Open houses are essential to the Realtor playbook. They show your seller that you aren’t just a button pusher; you’re a boots-on-the-ground, opening-doors-and-shaking-hands Realtor who’s hustling to sell their home.
But, let’s be honest, the biggest reason open houses are a key to Realtor success is the LEADS. When you finish on Saturday afternoon and look at that open house sign in sheet, chock full of names, phone numbers, addresses…BOOM. I’m practically salivating just thinking about it.
Make the most of your weekend work with these three free open house sign in sheet templates:
3 Open House Sign In Sheet Templates
1. Basic Open House Sign In Sheet PDF
This is a great template to use if you need to be at your open house soon and want to grab something fast. It’s basic, has fields for all the information you need, easy peasy.
When you’ve only got a few minutes to get out the door, this is the sheet we definitely suggest. Go ahead and hit download, grab the PDF, print it off, you’re on your way! In fact, why not stick a couple of these in your bag to just keep as a backup in case?
2. The Customizable Sign In Sheet
If you have a little extra time, we’ve got a second template that you can customize and make your own with spots for your logo, a spot to type in the address of your open house location, and even a secondary question to help engage your attendees.
We’ve filled one in for you, “Are you currently working with a realtor to find your next home?,” but you can replace that with anything you want.
We love sign in sheet template #2 because of that extra question it asks (which, by the way, you can change to whatever you’d like.) Asking your guests to check an extra box is very little work, and you can gain valuable information about them for your follow up call later.
3. The High Tech Option
If you’re looking for something a little more high tech, there are some great digital open house sign in options available so you can collect information using a tablet. The platform we recommend is Kleard, which has free and pro options to help you easily capture new leads and follow up with them at lightning speed. We’ll go into more detail on this tech solution later in the article.
How to Fix Common Sign in Sheet Mistakes
We want to help you avoid the pit-in-your-stomach feeling at the end of an open house when you look at your attendees and realize there isn’t much there to work with. Here’s a few common open house sign in sheet issues, and some solutions on how to address them.
1. Your Guests Have Illegible Handwriting
Let’s face it, not all of us have beautiful penmanship. In fact, nowadays, most of us don’t. Since the rise of the personal computer and the mobile phone, the need for us to actually write things longhand has diminished sharply. There are even medical diagnoses for consistently bad handwriting (dysgraphia and cacography,) and so, chances are, a standard form is going to turn up at least a couple illegible names.
Solution: Be an Active Part of the Process
The simple act of asking someone to sign in to your open house, and then engaging them in conversation while they do is going to solve a lot of problems.
First off, people are going to slow down and write a little more legibly since they are also talking to you at the same time. Second of all, if you do get someone with doctor’s handwriting, you can immediately follow up with them to clarify their details.
Also, using a digital sign in platform will eliminate this problem altogether, but you still need to be active to make sure people are using it.
2. You Put Your Sign In Sheet in the Wrong Place
When you go to the doctor’s office, is the sign in sheet on a clipboard, hanging on a nail on the door? Nope. It is sitting on a desk, with a human being behind it, waiting to greet you. If your open house sign in sheet is placed passively out of sight after 10 seconds, the vast majority of people aren’t going to use it. Don’t set the sign in sheet in the entryway when you are camped out in the kitchen.
Solution: Position Your Sign In Sheet Next to the Refreshments
Whether they help themselves to food or drink, just about EVERYONE is going to at least cruise by the offerings and see what you have for them. This is a perfect opportunity to invite them to sign in.
Pro-Tip: Rather than bake the cookies yourself, go buy some from a favorite local bakery. While you are there, buy a gift certificate too. When you see your guests enjoying the cookies, remind them that you are drawing for a chance to win a gift certificate to the very bakery those cookies came from. How do you enter the drawing? All they have to do is sign in.
3. You Missed An Opportunity With a Potential Buyer Or Seller
Your open house sign in sheet is an easy opening to start a conversation with every single person that comes through your event. Many Realtors just HOPE someone is going to sign in, instead of INVITING them to sign in.
Solution: Capture One Piece of Information Beyond the Basics
Every sign in sheet is going to ask for a name, phone number, and email address. All these are important bits of information, but they only get you to the doorstep of your first real estate conversation during and after the open house is over and done.
