook Ads
We’ve had great success running Facebook Ads for our open houses to generate clients BEFORE the open house even happens. Yes, we’re actually generating real estate clients before we even put the open house signs on the ground. Our in-house digital agency launches a Facebook Ad similar to this for all of our agents:
This is one of the reasons our agents double their business in our group—they don’t have to spend thousands on our services like those agents outside of our network.
Now when we get the leads, we have them linked up to kvCORE (you can use any CRM, it just happens that we have kvCORE through our brokerage) so the CRM sends the leads the address of the open house, the date, and the time, along with the MLS link.
What you’re essentially doing is using the perfect open house as leverage. It’s crucial that you immediately reach out to these leads (through your CRM) and start building a relationship. Yes, you’ll want to give them the details of the home and open house they inquired after, but it’s more important to assess their needs.
Often, you’ll find that the house you’re showing is actually not a good fit for the leads that come in, which is fine. In that case, you’ll find yourself sending them another property for them to consider. Thus, you have a client BEFORE the open house has even happened.
Social Media Posts
At this point in history, you HAVE to be using social media for your real estate business. This is no longer optional! Now, are all of your Facebook friends going to come to your open house? Of course NOT! In fact, you’d be lucky if one of them came out of pity. The reason you are posting on social media is to brand yourself, remind your digital sphere that you’re in real estate, and to allow that same digital sphere to share your stuff! You WANT “Aunt Betty” to hit that share button and share it with her 10-5000 friends. This is the network effect. The more exposure you have, the more questions you’ll get on the property, the more impressed your clients will be, and the faster you sell the home! Here again, you are winning BEFORE even hosting the open house.
Door Knocking
When you door knock, you will take over a neighborhood…if you’re patient. The day prior to the open house, go and door knock at the residences around the home you’ll be doing an open house on. You can use a script much like the following:
- “Hey neighbor! My name is {first name} with {brokerage} and I’ll be doing an open house tomorrow for the {neighbor’s last name} down the street. You doing okay?”
- They’ll say something generic “Fine”, “Yes”, etc.
- “Great, well, I won’t tie you up…I just wanted to drop this flyer off with you in case you wanted to drop by during our neighborhood hour, it’s tomorrow from {time window}.” (Put the flyer in their hands.)*
- They’ll take your flyer and say “Thanks.”
- “Awesome, thanks for your time! You’ve got a beautiful home here. Is this your forever home?”
- THIS is your opener! This is when you cross from “small talk” into “let’s do business.” You’ll get most people saying “Yes,” of course, and since they are shutting the door with this response, don’t push too hard.
- (Response to “Yes”) I don’t blame you…but if you ever change your mind, my contact information is on the flyer, okay?
- Now if they respond with “No,” this is when you need to get good at building rapport! Keep the conversation going.
- (Response to “No”) Oh, I was sure you were going to say “Yes.” This neighborhood is fantastic! Where will your forever home be located?
- THIS is your opener! This is when you cross from “small talk” into “let’s do business.” You’ll get most people saying “Yes,” of course, and since they are shutting the door with this response, don’t push too hard.
*Note
The neighborhood hour is usually the hour before the open house advertised…you’ll only be able to pull this off on your first open house if you’re doing multiple open houses in a day. But even if you’re not opening up the home an hour before the advertised time, still say the line and say it’s the first hour of the open house. E.g., If you’re holding the open house 3 pm – 5 pm, tell the neighbors the “neighborhood hour” is 3 pm – 4 pm.
Hosting the Open House
Alright, now it’s the day of the open house. Get there early! This is especially important if you haven’t put the open house signs up.
It’s at this point that I suggest you create your very own “Open House Kit,” which can consist of pens, markers, tape, sign-in sheets, etc. I don’t recommend making cookies or baked goods to offer, though some other agents disagree with me. In my opinion, you should offer some water bottles if you like but stick to selling the house, not a snack.
And now you wait…. At this point, your efforts should be paying off. You should start seeing guests trickling in, assuming you completed the marketing efforts shared above. Depending on the home layout, I usually like to stay in the kitchen waiting.
Strategies To Get the Sign-in
Now for the most important part of the open house: how do you actually get people’s contact information? How do you make sure your efforts do not go to waste?
Because here’s the secret…open houses do NOT sell the home you’re hosting the open house in. Open houses are so much more selfish than that—they are designed to help agents generate more clients! So, make sure you are doing just that!
When someone walks through the door, here’s how you should initiate the relationship:
- “Welcome! You doing okay?”
- They’ll say something generic “Fine,” “Yes,” etc.
- “Great! Well, listen, my name is {first name} with {abc brokerage} and I’m here to be a resource. Do you have any questions for me at the moment?
- Most of the time, they’ll say “No, we just wanted to look around.”
- “Awesome, well here are all the details of the home (hand them the flyer). Please feel free to explore at your own pace. I’ll be in the kitchen, and be sure to stop by when you finish as I have 1 question I ask all of our guests. Sound good?”
- They’ll say “Good,” “Yes,” etc.
Here’s the real magic. When they come back to you after they tour the home, you hit them with the following sequence.
- “Hey, any questions come up as you were touring?”
- This is a 50/50—some will say “No” and some will say “Yes” and proceed to ask you a question.
- “Fair enough. A question I like asking all of our guests is if you had $10,000 to remodel any area of the home, what would you spend it on?”
The reason we are asking this question is to really pull meaningful feedback from them. If you ask too general of a question, you’ll get “Yes” or “No” answers that go nowhere.
It’s from their response that you can take the conversation anywhere. This is the opening to a meaningful dialogue that you can actually work with.
But to finalize the sequence:
- “We do ask all guests to sign-in so that we have an idea of attendance and are able to update everyone if anything changes on the home.”
You then hand them the sign-in sheet or an iPad with your open house app.
Following Up with Leads
Okay. I know we’ve been on a journey already with so much leading up to this point, so grab some coffee real quick and come back because I need you to be awake for this.
This is where so many agents throw their open house efforts away…but I’m sharing this with you to ENSURE you don’t do the same!
You MUST follow up with the leads that come through the open house. But you are not going to wait until Monday like 99% of agents do.
In our group, we are following up with leads immediately after closing up shop at the open house. Now, of course, this will be slightly delayed if you’re doing two open houses back to back, but you’ll still need to follow up before the day is over.
After you close up the house, get into your car, get your phone out, and record a personalized video message for EVERY person that signed in.
- “Hey {name}, it’s Jaime over at the open house with [the huge pool in the backyard]. It was great to meet you. If you find a home during your search that might not be having an open house right now but you’d be interested in checking out, let me know. I’d be happy to help you out. Enjoy the rest of your day!”
It’s that simple folks. By you sending a text message, you’re going to stand out, get way more responses, and begin the nurture process immediately.
So, let’s say this was a Saturday. the following day, you can follow up by asking if they’re interested in viewing any homes on Sunday afternoon.
Now, this may sound a bit aggressive and like a lot of work, but think about it. The weekend is when families are usually more active and making real estate decisions. Also, you have to act fast with open house leads because they are in the market RIGHT NOW.
So, while you may be applying the full-court press, you usually won’t be doing that for long because many open house guests will act quickly.
I can’t count the number of times many of our agents have been hosting open houses, engaged with the guests, followed up like mentioned earlier, showed a home, and executed a deal within that same weekend.
And that’s it! Put your effort into this strategy and you’ll start seeing leads from your perfect open house just falling into place. You’ve got this, agent!