How To Get Leads at Open Houses
Realtor Open House Lead Generation Ideas
As a real estate agent, you need to have a diverse set of lead generation strategies. Open houses can be a gold mine for buyers and sellers, however, most REALTORS do not gather the leads they are hoping for at an open house. They find that buyers can be guarded and not want to give up their information. Well, that might be true, but with these tips, you will be able to increase the chances of getting the guests information and land more leads from your open houses.
In this real estate agent training podcast, you will learn how you can get leads at open houses.
Mentioned in Podcast:
How To Double Your Open House Income
Podcast Transcript:
[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Rev Real Estate School. The podcast with quick tips and actionable advice to help you sell more real estate in today's world. And now your host Michael Montgomery.
[00:00:11] Hello and welcome back to Rev Real Estate School. I'm your host Michael Montgomery. Today we are talking about how you can get leads from an open house.
[00:00:21] A lot of us know the standard ways. So we're going to look at a few different tips. Probably a few things that you have heard of and probably a few things you haven't heard of. And how you can actually turn those people that are coming into your open house to leads that you can start working with. Now we have done another episode on how you can double your income through an open house. So I'll link this up in the show notes. If you want to listen to that one as a follow up. But this one is going to be focused on the people that are coming through the door. How can we end up converting them into buyers sellers leads that we can start working with right away? So let's jump into a few quick tips.
[00:01:00] Number one is a sign up sheet. And I know what you're thinking you're thinking that I've heard this before. And people just do not want to sign up at my open house. Well it could be because it's not being done properly. I have an agent that works at my office that gets a ton of leads from open houses. And every time he does an open house it seems like he's working with another buyer afterwards. So I asked why I said, "what are you doing differently." And he said, "absolutely nothing other than I have a sign in sheet. And when somebody comes through the door I simply just say, could you please sign it? Now he's not forcing them to sign and he's not saying you have to sign in an order to see this home when he's not making up a story around the seller needing them to sign in. Or else they're not able to see the home. Nothing like that but he's also saying it in a decisive manner. He's not saying, "could you please sign in if you have time?" "Would you like to sign in please put your name on here if you'd like more information." He just simply says when they come through the door. "Could you please sign it," and leaves it at that.
[00:01:58] Now here's the thing about this is some people won't want to sign it and that's fine. You don't have to force them to sign in. Those are the people that probably wouldn't have worked with you anyways but those that quickly sign in. Now you have their phone number email address and you can follow up early next week. Now the agent at my office pretty well every open house he does. He starts working with a buyer after the fact. And then out of every probably three or four open houses right now he's closing a deal simply by using the sign in sheet and saying as they're coming in. "Hi there how are you, would you please sign in?" It's very very simple and it's effective. Now one thing that can come up here is the thought process of oh they don't want to sign it. Oh I'm annoying them. And if somebody is annoyed by it they will choose to not sign it. And that's perfectly fine. But most people won't mind at all unless you say could you please sign in if you like and you're not saying it as much of a decisive way. You're still being polite but you have to be decisive with asking them could you please sign it. Simple as that.
[00:02:56] Next, if you are looking for some reason to get them to sign in or get their information then you have to have something of value that you can give them in exchange for their email address or phone number. So what do I mean by this. Typically what I recommend is bringing in a few sold comparables. Now one sheet you don't have to bring in a number of copies. And then also some market data. And again one sheet and I put this out on the table and I use it as a conversation piece. So we start talking about comparables and we start talking about what's happening in the market. And they grab it. They look at it and they ask if they can keep it. And you say you know what that's my only copy. However if I could just grab your name email address I will send this off to you. So you're doing an exchange of value. You're exchanging the information that you've provided in exchange for their email address so this can be great especially if you're getting into open houses and potentially you're not at the point where you want to ask them to sign in right off the bat. Although I would highly recommend that because that is where most of your leads will come from. This is another kind of softer approach that you can use if you would like.
[00:04:00] Next tip is make sure that you invite the neighbors a lot of people that will be coming through the open house are interested in what properties are selling for in their neighborhood. So have a list and ready to go when neighbors come in so you can provide them with some data on what's happening in their market. You can ask them Are you a neighbor. And if the answer is yes say oh I can send you a little bit more information on what's happening in your community. So what I recommend here is going around night before if it's on a Saturday maybe on a Friday evening doorknocking the homes in the neighborhood have a little invite postcard and invite them to come to the open house. It is such an easy way to get more people to come to your open house and to get more qualified sellers directly from your open house.
[00:04:42] This is something that's not leveraged enough. We just put our open house on MLS and we expect buyers to show up and they will. But if we put a little extra work in a little bit more legwork and do some doorknocking in the neighborhood and simply invite people to come you will end up getting a huge result because you will end up having sellers that end up showing up there too. And because you've provided so much data and information you end up looking like a star to them. So what you want to get out of them is the thought process that wow this realtor he goes the extra mile. So make sure you're inviting the neighborhoods all you need is a small little postcard that says you're invited. I go knock on the door and I say,. "hey if you're not doing anything tomorrow we're having an open house down the street. Here's a quick invite. We'd love to see you there. See you later." Turn around and leave. I'm not forcing them to come or anything like that. I'm just simply inviting them. And usually you get a very good response from that.
[00:05:32] Next step food and drink. So I always like to have some water or juice and some cookies or something there because it causes people to stop and talk. And that's the whole reason why I like to have food and drinks there is because I like them to kind of linger and have a conversation with me. So I always bring water maybe some cookies something like that. I avoid booze. There's a number of reasons why I avoid that. I don't think that it really helps unless you're doing a certain sort of evening open house that has a license or something like that. So instead I try to avoid that and I just go with food and some snacks so that it creates conversation and causes them to linger and talk more about real estate. So that's food and drinks.
[00:06:12] The final tip I think this one's awesome is have a home F.A.Q So have a frequently asked questions about the home little one pager something like that about schools and maybe some upgrades they've done in the home and that sort of thing. So it's just going one step further. You can have an F.A.Q. on the home and just like your market data and your sold comps is what you can do here is when people start looking at the F.A.Q. you can say oh you want that information. No worries I can send it to you by e-mail. Just put your name down on this list. Oh you already signed in. OK I will definitely grab your e-mail from there and I'm going to send you the F.A.Q. for this home and maybe this community it's another additional piece of value that you can use in order to get their name because at an open house what we're after is getting their information so we can follow up we can see what they're looking for and you can't do this without their information.
[00:07:02] Those are your tips. Now if there's one thing that you do from this episode I would highly recommend creating the sign in sheet and simply saying as people come in. "Hi how are you. Could you please sign in," and from there you will get phone numbers you will get email addresses follow up the next day and you will see an increase in your business from open houses.
[00:07:22] Thank you so much for listening. This episode I really appreciate it. Remember you can always reach out to me at revrealestateschool.com Or on Instagram I'm @the.michael.montgomery. Thanks so much and we'll see you in the next lesson.
[00:07:34] This episode of Rev Real Estate School has come to a close. Thank you for tuning in. We will see you back here for the next lesson.
Sources:
https://theclose.com/real-estate-open-house-ideas/
https://www.followupboss.com/blog/turn-every-open-house-lead-generation-machine/