Your Open House Master Checklist!

My list for the team is a bit intense, so I’m leaving some things off of this list to make it more manageable for you to be able to apply it. I’m always amazed to hear of agents holding an open house and only having one or two sign-ups. I’ve even seen some agents forget to promote their own listing on Zillow, Realtor.com, and Craigslist. If you’re going to half-ass doing an open house, please do yourself a favor and don’t do one. You’re wasting your time and you’re setting yourself up for failure.  

Now that I got that out of the way, these are the things that we do MOST of the time with an open house. 

Process Leading Up To the Open House

1. Decide what house you’ll be holding open by Tuesday. I prefer knowing by the end of Monday, but Tuesday is suitable. If you don’t have a listing of your own, then ask other realtors if you can host one for them. 
2. Schedule the open house for Saturday, Sunday, or both days and make sure to let the sellers know.  
3. Call your Lender, Escrow Officer, Title Representative, or any other vendor partner to join you at the open house and bring food or snacks for the open house. (Check state regulations for compliance.) 
4. By the end of Wednesday, you want to have 100 Letters mailed out to neighbors, inviting them to the open house an hour early. Doing a “Neighbors Only Open House” is crucial to getting to know the neighbors. In the letter you write, you must let the recipient know to “Bring This Letter” and that it’s a must for them to get entered to win a $100 gift card. (The contest is a monthly or quarterly event that you can do, this way you only give out 1 gift card every month or every quarter.) 
5. Download a list of neighbor phone numbers from ColeRealtyResource and call them to invite them to the open house. Or use Christina Griffin’s method of downloading the neighbor list and uploading it to slydial. Have slydial drop a voicemail inviting all the neighbors.  
6. On Thursday or Friday, start running a Facebook Post about the open house – Boost it for either $20 or $30 – $10 a day (Fri-Sat or Fri-Sun). 
7. Now it’s time to doorknock! Aim for 2-4 p.m. on Thursday and/or Friday. Note that usually in 1 hour you will hit approximately 30 homes. When you doorknock, make sure you hand out the same letter that you’re mailing to the neighbors. 
8. Next, print out some open house fliers. Don’t know how? Use Canva.com, super easy to use. 
9. Advertise on Zillow, Realtor.com, Trulia, Craigslist, and your email database.

Saturday and Sunday – Open House Day!

1. Usually the best time to hold an open house has been 1-4 p.m. for Fall/Winter and 2-5 p.m. Spring/Summer because of Daylight Savings. 
2. Please have a minimum of 10 Open House Signs (I prefer you have a minimum of 25, but I know that’s not possible sometimes). Print out a map and Mark an “X” where all of them will be placed. 
3. Make sure to bring your iPad to use OpenHomePro or bring in a sign in sheet for people to sign in. I don’t use either, but I suggest you have a method for gathering information. 
4. Text them a picture of the home and this verbiage, or text them a video saying, “Thanks for stopping by this home in Camarillo, let me know what areas you’re interested in and I’ll send you homes that are off-market too.”
5. On the following Monday between 10 a.m. and 12 p.m., call them and text them. Set them up on email IDX or on MLS with a home search.

Optional: While at the open house, do a Facebook Live from your business page. Do yourself a favor and don’t tour the home for the audience unless it’s a super unique home. Everyone’s tired of watching Facebook Lives of open houses, so stop it 😀.   

Do videos focusing on a unique part of the home or of you randomly pulling in visitors and asking them about the home (with permission). Get creative and think of what you would like to see on Facebook!