“Make your open house an event that is going to differentiate you from everybody else.”
Being a real estate professional takes a lot of time and hard work, but I’ve found when it comes to preparing for an open house, spreading the work across the week can help ease some of that set-up pain. Here’s a suggested day-by-day activities breakdown:
Monday
Select your location, do some market research, look at what’s selling, what other properties are available. Set it up so you know where it is that Sunday. Schedule your appointment to preview the home and those surrounding homes. Once you’ve finalized your details, you can then update your website.
Tuesday
This is your appointment day to preview the property and any possible bounce-off properties in the area. Get your open house rider on the sign, that way everyone driving by will know there’s an open house that is coming soon. Take a quick video of you in the house for a quick walkthrough if you can. Show a bit of that main floor. You can use that video for your website, email communications and your social media.
Wednesday
Begin inviting your network to visit your open house. Post that video you created. If you’re planning on using live video, set up your Ustream link. Ustream is video platform that lets you broadcast live on event day. It’s a great way to set up a virtual open house, and helps folks who can’t make it to your event see the property and walk through it with you. (You can actually set those up at any time, you don’t have to wait for open house day to do them.)
Thursday
Content development day! If you haven’t already, create your digital marketing pieces and write the social media copy to go with it. Use that piece to share on social media, but also print out some hard copies of the PDF – they make great fliers to hand out to neighbors. Invite your database.
Friday
Time to pick up the phone. I know, I know, it’s one of the things people dread, but I highly recommend picking up the phone and personally inviting people. It works! Call current clients, past open house attendees, call neighbors you’ve met, internet leads – try to make 25-30 personal invitations. Just by making that extra effort, you’ll see an uptick in traffic. Walk the neighborhood again and leave invitations for the neighbors.
Saturday
Send out a reminder email to your database. Print out all your forms and your toolkit. Have a pretty well-drawn out idea of where you want to put your signs on Sunday morning – be strategic, either drive it, or Google Map it. While you’re at it, make sure you’ve figured out the parking situation for you and your attendees.
Sunday
Advertise on social. Get the signs and balloons out there early so you get as much exposure from that branding as you can. And get there early to set up. It really doesn’t look good if people are waiting outside for you, and there’s absolutely nothing worse than losing a prospect because they drove by and didn’t see anyone around.
So that’s my take on how to divide up your open house prep tasks throughout the week. These are just suggestions, and the more open houses you do, the more routine they will become. The point is to take your Open House activities to the next level, make it an event, and showcase what you bring to the table as a marketer.
