How to carry out a successful open-house?

Property agents should be pretty familiar with the concept of having an open-house. This marketing process has proven to be quite effective and thus has been utilised as an important tool to sell or lease out properties. However, sometimes an open-house can prove to be quite a daunting task as you wonder if there will be any clients coming along to view the property whilst you could be using your time to carry out viewing to more "high-potential" clients. Preparing for an open-house Inform the house owner that you will be having an open-house over the weekend and ask if the owner would like to be around or not - it could work both ways. Some house-proud owners can do an even better job of describing the house than property agents. However, when faced with criticisms by potential clients, they may also be the first ones to chase the clients out with a broom! Allow at least 3 days to prepare for the marketing of the open-house. 3 days before - place signboards & drop flyers to surrounding properties to inform passers-by and neighbours of open-house date and time 2 days before - inform your company or network agents that there will be an open-house and they are welcome to bring their clients for viewing 1 day before - place your newspaper advertisements on the date and time of open-house. DO NOT reveal exact address as you want potential clients to call you to enquire and fix an appointment before they come along. By informing the home owner well in advance, it is more likely that you will have a nice and clean property for open-house. Most home owners will make sure the house is spick and span if they know that there are visitors coming. During the open-house Before the day of open-house, you ought to get a feel of the "potential response" to your open-house from your company and network agents. Having a handful of them confirm appointments with you would already be quite a good start. No clients? - Do not fret ... you can take this time to find out more about the condition of the house, have a friendly chat with the owner (on topics NOT related to the house), or walk around the neighbourhood and learn more about the surroundings. NOTE - Make sure you have your identification tag for people to recognise you as a housing agent. Neighbours and passers-by should have noticed your signboards and flyers that you distributed 3 days ago and be more receptive to your presence. In fact, they might just query you about the property or even ask you to market their own! Too many clients? - If there are too many parties at one time, you should be extra careful especially if there are personal belongings of the owners in the house. If you are handling this property single-handedly (owner not present), show the clients only to the spaces in the ground level and politely ask that the clients walk through the rest of house by themselves as you need to serve the other parties that's been waiting in the entrance area. This way, you can keep track of the main passage in and out of the house. End of open-house & follow-up Always appreciate the efforts of those whom have made the open-house possible for you. At the end of the day of open-house, follow-up with the potential clients on how they felt about the house. Even if there were no concrete offers, you have taken the opportunity to inform the owner about the general sentiments towards the house and this information can be used subsequently to make informed decisions about pricing and other terms.