Twelve Open House Ideas For Real Estate Agents

Real estate open houses are an ideal way for a real estate agent to try to find more leads. For agents, this is not only an opportunity to get buyers for the listed house but also an opportunity to meet other potential buyers and also homeowners who may wish to sell in the future. It also allows you a chance to meet and greet the neighbors, who can be a great source of future leads as well.

If done in the right way, an open house can help you get your home seller a great deal, as such events bring in a lot of exposure and individuals interested in buying the home. It can also have the added benefit of expanding your customer relationship management tool (CRM) with many quality contacts and leads. This is the reason open houses are important, both for your clients and yourself.

If you are an agent and wondering how to host an open house or make improvements to your techniques, then read on.

A. Real Estate Open House Ideas — The Preparation

1. Open House Marketing Is A Must

Once you have made the decision of hosting an open house, then the primary step is to carry out adequate marketing of the event.

A. Open House Signs

Our experts suggest going for your real estate brand name and logo on your open house sign instead of the plain generic ones. Your signs will also double as a branding tool and will attract more visitors to your event. The cost of these signboards will be minimal, as you can reuse them for other properties as well.

B. Spread The Word On Social Media

It is a must to create a buzz on social media platforms at least two weeks before the event. Create dedicated groups, post stories, and share images of the beautiful property to create an interest in the buyers. Ask people to submit their email addresses so that they can receive a reminder for the open house day.

C. Go Door To Door

Now that cities are opening up, it is safe to go knocking door to door in the neighborhood. This is needed as many of these people may have friends and family interested in this neighborhood. Plus, you get to meet the neighbors. So in the future, you could be the agent they approach for all their real estate requirements.

2. Ensure That The Open House Property Is In Great Condition

The condition of the property would be your next major concern. If you feel that the homeowners would agree, and it would enhance the cost of the home, then try to get some minor modifications and improvements done to the home.

Always make sure that the home is properly decluttered and without any personal belongings and mementos. The prime goal is to make the potential buyers feel that this could be their home. You can also add some decorations according to the season or festival. However, care should be taken to ensure that you do not go overboard in terms of the decor items. So, no scary skeletons during an October month showing.

Similarly, even for November and December, it is acceptable to decorate with festive themes, just ensure that it is not overly done. And always do a final walkthrough of the house the day before the open house.

3. Ensure Excellent Open House Photos

Professional grade photos are a must for promoting a real estate open house. The better the photos are, the more people would want to see the house for themselves. As a real estate agent, it is your responsibility to ensure that your listings have the best possible pictures.

Ask the homeowners to get the home ready to be photographed. If needed, a home stager can be hired to give the house the right kind of polished look to attract the right kind of clientele. Then book a professional photographer. Check the weather forecasts to see what the temperature would be like on that day.

Ideally, you would want a nice sunny day so that both the exterior and interior pictures turn out well. Ask the photographer to highlight elements of the home as it can be a talking point for you at the open house.

B. How To Host An Open House Tips

4. Basic Open House Tips

As a listing agent, when hosting an open house, make sure that you follow all the basics of hosting such events. There are two main aims, one is to gather the contacts, and the other is to meet the guests.

A. Sign In Sheet

Collecting the contact information of all the potential buyers and visitors to the open house is a must. There is a need to do it at multiple levels. You can ask interested individuals to register online and receive a reminder for the open house. Also, ask people to sign in at the entrance of the open house.

B. Meet All The Home Buyers

The best open house events are those that get you more leads. Let them know that you are an expert in your city and talk about your real estate niche. Try to meet everyone at least for a few minutes, and make sure that you give them your business card.

5. Presence Of A Loan Officer/Mortgage Provider

It may not seem like a common practice, but having a representative from a local financial agency will be beneficial. The reason many open houses do not have offers at the end of the event is that a potential buyer may be unaware of their financial eligibility.

Having someone from the bank will let the attendees get their questions answered as well as get to know whether they are eligible to borrow from the financial institution. You can also provide this service in a virtual format.

6. Schedule The Open Houses For The Day The Listings Go Live

One of the top real estate open house ideas is to use the market forces to your advantage. Study the real estate market carefully. If your new listing is in a much-in-demand neighborhood, then plan the open house in advance. Start promoting it before the house comes on the market.

