Open Houses Don't Sell Houses — They Build Your Business | LeadingLane Podcast | Ep 115

I hate door knocking. Let me not lie here, but I repositioned it to where I'm doing an invite to a party. I can do that all day long. I like to do a party. So what I would do is knock on the door, right? Say, hey, I'm not here soliciting. I'm not here to sell you. I'm not here to do anything. I wanted to personally invite you to your neighbor's house down the way. I'm doing an open house. Nosy neighbors, right? Like everybody's nosy and they want to see it.

Welcome to the Leading Lane Podcast for real estate pros by real estate pros with your hosts, Ashley Frederick and Steven Burch. If you are looking for an honest, authentic, and raw perspective, you found it.

All right. Welcome to the Leading Lane Podcast. Uh, today we're going to talk about every single real estate agent's favorite thing to do, an open house. All right. Good, bad, love 'em, hate 'em, listen. Like, tell me, what do you, what do you think, Ashley, about open houses?

Uh, I mean, so I used to love them. I would, when I was new to the business, I found that they were extremely helpful for me, um, building my business more so. Again, I think there's the misnomer that people think they're gonna sell that house, right? Of that open house. But really I think it's more so of like, Finding new buyers, you know, either that aren't pre-approved that need to get pre-approved, you can help them through that. I also think it's a good opportunity for other people to interview agents. Um, so there are people that like came to an open house of mine and then called me 5 years later and said, well, we came to this open house of yours and I obviously did not remember them. Um, you know, open houses then kind of went away, at least here, um, during COVID because houses would sell within 48 hours and there was no need for an open house. I think the market has gone through its ups and downs, and now we're, I think we are more of a slightly slower accepted offer process. And I do think that we have been doing a lot of open houses. I tend to give my open houses out to other agents to help them grow their businesses. Um, and I think that, I'll be honest, like, again, like rarely happens, but, um, one of my agents held an open house for me last week and sure enough, They bought the house.

That's great.

I know. So you can't say it doesn't happen.

Right, right. And really, like, I think the going in the mindset of I have to do it for that house is completely wrong. In my opinion, you're not marketing that particular house that you're doing the open house at. You're marketing to future sellers in the neighborhood that are going to want to list their house soon. And so I think the more that you can be present, be in their face and the neighborhood and promoting that, being different than any other agent. So if nobody else in your market is doing open houses, yeah, it takes some time, but what is it really going to hurt? If you do it properly, you get sellers there, you get future sellers there, and then they get to see how you compose yourself, how you market the property. To me, it's the interview, true process for sellers that you don't even know are ready to list their house yet.

Mm-hmm. Well, I think for buyers too, like there's a lot of buyers that, you know, are planning to buy at some point in time and maybe they think that, you know, that that can just happen and they don't know that you need to get pre-approved. They don't know about buyer agency, they don't know those types of things. Um, so I think it's a really good, you know, opportunity for that. Or even just when we're talking about social media presence, if you're sharing the open house, if you're doing a pre-video walkthrough, like all of those types of things might, you know, keep you top of mind with your network when you're doing those types of things. So Steven, what are some good tactics that you would tell people to use for open houses?

So first thing I would do is, as long as you have a CRM system, making sure that whatever this house, let's say it's a 4-bedroom, 3-bath, 3-car garage, right, whatever it is, I would do a reverse search for every buyer that I have in there, regardless of if they were a cold lead or, you know, I mean, wherever they are in my pipeline. And I would make sure that I invite them that, hey, I know that you're looking for this type of house. Uh, let's see, how about you come here and see if this is something that will be an interest to you. Meet me here. No big deal. It's open. Don't feel— it's nothing formal. Right. So I think that being able to do it that way, the reverse engineer does two different things. One, it, yes, it does invite people. To get to your open house. So you're not sitting there by yourself, but two, it's re-engaging those previous buyers that you have. I mean, that legit raised their hand to you, right? So then I would do another search with sellers in that area or people that I know within that area. So my sphere of influence, who do I actually know? I mean, I would really do some deep dive and then just say, hey, I'm inviting you to this just to let you know, like in the neighborhood, Maybe you want to, you have somebody that you want to move here or closer to you so that you're inviting them. Completely different tactic of approach of how I'm wording it, but still getting people there. Those are my first two things. I used to do a separate broker open versus a public open. I do them together, right? Like, why does it matter if I do it separately? And I don't care. I mean, if the buyers are coming through here, great. That means I'm doing my job. If agents are coming through there, great. That means I'm doing my job. I'm there representing for the seller. And I think that's where some agents get caught up too, is the cutthroatness of, well, I'm not, I don't want agents there while the public is there. If in reality, in my opinion, you're there for the seller anyway. So what does it matter? That's your goal. That's the best interest of them. Those are probably my top ones that right off the top of my head that I would do that I don't think a lot of people necessarily do, other than just posting on social and expecting people to show?

