Real Estate Tablet – Open House. 2D Artwork. computer design.

There are a lot of reasons to love spring open houses. There’s an excitement in the air that just can’t quite be matched in any other season. Spring is a time for hope, and for many real estate agents – and for their clients – it’s the time to hope for home sales.

With the popularity of spring open houses comes two big challenges: more competition, in the form of other open houses on the market; and more traffic, which makes it harder to separate serious potential buyers from curious visitors.

Fortunately, there are several choices you can make to design an open house that is more compelling to the clients you most want to attract. This week, we’re looking at four sweet tips for spring open houses:

1. Engage the senses. Your clients will be in charge of making sure the house is in tip-top shape. But a lot goes into a successful open house beyond just making sure everything looks good. Putting a tray of cookies into the oven is a classic trick, but real estate professionals have many more options in their open house arsenal: aromatic candles, Scentsy warmers, potpourri sachets, even something as simple as dryer sheets in closets and drawers. Smell may seem like an underrated sense, but when potential buyers walk through the front door, the last thing that you want them to think is “Eww… this house stinks… literally!”

2. Make housing information easily available. When traffic is up and open houses start to get crowded, the last thing you want is for a potential buyer to walk away dissatisfied because they couldn’t tell whether or not the house would meet their needs. Of course, the ideal situation would be to have time to have a conversation with everyone who walks into your open house, but that isn’t always realistic. Make sure that you have plenty of real estate flyers available so that potential buyers know the most important details about your showing. Staple your business card to the front so they can get in touch with you if they fell in love with the house.

3. Get interactive. When you’re trying to separate serious buyers from nosy neighbors, getting involved can be your best bet. Providing a clipboard and asking people to answer a couple of questions about the home can be a very simple way to see who is committed to learning more about the property. And if your sellers are having trouble moving the listing, the answers can be invaluable in helping you re-position the house, as well.

4. Don’t forget to follow up. The most important part of an open house is what happens when it’s over. Providing plenty of your own real estate business cards will ensure that potential buyers (or eventual sellers!) can contact you, but getting information about who viewed the open house is vital to your business as well. Not only does it help you to show your clients that you’ve done a good job of promoting the listing, but it also helps to identify potential buyers in your area who may be in need of a real estate agent.