In today's market, the importance of selling a listing on the first weekend is business defining. What I mean by that is, when you understand how to create a massive amount of traffic at your first open house, you not only create bidding wars, but you drive prices up as well. Thus in turn creates a client who is able to brag to their friends about how great of a realtor you are, how fast it sold and the amount of money they are getting from their sale. This is what starts the “trickle effect” overtime, happy clients will advertise for you without even knowing it. In this article, I am going to go over how to run a mega open house and create a funnel of never ending clients.
So you get a listing agreement signed and you're ready to put the house on the market. But, where do you begin? After getting a listing agreement signed, it is important to get your media items completed. That means GOOD PROFESSIONAL PICTURES THAT HAVE STOPPING POWER! Have your photographer focus on key selling points of the house and get HDR photos at twilight of great exterior features. This sets you apart online when it comes to buyers scrolling through sometimes hundreds of listings while searching.
Once you have completed your media items, it is important to run a coming soon campaign in order to create some buzz. Zillow will allow you to upload a coming soon listing as long as you are a premier agent (an agent who advertises with them). The way around this obstacle is that you can buy $1 worth of advertising per month. This in return, will open up all kinds of different features for you as an agent. You are now able to run a coming soon, recieve messages when buyers inquire on your listing and much more. I always start my coming soon campaign on Thursday the week before the open house (9 days out from the open house). Upload a handful of photos with “STOPPING POWER” that best show off the property (between 5-10), and if zillow will allow you to, add this in the top of the description:
***Call/Text Listing agent showings***
***John Doe (555) 555-5555***
This is a little trick you can use that zillow typically lets slide. This is also the time to start your advertising. We run Social Media advertising for the 9 days with a small $5 to $10 per day budget leading up to the open house. This budget is usually determined according to our sellers motivation and price point. If it’s a bit high, we run more advertisements because we know it will be harder to get the “perfect Buyer” that the price represents. We target the age range of who we think will be our buyer and also add a bunch of exclusions to the ad target as well. (I can spend 3 hours talking about Social Media Advertising so if you're interested, I am putting together a course walking you through everything. even giving you a handful of my best ads) We let those ads and coming soon run through the weekend. We also want to get our flyers and any other hard media items ordered that Thursday to insure you have them for the open house.
On Tuesday we normally go active on the MLS. Wednesday we do our 10,10, 20 walk. We go around the neighborhood (usually on the street of the open house) inviting neighbors to the open house. 10 to the left of the listings, 10 to the right, and 20 across the street. No one likes people knocking on their doors anymore here in california, so how I transitioned was, I would actually invite them to the open house but apologize for any additional car traffic they will have because of it. This really seems to get the homeowner to let their guard down and actually talk to you. Don't force the conversation if it's not there, the ones who are interested or have questions will ask or show up to your open house. I have actually had a neighbor come to my open house close to the end, kind of stood around awkwardly until everyone was gone and asked me to list their home that night. They were so impressed with the traffic I created they didn’t even have me do a listing presentation. They said no realtor has ever come to their door, not intending to sell anything to them (little did they know), and apologize for any additional traffic on their street before. It was pretty awesome. It’s the little things that make a difference.
Thursday around noon I send out my Broadcast. This is where I contact everyone within a 1 mile radius by phone. This is a great system not a lot of agents use and I am going to be launching a course on how to do this. I basically invite them to the open house, give them a small run down of the property, and if they or anyone they know is interested in the criteria to contact me. I can’t tell you how many listings and buyers I have gained from this technique and it’s very simple.
Friday I get everything in order and ready for the open house. I always post my open houses in the community facebook groups around 8 AM. This is because I want that post up when people at work get bored and start scrubbing through facebook. I am also making sure we have our open house box put together. This box has toilet paper, air freshener, paper towels and other essentials that you may need. I also get the cooler ready which I always have water and Coors Light. Yes, I give away beer at my open houses. Again I can’t stress enough the small things that you can add to your business that really make a difference. The men are usually stoked that you offer them a beer and they remember you for it. Also make sure I have all 50 open house signs. Yes that is not a typo, 50 Open house signs. Where normal agents put one open house turn sign, I put 3. I have had buyers show up to my open houses and say your signs just brought me here. I'm not even shopping for houses. In my eyes, that means the ones that are shopping will definitely show up and that's what I'm shooting for.
Saturday morning rolls around and its open house day. If the open house is local, I get my signs out at 6 AM for a 11 AM start. Otherwise, I put them out the night before. I show up to the listing about an hour before and get everything situated. I get my open house flags put up, my sign in sheet set up, and make sure all lights are on, window shades are up, and the temperature of the home is comfortable. I again “bump” my facebook post in the community groups to the top and then open it up for buyers.
Sign in sheets are one of those must does that buyers tend to not like. People don't like giving out their info for free so we give away a $20 starbucks gift card as a drawing. Our sign in sheet is not your typical sign in before you can enter either. It's a slip of paper that the open house attendee takes with them and fills out while viewing the house. It asks questions like are they working with a realtor, how many beds/baths do they need, name, email, phone, and a few others. They give it to you when they are finished viewing the property so you have the opportunity to ask them questions, write an offer and double end it, or potentially turn them into clients. A lot of agents dont gain as many clients from open houses as they should simply because they dont follow up multiple times. This is a great way to gain multiple clients in one day if you just know what to do.
The post open house follow up again is crucial. We take the 30 minutes directly after the open house to follow up with any potential clients. These are attendees who are not working with an agent and are in the market to buy. We give them a phone call and just follow up with them about what they are looking for so you can find the right home for them. Everyone with an agent, we will send an email or text to just update them on how the open house went and if they were interested to have their realtor reach out to us. Everyone, regardless if they have an agent or not, gets put into one of our drip campaigns. Obviously if they have an agent it’s not going to be the same campaign as someone we are trying to turn into a client. Then we rinse and repeat.
This is a proven system that we use and have success with. If you are interested in learning in depth about everything. Sign up below for our pre launch list where you will get the course for 75% off list price. When the course launches, we will be sending out an email to everyone with their discount link. Thank you for reading and check out some of our other articles.
Take Care.
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