We— I think it depends on where you're located, but we like to put like an actual like open house that says Saturday 1:30 to 2:30, like on the actual property. And we like to set it out like a good— like if it's Saturday, you put it out by Monday so that people have, you know, all week to look at it. Um, one thing we talked about recently too is just like you can make business card size type of information or flyers. Like I have a property that is kitty-corner from a really popular bar. So, you know, putting it at the bar like this Saturday open house. So, you know, something where people might just see it, you know, on social media, I think even doing something like an event. So that's something a little bit different, like where you actually invite people to come to the event, sets up as a reminder. LinkedIn isn't a bad place either just to find different spheres. There's a lot of not like recruiters in our area, but there are a lot of businesses that are trying to recruit people to the area, if you will. So if we can help them potentially know like when people are coming in for interviews. But yeah, there's smart campaigns through KVCore. And one thing that I think people forget is I like to give the seller a checklist of things to do to get ready so that when you get to the house, you're not necessarily having to do all those things. So whether it just might be putting stuff away, we talk about, it used to be Big Mac making. What?

Putting the toilet seat down.

Yeah. Back in the day, it used to be popular to bake cookies ahead of time. I remember I used to have sellers that would do that. You know, if it's wintertime, making sure that the driveway is clear, especially if it's a vacant property. We've also had that where you pull up to a property and then you can't quite get in, and then you're trying to shovel while people are coming in. So I think having a reminder for your sellers of what their job is, if you will, before an open house is helpful too.

I think it's super smart because sellers don't think like what we think, right? We, we need to make sure, like I always tell my sellers, make it Pinterest ready. I want a Pinterest ready so that it shows the exactly the perfect picture on all of our marketing and everything else. And then that's a live view of the Pinterest ready for people to be able to come through to. The other thing that I used to do is go through and invite the neighbors, like legit. I hate door knocking. Let me not lie here, but I repositioned it to where I'm doing an invite to a party. I can do that all day long. I like to do a party. So what I would do is knock on the door, right? Say, hey, I'm not here soliciting. I'm not here to sell you how— I'm not here to do anything. I wanted to personally invite you to your neighbor's house down the way. I'm doing an open house. Nosy neighbors, right? Like everybody's nosy and they want to see it. And so I have them come on down and they, I think it just creates a completely different touch to them as well. Like I really focus on the neighborhood, right? Like I want to make sure that they see me completely differently. Um, because nobody else is doing these open houses or putting the flyers out or Preparing, you know, Monday putting the sign out. Like typically agents, in my opinion, go stick a sign and hope people are going to get there and then they bitch. Yeah. They complain that nobody showed up. Well, no shit. Your marketing sucks. Maybe that's why the house isn't selling. Look at your marketing. Um, another thing that I did is an ice cream social. Um, it was actually nice out, so popped up our little, uh, uh, branded tent right, right in the driveway. And then we had an ice cream truck that came through and we paid for ice cream for everybody. You got people there and then as I'm outside, I mean, right, right. There's so many different things that you can do. Like make it into an event that you then invite people to versus making it into an open house. Like every open houses are so bland and people overlook it anymore. Also don't do it the same time as everybody else. My opinion, at least like it is, there's no set standard like to when you can do it. Doesn't mean you can't do it in the evenings during the weekdays or the afternoons during the weekend. Like whatever it is, mix it up, see what works. People have different schedules. Just really depends on who is available to be able to see that and have the opportunity to be able to go.

Yeah, we've had quite a bit of luck with like a weekday, like a 4:30 to 6, especially now that it's a little bit lighter out at night. But you know, you think about if you can catch someone after work, um, you know, weekends they might have plans that they're gonna be gone. So it's not bad. You could use a, you could do one during the week and one on the weekend. Um, so I think mixing it up. What type of things do you bring to your open house?