Advertise the open house and build demand for it among the buyers. Then schedule the open house on the very day the listing hits the market. This would get you sufficient footfall and even get better value for the home as people would see other interested buyers and see a bigger value in investing in this home.

7. Promote The Neighborhood

Marketing the neighborhood will go a long way in getting more interested people to the open houses. In your promotional activities, do not focus only on the home. Rather, sell the experience of living in such a wonderful neighborhood.

Include pictures of all the local hotspots, like the popular cafes, bookstores, and gardens. Make a post on how living in this house also means being part of a vibrant and thriving local community. Most buyers want to know about the local attractions too, so include some free flyers for these places as well.

Having a better idea about what their life would be like living in this home would enable the serious buyers to put in an offer as soon as possible.

8. Open House Follow-Up Is A Must

A realtor must carry out a follow-up without any delay. The follow-up is what gets the agents the open house leads. It is acceptable to send a text or a short e-mail thanking the visitors for coming to the open house. Then after 24 hours, give them a call. Ask them first for their feedback on the open house event, and then gently ask them what they are thinking, now that they have had some time to consider the home.

Offer them the contacts of your mortgage officer if they are worried because of their finances. Potential buyers appreciate the extra efforts put in by the agents. Moreover, you will also get to interact with the neighbors who would have visited the open house. This would also help establish your brand and your real estate business as a local agent.

C. Modern Open House Tips For Realtors

9. Host An Open House Virtually

One of the modern trends to take over the open houses is the virtual or live-streaming of open house events. What started off as a need due to the pandemic has turned out into an asset for the agents. A live-streaming of the open house enables even people who are planning to relocate to attend the open house.

This definitely gives a major boost to the number of interested parties putting in an offer. Ideally, start the live stream when the house is already full of the actual open house attendees. This will make the virtual attendees feel more of the open house vibe. Keep a separate session within the live stream to answer questions that the online attendees might have about the home.

10. Run Facebook And Instagram Ads

A great way to popularize your open house is to run advertising on Instagram and Facebook. You can put together an attractive ad and run it on Facebook. Try to use the location filters and zip codes to ensure that the ads are being shown to the relevant target market.

These Facebook ads are a highly effective and budget-friendly way to ensure that you have a large turnout at the open house. Similarly, make sure that you use the reels, stories, and ads feature on Instagram as well. One of the fundamental rules of selling real estate is to ensure that the maximum number of people get to know that a property is available for purchase. With these ads, you are ensuring that you are covering a large proportion of the local population.

11. Use An Open House Video To Market The Property

A real estate agent should try to harness the better camera technology and get a professional to shoot small clips of all your open houses. These can serve as future marketing material. You can post them on your real estate website so that future clients can see your work.

Moreover, use the videos from the open house for additional promotion and marketing until the home gets sold. You can post snippets of these on your Instagram stories. Add a message that says if you are sorry that you missed this open house, you can still call the given contact number and request a private tour.

These can attract a buyer who may have missed out on the actual open house. You can also show this to future home sellers, as it will give them an idea of how you are going to be selling their home. Thus having video recordings can have multiple benefits.

12. Add Contact Information Directly To Your Customer Relationship Management Tool

If you are a real estate agent utilizing an online seller lead generation platform such as Dorrmat, then you would also have access to the excellent Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool provided to all the registered agents on Dorrmat. At all open houses, try to directly add the information about all the visitors to your CRM.

As Dorrmat provides a large volume of quality seller leads, their CRM is robust too. So by directly capturing the contact details in the CRM, you can start approaching the potential clients without any delay. You can also integrate your automatic messaging or e-mailing service with your CRM tool to ensure that you remain professionally engaged with all the visitors to the open houses.

Summary

For real estate agents, an open house could be one of the best ways to get a property viewed by a large number of potential buyers. These events also help boost the value of the home, as seeing other interested buyers, the serious ones would feel compelled to put in an offer on the house.

By following the open house tips for realtors mentioned in the article, you will be able to host successful open house events, which will be of great benefit to both the homeowner and your real estate business.