Open Houses - How to Make Them Pay Off in Seller Leads

How many times have you heard a fellow agent say, "...open houses are a waste of time, boring, useless, time consuming...".  Or better yet, "... the only people that came were looky-loos from the neighborhood."  HELLO??  Can you say, "seller lead"?  I bet you hear it all the time.  Below is a system that we use to turn a 4 hour open house into a neighborhood event that generates a minimum of 3 listing leads and 5 buyer leads every time without fail.  If you knew that this would work, would you do it?  Read on then!

First, pick the right listing - find a listing agent in your office who has a listing in a relatively high-traffic location.  Try to avoid cul-de-sac and dead-end streets.  It should be easy to get them to allow you to hold it open.  I know in our office, there are several opportunities every weekend.

The prime time for an open is Saturday or Sunday from 11am to 3pm.  Possibly the greatest key to high turnout is this - use a minimum of 15 directional signs.  Our surveys have indicated that almost nobody who attends our open houses comes in response to newspaper or internet ads.  This means that a prospect's decision to go to your open house is largely spontaneous and driven almost exclusively by your directional signage.  These signs MUST be up no later that 8am on the day prior to the open house.  So, put a flyer on the door of the listing indicating the hours of the open house.

Partner with a lender who can be there to pre-qualify buyer leads and is willing to provide refreshments and a prize for a drawing.  If you lender is not willing to cooperate, do it yourself the first time and start looking for a new lender partner.  Our summer-time open houses were ice-cream socials.  We called them grand openings.

On the day prior to the open house at 5:30pm, door-knock at least 50 homes in the neighborhood with fliers about your Grand Opening.  Our fliers said something like, "GRAND OPENING - SATURDAY 11AM - 3PM at 1234 MAIN ST!  FREE ICE CREAM!  WIN AN iPAD 2!  COME SEE ONE OF THE FINEST HOMES IN ARDEN PARK!"  We gave away one prize per quarter.  It doesn't have to be an iPad.  It could be anything that is perceived as valuable enough to generate interest.  Don't over-think it.

So, have balloons at the home, a table out in from of the house where you will register everyone to win the prize.  We kept an empty iPad box taped down to the table so that we didn't risk getting the real one stolen. On the table, along with the registration sheet was a framed picture of yours truly shaking hands and handing the last iPad to the lucky winner from last quarter.  The picture had a caption that read, "Last Quarter's Lucky Winner!".  Inside the home, we had an apple pie baking in the oven.  I usually brought two so that we could keep the smell in the house for the entire four hours.  In addition, take tons of pictures during the open house.

So how do you convert the leads?  Simple:

• Buyers - ask them to register to win | ask them if they are looking just in this area | invite them to have a look inside | tell them to be sure to check with you before they leave so you can give them a list of available homes in the area and also you'd like to tell them about some homes that are coming soon but are not yet on the market.  Once they engage with you in this dialogue, it's time for the needs analysis.
• Sellers (neighbors) - First let me be clear.  You MUST assume that everyone who comes to your open house has a real estate need of some kind.  Keep a stack of 2-up (an 81/2 x 11 page cut in half) cards that say, in BIG RED LETTERS at the top, "REAL ESTATE EMERGENCY??".  Under the title print, "Late payments, facing foreclosure, call our 24-hour foreclosure prevention hotline at (999)999-9999 before it's too late.  The stack of these cards should be strategically placed where they are seen by anyone touring the home but can be picked up by a prospect discreetly.  A spot in the master bedroom usually works well.  When you ask a seller lead if they are looking in the area, they will say something like, "Oh, we're just the nosey neighbors".  Ask them, "Have you ever seen an open house like this in the neighborhood before?"  They'll say, "No".  Ask them, "Do you know why we do it this way?"  They'll say, "No".  Tell them, "Because this way, when the buyers come through there are a lot of people in the home.  It creates the perception that the home is in demand.  This results in higher offers sooner".

After your grand open house, everyone who registered gets a thank you call or email.  They get entered in your database and put on your 33 touch campaign.  When you do the drawing to give away the prize, you make the winner pick it up at your office.  Take a picture of them receiving the prize from you.  Take that picture, along with the ones that you took at the open house, overlay them with a small size version of your logo.  Post them on your Facebook page and tag anyone whom you know in the photographs (use the email addresses you got on the registration to find and friend the people on Facebook first).

It's really that simple.  If you do it, it will become a HUGE pillar of your lead generation.  In addition, it will get you instant deals, instant business, instant leads, and instant success!