Short and sweet:
Use lots of directional signs; say 10 or 12 or more. And get them out a day before, showing the date and time of the coming open house. Remember: you’re not just directing people to your open house, you’re establishing a powerful visual presence in the neighborhood that will help you get another listing and another listing and another listing.
Get your open house information into the MLS in advance. If the event is this weekend, get it in by Tuesday so that the outgoing feed can get it on the various real estate portals in time. Impromptu or seller held open houses can be entered manually into Zillow as late as the day before.
Have your seller claim their home on Zillow. It is an easy process that starts with finding their listing on the site and clicking on the Owner’s View. Have them add a paragraph to your listing about ‘What I Love About This House.’ Also, once claimed, they can add their own open houses to the listing.
Have your seller post the open house on their Facebook page and ask their friends to share it. They can link to their Zillow or Realtor.com listing in the post.
Make a personal invitation to the neighbors. You WANT to meet them, either at the event or on their doorstep prior to it. Plan to walk your flyer/invitation to the 20 closest households. Those homeowners will have real estate questions for you and you may uncover your next neighborhood listing in the process.
Use an open house log to gather contact information. Realbird.com has a great one that enables you or your seller to gather information and save it online where you can access it from anywhere. Visitors are more likely to type their information into a tablet or laptop than they are to scribble it out long-hand. There are a lot of other great tools at Realbird and you should check it out!
How do you build traffic for your open houses? Leave us a tip in the comment section below.