Really? Um, I love the bring in an iPad. Um, we have a stand that we put right in front of the, uh, the door and basically kind of like right in the midway, right? Um, yes, I am there to capture the who is coming into the house. I used to have like old school, right? Like back in the day, a sign-in sheet and then do absolutely nothing with that sign-in sheet or people were like, nope. And they'll be very passive with it. These are people, strangers that you don't know, and you are opening a house of a home that you don't own. And you're going to allow people into the home that you have no idea what their name is. Like that's, that's not kosher for me. So I rechanged my mindset of like, here's the sign-in. This is for documentation to show the seller who was in their house. And that's it. You can select that if you don't want any information from me. Perfect. I don't care. I'm not here to market to you that way. If you want information, cool, I can do it, but you have to sign in. And so I force it now in the manner of safety and making sure that we're documenting who's in the property. And nobody has really ever pushed back on that. So iPad, not just a piece of paper or, you know, cut up piece of papers in a fishbowl. Like, I want to show how I am different. Right. A lot of times I have my laptop up and have the 360 imaging or like just different things that I have available right at my fingertips so that I know that if they ask something, I can have it and not just have to stumble over everything. I used to print out things and hand them to the people that are walking through. I don't do that anymore because I feel like that's like Here's your ticket. I'm not going to tell you anything about the house. They're not going to ask anything about the house because everything's on that piece of paper. Like, I'm going to let it go, right? Like, so I don't even bring paper in that magnitude anymore whatsoever. Trying to think if there's anything else that I really bring. Like, I do the water and we know we have our branded water bottles and koozie. I want them to have my information in their hand. Not just the information about the property. So what are some of the things that you bring?

Yeah, I haven't done them for a while, but I do suggest those things. So I think we're a little bit older school, like we still bring the print. And the one thing that I'll say about that is that I have had people that will take the print copy of like the spec, like the information, and then they hang on to it and then no lie, like bring it back with them 3 years later. And to me, that is crazy. One of the seller's houses, I was cleaning out their drawers, like it was right before closing. And I think I was just doing like a final, you know, check of the house. And sure enough, like one of my laminated brochures from 7 years ago was in their drawer. So I was like, well, I mean, I guess that, that worked. Um, so I think that, you know, you still have people that, that like it.

I think that's the difference right there. You said laminated, right? Like the average agent is going to just print out something from the MLS that every other agent already has. So as long as it's something different completely, like I'm all for it.

Yeah. Or I'll make like a, like a book, like we have like a Unibind where you can put everything into it. So it's same thing. I think it's just different than just, yeah, the piece of paper. Um, a couple other things I think that have, um, been interesting are like a copy of a buyer agency agreement.

Mm-hmm.

Just because a lot of people aren't necessarily talking about that, so people don't understand, um, and what that looks like after an open house. I also think there are a lot of local lenders that provide a rate sheet. So like at this property, at this current rate, what would your monthly payment be? So same thing, it helps maybe paint that picture a little bit for people. Uh, so I think just trying to think outside the box of what people might not normally see at open houses, um, and what can maybe just make you stand out to them if they're going to other open houses.

So, I mean, like open houses are easy. It's showing up, it's being there. It's the marketing before. And I think where a lot of agents really fall off of the earth is what do you do after the open house? Like, I just had these people come through. I have their information. If they're just chilling on your sheet of paper, your sign-in sheet, what good does that do for you? Where's the follow-up? What, so what do you, what are some of the things that you do, uh, to continue to promote yourself afterwards?

Yeah, so I think that, you know, if, you know, obviously you get the people that will not give you information and that's completely fine, but I think that once you do have them, I think it's a matter of, you know, adding them to your CRM so that they can get market stats, newsletters, et cetera. If there is somebody that is very interested in the house, you know, trying to follow up, you know, immediately. But I also. Like to ask them if they're working with an agent when they come. So a lot of times they might say like, oh, yep, I'm working with Steven. I will then reach out to Steven and say, hey Steven, your couple came through on XYZ and they seemed really popular. And you know, there's a lot of times that that agent obviously like didn't know that their, you know, buyer was out and about. I've had that before where I appreciate that other agents have reached out to me and be like, hey, your client stopped by. And then I'll message my clients and be like, hey, I heard you're at the open house. What did you think? Uh, so I think it's, you know, you could also do, if you do have their information, just a simple thank you for coming, you know, text message, um, you know, the next day. Um, if they want a personal showing, if they, you know, need to sell, I've had that happen a lot where, uh, they need to sell and then they don't know what their house is worth. So telling them that, you know, we offer those, uh, consultations. So that is something that I did start bringing too, was not only like a buyer packet, but a seller packet. And I am always interested, like when I see someone like pull a little seller packet off the counter, like then you know that they probably have something else to sell too. So, um, and then I think just staying in touch with the neighborhood, but I think you have to have some type of campaign where it's like 2 days after you do this, you know, 5 days after you do this and people tell you they're not interested. Great. But a lot of times people will tell you that it's not that house, but they are interested in something else. And then you can set up a search for those types of houses.

