Do you want to bring your open house to the next level? We all know that an open house is a great way to generate leads and close more sales. But how can we do it right?
Here are 7 tips to optimize your open house. With these seven tips, we will be showing you your next open house event can never go wrong. The last tip is especially critical to make your open house successful. So, let’s dig in!
1. Do your research
As a realtor who is planning an open house event, the first step you should take is to do your research. Research opens you up to a lot of information you’ll be needing, especially those that could entice your target market to come to your open house event and also convince them that you’re a notable realtor. You should be well acquainted with the house as well as the neighborhood. This would help you know selling points to highlight. Things like “This house is 10 kilometers away from this renowned hospital, there’s a kindergarten in the next street, there are two relaxation areas, transportation links to major roads plus proximity to any amenity sought after by house hunters.
Also, you should have every information concerning the house because people will ask you, “how many bedroom apartments is this? When was this house built? What type of finishing or building materials were used in the building? Is it soundproof? And a lot more than you can imagine. You won’t want to seem ignorant when the questions start rolling, which is why you should prepare beforehand.
2. Prepare materials
After doing your research and getting the juicy information you need, next All these items should have aesthetic branding. Your branding as a realtor determines the impression the customers would have about you and whatever you’re selling. For example, if you’re going to be making a video of yourself inviting people to your open house, your video should be short, precise, and filled with only relevant information. A long and boring video with a lot of unnecessary talk would have people sleeping while your video plays, and we’re sure that’s not the reaction you desire.
Also, for the photos of the house or short video clips, it’ll be better to get professionals to make the videos or take the pictures for a more alluring look. We’re pretty sure no one would love to come to an open house where the sampled pictures of the house look all blurry and ugly. The fonts of the texts on your fliers and business cards should have an appropriate size and the entire piece of the right coloring to ensure it’s not looking all tacky.
3. Marketing
With all your materials and content ready, the next step is to go to the significant part of the preparation, which is marketing. To bring more prospects to your open house is to give as much exposure as you can to the proposed event.
To market your event, you’ll have to utilize both the digital and traditional approaches of marketing.
For the digital approach, you’ll have to put out your fliers on personal social media profiles like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn handles. To reach out to a larger number of people on Facebook, you can post your content in real estate groups with lots of active followership and on Instagram by using appropriate hashtags like #househunt,#open house, etc. It’ll be worth it for those with a couple of bucks to spare to run an ad.
The most interesting thing about the ad is that it’ll be targeted to people according to your preferences. You’ll be reaching out to the exact type of people you need in your event and not just any random person.
The traditional approach will have you going door to door to invite the neighbors, handing out fliers to random people around the targeted areas, and putting just the right amount of signage at the right corners. These methods are equally very effective because you don’t know which neighbor has a friend or family looking for a house or who’s been house hunting and is going pass by the area and see the signage, and boom, you already got a guest and a potential buyer.
4. Get the apartment ready for the tour
The next thing to do would be to get the apartment ready for the tour. You should ensure the house is decluttered. The guests shouldn’t come in and find shoes, books, or other stuff lying around because it’ll make the place look less appealing. The place should be thoroughly cleaned and inspected to know if any repairs should be made, like a leaking roof or a spoilt tap. The house should be repainted both inside and outside, with the lawns mowed to put the house in perfect condition.
5. Go to the house earlier
After all, the preparation has been done and the D-Day comes, you should go to the house an hour earlier than the appointed time for the open house. This is so you’d do some finishing touches like opening the windows to showcase natural lighting, setting up your music equipment (You’ll be needing it to create a soothing atmosphere), putting your feedback sheets at the strategic locations, putting your scented candles and a whole lot of other things that’ll make the guests feel relaxed.
The exterior design on that day should also be eye-catching such that one who is casually driving by might decide to stop for a second to see what’s going on. An important aspect of hosting an open house is the ability to give your guests an incredible experience; that’s why it won’t be bad to share some food, wine, or snacks. When the guests are made to feel at home, they tend to be more comfortable talking to you on a personal level.
You could also decorate the house with some eye-catching pieces of art. These types of things are the perfect conversation starters. A guest could be like, “wow, this is a beautiful work of art, where did you get it from?”And from answering the question, you could go ahead and talk about other things. You’ll also want to dress smartly and appropriately because all the little things are what people would rate your pricing with.
6. D-Day
When all is set, and the guests start coming in, you have to be very polite to them, use appropriate language and tone, and be very careful not to follow them around too much, so they don’t feel any pressure. After welcoming them, you can tell them to collect the feedback papers and fill them in because you’d like to know how they feel. You can put in questions like:
What did you like most about the property?
Do you think the pricing of the house is fair?
How did you hear about this open house?
Do you find the sizes of the rooms big enough?
There could also be boxes to tick that’ll show if they’re currently house hunting, planning on buying a house sometime later, or just looking around. Most importantly, the feedback sheet should have a space for the guest’s contact information. This is important because that’s how you’re going to get your leads. You can also hand in your business card to some guests, telling them how they can always reach out to you if they have any questions or help.
7. Follow-up
Finally, when everyone is gone and you’re done basking in the euphoria of your successful event, it’ll be time for more work. Having plenty of guests would end up as just guests and not prospective clients without the right follow-up. You must have had quite a large number of people who dropped their contact information, and what you should do is follow them up. You’d start by sending emails thanking them for gracing your event. From the feedback papers, you should know who to concentrate on. For those who mentioned specific things they were looking out for that they didn’t see, you can suggest other houses that match their description. For those who liked the house, you can suggest you fix a meeting.
Hosting one open house right might be the route to that big break you’ve been looking for in your real estate business because if you follow the tips above, you’re sure going to have lots of guests in your open house who are most likely going to become potential clients.
I became a realtor when I was 25, Right now I’m a digital marketing expert helping realtors, brokers and real estate agents generate more leads online.
