Below are the steps you need to follow in order to hold an effective open house. Follow these to a tee, master it and I guarantee it will help you sell more homes, and get more prospects.
1) Planning will be huge. A properly planned and executed open house will allow you to do the best job possible with the least amount of work. Most agents wake up that morning and just wing it, top agents plan it all week or already have a system in place that works for all open houses.
2) Promotion of the open house is key. Simply showing up that day and putting some signs out is the rookie way of doing it. Send out at least 500-1000 postcards or flyers 2 days before the open house telling people when and where the open house will be. Include all your contact info, and you can even set up a registration form on your website for it. If you use Aweber this is extremely easy. Now when the day comes and people see your signs there’s a much better chance of them stopping in. Email your entire database of prospects and Realtors with details of the open house. Take out some ads in local papers or real estate magazines. The more you do promote it the better. This is a big part of how to hold an effective open house.
3) Come prepared with listing sheets, feature sheets, title information, history on home, etc… You can write down some questions you think people may have a few days before the open house, and then get those answers if you don’t know them. This way prospects will say to themselves man that Realtor knows their stuff. Agents that go that extra mile easily separate themselves from the herd.
4) Arrive early and prep. At the front door make sure there is adequate space for people to leave their shoes and make sure you have a remove shoes sign. I don’t know about you but if I was selling a home and my realtor allowed people to walk through it in their shoes I wouldn’t be too happy. Place your sign in sheet immediately at the front door along with business cards, your sign in sheet, and listing and feature sheets. Once people sign in immediately give them your listing and feature sheets with your business card stapled to it. Your listing sheet should be the client version not the full broker version depending on your local MLS rules.
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