January 20, 2017 2:19 pm Insights & Opinions

Liars, cheats, open-house attendees, and other assorted scoundrels

On this inauguration day, an oft-repeated saying I heard from my grandfather comes to mind: ‘you can tell when a politician is lying because their lips are moving.’

With respect to my departed grandfather, I would say he forgot to mention open house attendees in that group of folks who aren’t necessarily following in the footsteps of Honest Abe.

We’ve all seen it (or done it) – an eager agent holding a clipboard or tablet impatiently awaits the arrival of guests to tour the listing. Once they start filling in their contact details, we see otherwise decent people go to extreme ends to appear as if they’re in witness protection. Maybe they shift a number in their phone number or misspell their email address. And that is if they bother to show up at all – how many open houses have you hosted that drew less of a crowd than a duck-calling contest? Yes, that’s actually a thing.

Open Houses are a tricky affair for all parties. The agent is taking time out of their day to sit at a listing instead of being out in the community, networking. The buyers are hoping to have hassle-free access to a home for sale without ending up on an agent’s list who doesn’t understand outreach etiquette.

But can we really blame people for wanting to hang on to their anonymity? I have heard some absolute horror stories about agents abusing their contact lists, doing irreparable harm to their reputation and their brand. (Note, it’s never cool to mass-text ‘Happy Turkey Day’ to a bunch of strangers in your address book during Thanksgiving dinner).

So here’s an idea: How about we let everybody who has ever expressed interest in the listing know there is an open house this weekend, and we do it in a way that they’ll actually pay attention to. No, not email – last I checked, real estate emails were garnering a miserable 20% open rate. I’m talking text messages – relevant text messages to a targeted audience that has previously expressed interest in the property. In our experience, those messages have a 94% open rate within 5 minutes of their receipt.

And when the nice people come to your open house, don’t sit at the threshold clipboard in hand demanding information in exchange for entry. Instead, strategically display open house cards like those pictured above for them to interact with once they’re out of eyesight. Garage walls, bathroom mirrors, beds, and kitchen cabinets are a great place to hang these.

Once the buyer engages with this card, you automatically capture their (real) contact info, they receive your contact info and are directed to the listing detail page where they can view pictures, videos and text information about the property, as well as share the property with family and friends.

Best of all, after they leave your listing and go to another open house, they can open their phone and get information on that listing too – right from within your personalized, branded app.  Needless to say, no matter which listing they inquire upon, the lead goes right to you.

If you’d like to supercharge your open houses and start collecting accurate contact data, let’s get in touch. We can have a quick call to determine if our program can help you like we’ve helped so many others. Just visit www.calendly.com/timothystreet/evaluationcall and we can get something on our calendars.