Right, right. One thing that, you know, I remind you, I door knocked before I invited the 50 or how many other people in the neighborhood around. Took a lot of time. But now I know who I went to, right? I know their addresses. So I, what I do afterwards is a successful open house type of thing, like a great party, whatever we want to say. And just kind of a nice little touchpoint Afterwards, then what I also do, depending on how long the house sits on the market or how long until I sell it, however you want to say it, then I wouldn't see the statistics of being able to say, great, like this house sold for, you know, over ask, or this house sold 3 days after my open house. Or I try to find the number that shows that I'm the reason why you want to be able to work with me. And I think it's super important that you follow up with those people around. I don't remember the stat from NAR, but I want to say something like 76% of somebody within the neighborhood is eventually going to sell. So like, you see one, it's gonna pop up, like you're gonna see one, statistically, it's in your favor. So work the neighborhoods, right? And getting people out there. What that also does is it shows them that you are different. They're talking about it, they're talking to their spouses, their neighbors, whatever. That's what you want is people to talk about you. And then one step further, making sure you actually put, once it goes under contract, celebrate it, right? Put the pending on there. Let them know that it's under contract because they're driving by and that's who you're marketing to. You want them to hire you.

I think I brought that up one time that, you know, we like to put a sale pending on right after it gets an accepted offer. 100%. It was like 3 months later, the neighbor called and was like, well, I saw that sale pending on go on right away. So I figured you, you knew what you were doing. And so, I mean, it was simply putting a sale pending on creating somebody calling.

So I can't remember, what is it when like your brain, like when you get a new vehicle and then all of a sudden you start seeing the same vehicle over and over and over again, there's some like technical term, don't remember it right now. Um, but it's the same concept. If there's a seller or a buyer that is thinking about it, then what their brain is automatically going to start doing is paying attention to it more and more and more. And so that's where you want to be there for them more. So those details matter because you are now making sure that they see what is happening because they are searching for it.

I think it comes back to mindset too. I remember, uh, I listened to this Ninja Selling podcast about open houses and, you know, I think it's different in big cities too, but you know, they, they, and some, again, you can set yourself apart, put balloons on the corners. Like they have like 100 people come to their open houses. I, I think the most I've ever had is like 20. Um, you know, but, uh, his thing was like he'd go into every single open house like, I'm gonna meet somebody new, I'm gonna make this open house worth it. And I think I had just listened to that podcast, so I was like, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna just think like this guy does. And sure enough, there's only 2 people that came, but that woman didn't like that house, but she needed help finding a new house, and then we found her a house and she listed her house as well. So I think it is like mindset in general. And it was really funny, one of my agents, I met her on the way the other day, we're walking in and out and she was heading to her other job, which is bartending and kind of was just like, ah, I don't really want to go. And I was like, I dare you to just think about it more so like you're going to find a buyer and that's why you're going to work today. And then she came in on Tuesday and she's like, so Ashley challenged me to work mindset on Friday. And sure enough, I walked out with a buyer after work that day. And I just gotta, gotta paint the picture into the universe. Right?

I mean, it's, you know, what's, what's the worst thing that's going to happen for that 2 or 3 hour span that you're sitting there? You can't tell me that you don't sit on TikTok and scroll for 2 or 3 hours or social or whatever you want to do. Like, binge watch your Netflix, whatever. The way that I looked at it is I'm using that time every Sunday is when I did mine for whatever reason, because that was instilled in me. So I would say that's my me meeting too. And so I would pre-schedule all of my social, I'd get everything together. I would get my admin stuff. So I have my week done. And so if nobody else shows, there's my me meeting and I was still productive with it. And if people do show, then that still means I need to have my meeting later on and be able to get those things done. But I'm just not sitting there twiddling my thumb or scrolling on social. I'm getting shit done. So I'm being proactive, not reactive later on.

We recently set some office goals and, uh, like agents in the office were saying that they were going to do one open house a month. And I was like, um, like, are we looking to expand a little bit? So the way that I posed it to them was There are 30 to 31 days in a month, and that means that you're willing to commit 1 day out of 31 days for an hour and a half to try to grow your business. So could we maybe look at 3 days a month? And you know, back in the day I used to stack 'em, so I would do some in the morning, some in the afternoon, some in the evening, and like, okay, that means that 1 full day I did like a full day of real estate, then maybe I gave myself a day off during the week. Right? So I think if you, pose it differently or look at that bigger, like, can I really give up, you know, 2 half days to try to put some time into building my sphere?

Right. Absolutely. And like, you're there to meet people.

Mm-hmm.

Like we so focused, agents so focused on the end result of selling something, getting something under contract. This is a relationship business, so you have to meet people and for, in order for you to meet people, you have to be present for them to be able to meet you. Hard concept, totally get it. But you're out there meeting people and even if you don't have any major successes on the, you know, every single one of your open houses as successes as in closings or contracts, you are meeting people. It's now your job to continue that relationship. And as you can continue that relationship, that then turns into the revenue. Great topic. Now I'm going to make somebody go do an open house. All right. Thanks for tuning into the Leading Lane podcast. As always, we appreciate you.

Psych. We'll see you next time.