Let’s Talk Open Houses…
Let's talk about open houses…this past Sunday afternoon, I hosted an open house with a new team member so that she could get some real life experience and training. It was a nice home in a newly built community that was just listed a few days prior to the open house.
We decided to hold it at a traditional time, Sunday from 2-4pm. It was also held open the day before on Saturday from 2-4pm, I say the more you can hold the home open the better! (There’s even some research on hosting multiple open houses in my “Ultimate Open House Playbook”) We posted the open online on all of the websites earlier in the week. Our sign guy (Yes, we have an amazing sign guy, Stan! It is life changing, when you can hire one!) put out 6 branded open house directional signs throughout the neighborhood on Friday afternoon with a day and time rider above.
We made sure to arrive 30 minutes early to familiarize ourselves with the home as well as turn on all of the lights and place our sign in sheets, open house survey clipboards (The surveys is explained further in my “Ultimate Open House Guide” and at my training) and agent sign in sheets. We turned on a bluetooth speaker so that we had some nice Norah Jones playing in the background (my favorite open house playlist! I feel like Norah Jones or Jack Johnson are upbeat yet appeal to all ages, but that’s just my opinion.)
And then….the visitors started arriving. I was excited to show my colleague how to turn an open house into a lead generation tool and leave with appointments, not just random names to follow up with on a sign in sheet. I am a HUGE believer that if I’m going to leave my family for over 2 hours in the middle of the day on a Sunday, I’d better darn well make it worth my while!
There are so many people who look online for months, then their first step in the buying process is to visit open houses. They typically don’t know what they don't know, meaning a lot of times they do not have an agent representing them as buyers and they don’t even know where to begin their process. All they know is that they are excited to start looking at homes in person and find the perfect home for their family. I love having the opportunity to educate buyers on how the home buying process works and see if they could use my team’s help in the process. It’s really as simple as that!
In our experience this past Sunday, we had about 13 groups come through. 10 of the groups claimed to be working with an agent. When this happens I always make sure they sign my “have and agent” sign in sheet with their name, phone number, email and agent's full name. It’s important that information is recorded for our sellers' records and in case any of these buyers want to write an offer and want their agent to represent them. This is also a great list for the Listing agent to follow up with the agents after the open. NOTE: If you are sending your clients through open houses, it is always best practice to call the listing agent to let them know YOU are sending them. At the end of the day, asking people who come in to your open house if they are working with an agent and registering them is the best thing to do. Trust me, when you do the right thing, It ALWAYS comes back to you. AND if you are representing buyers who like to visit open houses, always make that call to the listing agent or at the least coach them to mention they are working with you.
Even though there were only 3 other parties not represented, we were able to really connect with one couple who was legitimately interested in talking with us. When you do your qualifying at the door quickly and ask the right questions, you are able to weed out people who are already working with agents. This makes it much easier to know who to continue to build rapport with and who is really interested in getting your help during the open house. We were able to gain a commitment for a buyers consultation next Saturday at our office and sign them up on prospecting through our MLS in order to get them off of Zillow/ Trulia. We picked up a buyer and set an appointment. That is the GOAL!
I hope you can join me to learn more about how to secure appointments and leads from your open houses in order to make them worthwhile at my upcoming training called, “The Ultimate Open House Playbook”. I’ve spent almost 20 years working in model homes for builders, holding my own open houses for our real estate team ,and training agents on the techniques I’ve learned over the years!
Register Here: https://www.reagentofchange.com/events