You may think that the main reason real estate agents hold open houses is to sell the house. But did you know that they also do it to find potential buyers that they can add to their buyers list?
If you’re selling a home you’ve rehabbed on your own or a rental property you’ve decided you no longer want, you might try the For Sale By Owner route. People who hold FSBO open houses are primarily looking for buyers for their home.
But, if you are a real estate investor, you may have other investors interested in your property – particularly if it’s a rental.
And, open houses can even work well for wholesalers for properties they have under contract. If you have an open house for a fix & flip property, you bet the people who show up will almost exclusively be investors.
Wouldn’t it be great to capture their information?
And why does it need to just be an open house where you capture leads?
Maybe you can find a bunch of investors at a real estate investor meeting. Or when you’re talking at a coffee shop with a potential new investor. You never know when a new lead will appear. It’s nice to be ready to capture them at any moment.
Writing the lead on a cocktail napkin, yellow sticky or piece of scratch paper is not the most efficient process. Especially at an open house.
So, for this lesson we are going to concentrate on leads you can potentially pick up at your open house. But, it can apply in different situations as well. Using your marketing through open houses helps you:
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Attract other investors who concentrate in your specific area. Just like bandit signs geared toward buyers, an open house may attract leads from people driving by who see your ‘Open House’ sign in the front yard.
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Additional exposure helps in a quicker home buying process.
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Clients get to see the house. Potential investors can see how good and experienced you are firsthand. House photos and 3D interactive tours are great, but nothing beats real-time experience where clients can feel, see and touch the house itself. There’s a big chance they’ll get emotionally attached to the house, refusing to let go.
If you are a wholesaler, you may want to hold an open house for your buyers list with a property you just put under contract. Bringing lots of investors together at once will increase the sense of competition and may push up the price.
Open Home Pro
Check out the Open Home Pro app for both Apple and Android devices. The app makes it very easy to capture leads while showing people your properties. Once you capture the lead, the app can send the lead more information about your properties and keep them informed as they join your buyers list.
Open Home Pro is a lot fancier and more efficient way to capture leads than collecting business cards or writing them down on an easily lost piece of paper.
Features You’ll Love
Open Home Pro offers you a slew of great features:
Sign-In Feature – Why It’s Better
Open Home Pro ensures that every open house attendee or other lead meeting will be recoded for you – and they’ll never slip through your fingers. In addition to contact information, you can configure Open Home Pro to ask a bunch of questions to understand exactly what your buyer wants. Then you match your marketing for future properties to these requirements.
Open Home Pro makes entering data smooth by presenting possible leads with one question at a time. If you’ve looked at other open house apps, they bombard leads with a long list of questions. And honestly, that just turns them off.
The main point is that the attendees won’t be able to see the number of questions being asked, so they’re more willing to answer rather than be overwhelmed with a list of questions and skip the sign in altogether.
Of course, you don’t want a 100-question final exam for any new potential buyer. Even seeing the questions one at a time will turn them off.
Ease of Use
As you open the app, you will be provided with a simple tutorial to help you get started.
The transitions, gestures and button presses are right where you expect them to be. Overall, the interface looks stunning and professional.
CRM Integration
The software enables you to transfer your leads into Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software through an emailed excel file. Many CRM software platforms can just upload the CSV file into their database.
Another nice feature is that Open Home Pro follows up with the lead, sending them a thank you email. The email can contain any properties you might be working on that matches what the buyer wants.
Customization
Open Home Pro understands that every business is unique with distinctive workflow and needs. So the software allows you to seamlessly add custom questions and edit the order of the questions.
The option to customize is very important since you may be working with different people in different demographics. For example, you’d want to ask a different set of questions to people living in high-end neighborhoods then those in lower-income areas.
You get lots of customization options with the free version of Open Home Pro.
And of course, the premium version gives you more room for customization:
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Customize and edit lead emails
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Send automatic seller reports
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Track emails for open rates, click-through rates and more
Automatic Lead Follow-Up
Having to singlehandedly follow up on all your leads can be quite taxing. Open Home Pro’s automatic lead follow-up emails are automated emails sent by your Open Home Pro account after an attendee signs in with their contact information or whenever it is convenient for you.
But, you’ll have to pay a fee in order to access this feature. After upgrading, you can send a personalized email with your photo attached, as well as your contact information and a customized message.
Pricing
If you feel like you’ll do just fine with the very limited version of Open Home Pro, then that’s okay. But their premium version only costs around $20 each month.
For the free version, the features are limited but still slick and useful:
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Customize the images and data of any homes you are selling
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Customize the questions and their order
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Move leads as an Excel doc into your CRM
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Add notes for every lead
Do you really need to upgrade to premium?
Here is a video that provides a nice summary video of the premium features.
If you already have an email marketing platform and a CRM, I personally believe that an upgrade is not necessary. But, if you want everything to come from one place, then an upgrade may work well.
I’m Listening
Would you use Open Home Pro? Would you upgrade? Tell us why or why not below.
Control Your Leads – Leads are the lifeblood of your business. Don’t let them slip away.
Follow up – Stay in touch with your buyers list, even if you don’t have a property to sell them. Give them useful information and tips to build trust and goodwill.
Find What Your Buyers Want - Ask questions to determine what your buyers want to specialize in, then tailor your marketing to find those kind of properties.