If you think about it, though, most open houses, when they're done correctly, will also attract a lot of sellers. Getting a bunch of sellers in a room with you is certainly a great way to get listings and also build your authority in any neighborhood. If you're farming a neighborhood, for example, open houses are your best friend. They're a lot of work and they're kind of a pain, but they can produce a lot of business and really plant you as an authority in the local community. Let's talk about some of the ways you can do this. Years ago, back in the recession, we did these mega open houses — we called them “Sold in a Week.” We were able to sell homes really, really quickly by doing these huge open houses and getting hundreds of people through them. I’ll share with you some of the things we did in these mega open houses which you can leverage on a smaller scale and help your own events be effective. ● Plan the Open House ASAP The first thing we would do is schedule the open house as quickly as we possibly could after launching a listing. If we listed the home on Monday, maybe we would put it on the MLS on Friday, and then we’d do the open house that first weekend if possible. We did this because you can get that first rush of buyers and maybe capture some of those buyers yourself. Whenever we got the open house off the ground, we would try to bring in all the nosy neighbors. You want the nosy neighbors because you want to be their friend and, hopefully, get their future listing. This open house is the perfect opportunity for you to help them and provide value to them. If it's a brand-new listing, you can get that early excitement and you could potentially get some really good sellers through the door, and hopefully win some new listings. ● Use as Many Signs as Possible Another thing that can make an open house really popular is signs. I know, I know: this isn't a new idea. But I feel like, a lot of times, people tend to forget how important signs are. For me, personally, I would do as many signs as I could get away with. I know every city and area has different ordinances when it comes to signs. Some won't let you put them up at all, and some set strict limits. Back in 2008, when we were doing those mega open houses, we would schedule multiple homes at the same time on the same weekend, and we would stick up 200-600 signs. I know that sounds nuts, but it really ramped up the excitement for the event. The crazy thing is that all those signs and all of that excitement from the hundreds of people would have a strange effect. All the real buyers would be mixed with the “tire kickers” and
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