How to generate listings from your open homes
Open homes are essentially your shop front, providing you with a golden opportunity to get face-to-face with buyers and sellers in your area.
They are your time to shine!
However, throughout my career, I have seen countless salespeople fail to make the most of these golden opportunities to grow their business.
Too many agents focus simply on selling the property, rather than realising that open homes are one of the most effective strategies for marketing yourself and generating listings.
In this Agent Advice guide, I'll provide you with a list of simple, cost-effective steps you can take to maximise the effectiveness of your open homes. Each item on this list is designed to impress your visitors, make you stand out when compared to other salespeople, and as a result, ensure that when owners come to sell, you are the salesperson they call.
Check out the podcast version of this guide, which you can find here:
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Open home checklist
Before the open home
- Promote the property to the nearest 50 - 100 neighbours (or more if you aren't that busy). Give them advance notice that you have a new listing coming on the market. Do this before the sign goes up to make them feel special and 'in the know'.
Tip: If you visit in person, a great conversation starter is to apologise in advance for any traffic disruption on the upcoming open home day.
During the open home
- Show up early. Get heaters and all interior lights on. Make sure the home is warm, welcoming and bright.
- Provide a stool for visitors where they can sit down to take off their shoes, and put them back on at the end of their visit.
- Greet visitors by name. Carry a list of open home visitors from the last 30 days to each open home. Look through the list in the morning and try to remember what they looked like. Then, at your open homes, if you recognise a person walking up the path, quickly consult the list to find and remember their name. If nothing else, once they tell you their name, you can give them the VIP treatment by letting them skip the sign-in process - since you already have their contact details from previous open homes and can fill in the registration form on their behalf.
- Provide healthy snacks. Win buyers over by offering healthy snacks to keep kids (and adults) happy. Stick to options that are nut-free and dairy-free so you don't need to worry about allergies. Small bags of popcorn or small packets of raisins are good options in our experience.
- Put a compass on the table. Everyone wants to know the orientation of the home (for sun aspect). Make it easy by grabbing a compass from your local camping store and placing it where everyone can see it.
- Have music playing on a Bluetooth speaker. Click here to access a Spotify playlist we've made up for you, in case you need inspiration.
- Give out spot prizes. Give every 10th visitor a surprise gift, like a branded Bluetooth speaker, a block of chocolate, or perhaps a book on property investing.
- Have seller-targeted printouts on the table. Use Agent Monday guides like 5 Minor home improvements that add major resale value or How to avoid underselling your home. Pay attention and see who picks them up. It's highly likely they are a potential seller.
- Use a 'lead-magnet' to identify sellers. Our favourite is the 41-Step Preparing for Sale Checklist.
After the open home
- Follow up with every visitor and keep them informed throughout the process.
- It's hard to get people on the phone these days, so use phone calls, text messages and emails to ensure no one gets left out.
- Send 'thank you for coming emails' with links to download further property information.
- Contact all visitors with new information alerts, price changes, tender/auction reminders, sale results. Even if they didn't show interest in the property at their first viewing. The point is to show open-home visitors how hard you work for your clients. Note: Bulk text messages are ideal for this.
- Do the same for the neighbours, too!
Follow-up questions to identify potential sellers
When making your follow-up calls, use these questions to start a conversation and find out if your visitor is a potential seller:
What stage of the buying journey are you at?
Are you buying, selling, or researching at the moment? (credit: Tom Panos)
Did you see anything you liked while you were out and about today?
How soon do you need to move?
What do you think of the market at the moment?
If we get another property similar to this one, would you be interested in hearing about it?
Would you be interested in hearing what this property sells for?
And, of course... Do you have a home to sell?
For more on open-home follow-up strategies, including scripts for phone calls and text messages, check out this guide:
Andrew Duncan
Last but not least: Keep in touch!
Don't make the mistake of dropping your contact if a buyer doesn't offer on that home, or doesn't respond to your messaging.
Every open home visitor could be a future seller in your marketplace at some point.
To keep in touch effectively with all your open home visitors, you need a simple (time-efficient) way to contact a large amount of people on a regular basis. A regular email newsletter serves this purpose. Use Agent Monday content along with hyper-local sales info and new listings to make this an easy system to implement.
Remember, it's about so much more than just servicing hot buyers, it's about showing every single visitor how hard you work for your clients, so they think of you when they are ready to sell.
If you can add a few of the steps above into your standard open home process then you will greatly increase your chances of generating listings from your open homes.
Once you've sold the property, use this guide to leverage your success into more listing opportunities:
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