We hold open houses for two reasons: to attract prospects and, occasionally, to find a buyer for that particular house.

Today's technology can help you sell more of your opens and, more importantly, show those prospects who turn out not to be interested in the home that you're the agent they want to use as they continue their housing search.

Here's how:

• Get the word out to the folks that count! Ten percent of the agents in your area probably sell 90% of the homes, so compile an email list of these sales associates so that you can get the word out when you have an open. Get their permission to put them on your email list, and then email them photos of the open in advance or, better yet, an invitation to view the virtual tour of the home on your Web site.

• Use technology to involve prospects that seem interested in the home. If you have someone who starts expressing interest in the home, offer to let him or her use your digital camera to take photos. Tell them you'll e-mail the photos to them and that they'll be waiting for them when they get home.

• Make up a special business card for the open. Using Microsoft Publisher, do a business card with your standard information on one side and a photo and information about the home on the other side. Another idea is to put a photo and financing information for buying the home on the reverse.

• Have your notebook open to your e-newsletter. As your open house guests sign in, offer to e-mail your monthly newsletter to them. Make sure you customize it with local market information so they know they are getting something that they can't get anywhere else. It's a great follow-up tool to capture uncommitted buyers.

• Use your notebook computer and multimedia presentations. Have your notebook in a prominent location during the open, and have a virtual tour, complete with voice narration, running at all times. If you know you attract out-of-town prospects, you'll probably get your best results with an area tour. Have the volume up loud enough so that they can hear you narrating the tour.

• Have alternative listings ready to show on your notebook. Having a PowerPoint tour of listings in other price ranges at the ready can salvage a prospect who is not interested in the home you're holding open. Such tours don't take long to put together, and they can result in big commissions!

• Have virtual tour presentations on disk ready to give out. Among the tours that will get the prospect “married” to you are area tours, a tour of the listing you're holding open, a tour of local schools and tours for specific subdivisions and condo projects for those not interested in that particular home. Make sure the disks have nice labels that feature your photo, done in Microsoft Publisher.

• Add open house visitors to your email newsletter list. Got a guest book? Make sure you've got a column for email address…and be sure to give the prospects a reason to enter their address, something that benefits them, such as area updates via email, notification of great new listings, etc.

• Give prospects a copy of your Web site. Using the inexpensive software program, ClickBook ($49.95 at http://www.bluesquirrel.com/clickbook), you can easily print out selected pages from your Web site in manual form, as a tri-fold flyer, as a brochure or in one of 80 custom booklet styles. Make sure that every prospect gets a copy before leaving the open.

Using these and other ideas which utilize today's technology, you can take the age-old concept of the open house to a higher level….and increase your income at the same time!

Published: October 18, 2001

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