Open House Mastery: Turning Visitors into Prospective Real Estate Leads
Saturdays and Sundays tend to have an entirely different orientation for real estate agents as compared to other working people who have more of the 9 to 5, Monday to Friday arrangement. Weekends aren’t time off if you’re a realtor, and that’s because it’s on those 2 days that realtors hold open houses for the ones they’re helping clients sell. Typically they’ll go from 1 to 4 on either days, or both, and that’s because it’s the time of the week when would-be buyers are most able to attend. If you’re a realtor closing a lot of real estate deals with homes sold then you’re probably hosting open houses every weekend.
It is always going to be a part of the process, but the process starts with securing the clients in the first place before they agree to sell or buy a home through you. So in that sense the process may well start with real estate leads for agents, as it is rare for prospective clients to be reaching out to you first. More often than not it is you uncovering them, and that’s why in an ever-more-competitive profession realtors are putting more of an emphasis on being pointed in the right direction for people who want to make a move in the local real estate market.
Some of them will pay for online real estate lead generation systems like ours here at Real Estate Leads, and it is proven effective way for realtors to get leads. But sometimes nothing digital is required at all, and leads can be generated when realtors apply themselves differently when doing things that are part of the day-to-day aspects of working as a real estate agent in Canada. Open houses certainly qualify, and it is possible to gain leads from people who are attending these open houses. This is what we’ll look at here with our second blog entry of the week.
Expand Perspective
The first thing you can do is change your perspective, and by that we mean not seeing open houses as a means of selling a home. That will always be the primary focus, but you can also see them as a means to have meaningful interactions with people looking to buy a home or more simply browsing to see what sort of homes are available on the market at this time. Go further than that and see any open house as means of expanding your network.
Here’s a very relevant stat that will support this way of thinking; a survey found that around 40% of North American home sellers who use a real estate agent find their agents through referrals by friends or family, and 24% will work with the agent they did previously worked with when buying or selling a home. Many real estate leads for agents have their beginnings in word-of-mouth based on satisfied previous or existing clientele.
This is then paired with the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of real estate agents in the country, and more all the time. They’re all in competition with others to help buyers find homes. So if you feel an individual or a couple are showing promises as potential future clients as you talk with them at length during an open house you can’t go wrong with giving them your business card at the very least.
If they’re receptive to that then the #1 priority becomes following up with them. Ideally they will have provided contact info to you too, and email addresses tend to best as it allows them more space to respond on their own schedule when they’re replying to an email. Send one to them within a day or two at most and keep it short and succinct – greeting, we met at the open house, I’d be happy to discuss your interests with you further at any time that is best for you, etc.
That same survey found that 68% of all buyers interview no more than one real estate agent before proceeding with a purchase, so you should be quick to contact them and again and be somewhat persistent, but not overly so.
6 Tips for Open House Follow-Up Emails
We’ve established that sending a prompt and helpful follow-up email in a personable tone is advisable. Here are 6 tips for that:
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Short is Better
Being short and concise with what you write is important. Any type of longer block of text is going to dissuade the people from reading it through. Email brevity is directly proportional to the extent of your familiarity with your acquaintance. A good guideline is to keep it to fewer than five lines, especially if you only just met the person and had a very perfunctory introduction and talk with them. And despite the fact they did convey their readiness to be working with a real estate agent in some capacity.
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Add Personalization if Possible
Customized, high-quality follow-up communications are far more effective than any type of premade script you have that you send to EVERY potential client you meet at an open house. To achieve this try to be very attentive during talks you have with people at open houses, and make mental notes as the conversation goes. If you’re concerned you’ll forget them you can make a note in your phone after they’ve left and you have time to yourself again.
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Try to be Catchy
Information overload is real for people these days, and communication overload can be too. A formulaic approach to writing an email to potential real estate clients likely won’t get you very far at all. You can be that way with the first line or two, but after that you need to be communicating in a way that makes you unique in your approach and keeps them engaged. Be creative, and if creativity doesn’t come easily to you then you may be able to get someone to assist you with this. Remember, you’re not writing much here so it should not be too much to ask.
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All Actionable
So while it needs to be a short but smart email, it also has to include a call to action (CTA), which will usually be a firm encouragement that gd prospects contact you at their earliest convenience. You can emphasize the advisability of that by saying that time is always of the essence in real estate and in particular if the clients are looking to buy a home in a competitive market where homes often sell for over-asking.
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Keep it Going
This next step will be dependent on the would-be client receiving your email communications favourably. But if they are then some part of you email near the end should state that you intend to keep in touch with them, and that’s because you believe that your assistance will be valuable as they move forward towards buying or selling a home. It’s always a good idea to keep up a cadence of follow-ups through phone calls and video calls when possible, but that’s in your next step of actions after you’ve made the initial follow-up with them.
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Add Humour
People like to laugh, and no matter what type of communication it is if a person can get some measure of a laugh out of it at the same time it does wonders for making them more receptive to what you have to say. Sometimes it can be as simple as a funny image, and you can use your imagination here and you may well be amazed at what can be done with photoshop.
Create a funny image and one you think will make those people laugh and then insert it after the end of the body of the email, just above your email signature. Lots of room to be creative, and keep in mind that some people are more receptive to inappropriate humour than any other type. You may well find you get a call from them shortly thereafter, saying they liked the personal touch and found it quite funny.
There is a lot more to generating real estate leads for agents at open houses, but the biggest takeaway you can make here is just to be super proactive and exploratory when you’re talking to people. Like so much of what you’ll do in the profession, it is something you will get better at and do more naturally over time, and the nice thing is that most visitors to the open house will be very receptive to a realtor who seems genuine in his or her inquiries directed towards them.
Do all of this effectively and you will start to get leads from open house, and that creates the possibility for you to not only create new clientele but impress them with your level of service so they become repeat clientele in the future.__
Sign up for Real Estate Leads here and receive a monthly quota of prospective client leads that have qualified and determined to be genuine leads for people that are ready to buy or sell a home in your city or town. You’ll have the opportunity to be first in touch with them, and present yourself as the real estate professional they need to help them with the sale of their home or purchase of a new one. Get more out your efforts with generating real estate leads for agents and start right here with it.