Gather one small fact that is going to start the conversation later. Our favorites are asking something like, “What is a must-have feature of your next home?” or “How long have you been looking for a new home?” Later on, when you’re following up, you can come ready to have a meaningful conversation right out of the gate.
Why To Consider Using a Digital Open House Sign In Sheet
We know, you like the ol’ paper and pen system, but hear us out. A digital open house sign in sheet makes a whole lot of sense, and here’s why:
- People Are Comfortable With The Format: There are practically no signups nowadays in a retail environment that are anything but digital, so your attendees are already in their comfort zone.
- People Type a Lot More Accurately Than They Write: We are a lot more nimble with our thumbs than we used to be. When you ask someone to sign in digitally, their accuracy is going to go through the roof and your chances of a missed opportunity because someone misspelled an email address drop to near zero.
- Your Contacts Are Easily Transferable to a CRM: Following up with your open house leads is crucial. A digital open house sign in sheet enables you to link your sign in directly with your CRM, allowing you to automate the follow up process. Realtors who want to take this to the next level are creating a specific drip campaign for each open house, delivering personalized emails or texts with the specs of the property and listing details while the open house attendees are still in the home.
Follow Up Strategy For the Day After an Open House and Beyond
You should have a follow up strategy in place prior to your open house to make sure that you don’t lose any time with leads. These people are motivated enough to get out on a weekend and check out a house, don’t miss a chance to turn them into a client.
If you are using a digital platform for your open house sign in sheet, those contacts can be automatically transferred to a CRM and started on an email drip or a scheduled text outreach plan immediately. If you don’t have a CRM yet, look into a free and easily customizable CRM like Insightly that lets you set reminders to follow up with your new leads.
If you are going old school with a paper sign in sheet, grab that phone and start dialing just before dinner the next day. A study by Lead Response Management shows the best time to make sales calls to known contacts on the weekend is between 4pm and 6pm, so keep those leads warm before warming up your food.
If you don’t get a response right away, don’t be discouraged. According to a study by Topo, it takes an average of 18 calls on your leads list before you get to a meaningful conversation. That doesn’t mean you should give up on the first 17. The same study reveals that luke warm leads typically need an average of six touches before their first meaningful response back.
Don’t forget to also get these leads into your CRM and onto some dedicated drip campaigns. Automated follow up takes a lot of the pressure off, allowing you to focus on that critical first follow up phone call.
Bringing It All Together
Open houses are awesome opportunities to showcase your listings, show off your salesmanship skills for the neighbors and potential new listers, and, of course, meet and greet buyers. Now that you’re armed with some solid Open House Sign in Sheet strategies and some templates you can use this weekend, get out there and get to work!
Tell us about your most successful open house ever! What made it stand out above the rest?
Thea Lawless says
May 5, 2019 at 1:22 amThis whole article rubbed me the wrong way. As someone who is about to have my realtor do an open house for my home tomorrow, I would like to think the sign in sheet is to follow up to see if these buyers had any additional questions on the home they toured..not to build a client base. I am really shocked.
Chris Linsell says
May 5, 2019 at 1:54 amHi Thea –
Thank you for your comment. I can definitely appreciate those feelings, as a person who has sold a home before I became a Realtor (and a writer for The Close), I can identify with the way you feel.
As Realtors, we take an oath to put our client’s fiduciary best interests above all else. I can’t think of a real estate agent I know that doesn’t want to make every event they host a positive client building experience, but never at the expense of getting our clients the absolute best.
Our mission statement on this site is to provide the best answers to real estate agents’ questions, questions like “How do I get more out of my open house sign-in sheet?”. That sign-in sheet for your open house tomorrow is going to serve multiple purposes for your Realtor, first and foremost to make sure anybody who visits has all the information they need about your property.
I hope the open house went great! We’d love to hear about how it goes, feel free to tell us in another comment!
Chris
Emile L'Eplattenier says
May 7, 2019 at 9:28 pmHey Thea,
People who are interested in your home are going to ask questions regardless of whether or not they’re asked to. Also, the odds of the perfect buyer walking through that door are pretty slim. One useful thing you can have your Realtor do is see if she/he can get feedback on your home from the people who attend the open house.