Open House Marketing: Spring Cleaning Tips

Spring is in the air. It's time for baseball, hot dogs, apple pie — and the housing market to warm up. It's open house season!

Ask a real estate agent what the purpose of an open house is and you'll get two answers: 1) to sell the home and 2) to add potential home buyers to your database. There's nothing wrong with the latter as long the former is your primary focus. Your responsibility to the seller and their needs far outweighs your need to find buyers.

You won't meet either objective, however, if no one attends your open house. An open house with no visitors is simply a sad agent sitting alone, wondering what went wrong.

Open house marketing 101

You probably have a a marketing plan for most aspects of your real estate business. Make sure you have one for your open houses too. The plan needs to include the overall goal (selling the home) but should focus on the specifics of how open houses can help achieve this goal. When it comes to hosting open houses, traffic matters. You can have the cleanest home, the best food, and the most compelling flyers — but it's all for naught if no one shows up to see the home. Focus your marketing efforts on getting foot traffic.

Let people know

Get the word out. Putting up a few signs the morning of the open house isn't marketing; it's a halfhearted effort at best. While directional signage is important, crucial in fact, you need to do more than just set out signs the day of the open house.

Put your open house on the Internet. It's one of the first places people turn to when they are looking for an open house. You can post your open house information on Zillow, where it will be exposed to everyone searching for properties in the neighborhood. Some MLS databases have an open house field that you can fill in. While that's probably not accessible to the general public, you still want real estate agents to know about, and attend, your open house.

Craigslist is a website that many agents use to market their open houses. You should also check any website that posts your listing to see if it can also display the upcoming open house. Lastly, check your local newspapers to see if they offer options, both print and online, for announcing an open house.

Pro tip: Most websites that include the option to post an open house will also remove the notice after the open house has ended. Most websites. Double check the day after your open house and make sure. Nothing looks more unprofessional than seeing 'Open Sunday, April 24th!' on a listing when you're in the month of June.

Spice it up

The typical open house announcement is a drab and boring, 'Open Saturday, April 23rd from 2:00 - 4:00. Please stop by!'

Yawn. While that sort of notice is a great thing to add to the listing description, why not treat your open house like the event that it is and market it that way? Make an open house flyer complete with high quality images and basic home and listing facts. Use these flyers to spread the word prior to the event and leave some in the home on the day of the open house so visitors can take one as a reminder of what they saw.

Pro tip: Include a 'Notes' section on the flyer. At the open house, put a box of pencils next to the flyers. This encourages people to take notes and keep the flyer — both things that help them remember the home.

Stand out, be different

'I hate holding opens. All you ever get are nosy neighbors that've been wondering for years what the inside of the home looks like. Nosy neighbors don't buy houses!'
– Every agent, everywhere

Nosy neighbors may not buy houses, but their friends and family do. And nosy neighbors make good megaphones for the property. After all, a neighbor certainly has a vested interest in who will be moving in. You can make the neighbors feel special, and keep them away from the main open house event, by offering them an 'exclusive sneak peak' at an invitation-only event. Make a flyer that announces an exclusive viewing in the hour before the home is open to the public. Get the neighbors in and out, get their feedback, and get their contact information (they are prospects too!). Then you can focus all of your attention on the potential home buyers.

Try hosting your open houses at times other than the standard weekend afternoons:

• Host an "Open House Happy Hour" on a weekday afternoon, but avoid serving alcohol. There are potential liability issues. Imagine the lawsuit if you give someone a glass of wine and they drive off and run into someone.
• Try a "BYOL" open — bring your own lunch. Or serve up some tasty snacks at a mid-morning Sunday brunch open house.
• Take advantage of everything the property has to offer. Remember when you listed the home and raved about "spending quality time on the porch watching the sun set over the park"? Hold an open house at sunset and bring that listing photo to life.

Pro tip: While hosting an open house outside of normally expected times can generate attention, you'll still want to have one during traditional times. You will likely pull foot traffic from other open houses being held nearby.

Be safe

Nothing written about open houses would be complete without a reminder to be safe. Agents have been assaulted, and even killed, at open houses. Always have someone there with you (a co-lister, a lender, a title rep), be alert and aware, and follow your instincts. Instruct your sellers to put away and lock up valuables and prescription drugs.

Open house marketing is a key component in holding a successful open house event. And it is an event. Treat it like one, market it like one, and you just might get a buyer walking through that door.

Related:

• Are Open Houses Still Necessary?
• 5 Types of People Who Attend Open Houses
• 5 Tips for a Successful Open House