6 Ways to Use Your Laptop Or Tablet At An Open House

 July 6, 2015

By all means bring your laptop, or tablet to your open house – bring both if you have them. You can use them while you’re sitting the open house productively. Here’s how.

List the features of the open house

Create a list of the homes features in a large font as a PowerPoint presentation that moves from side to side automatically. The movement will catch people’s eye and the list of features will inform them about the house. There are other plug-ins and ways to do this than PowerPoint, but PowerPoint works.

Think creatively. If the weather is bad, some spring-time shots of the gardens might just make the sale.

Display  your other properties

A rotating series of photographs, both interior and exterior, of your other properties can also be an attention grabber. Again it’s the movement of slides are the photos that tends to attract good visitors eyes and is a way to subtly let them know you’ve got other properties to sell.

You could even intersperse the photos with testimonials or quotes or shots of local attractions.

Collect information from attendees

There are various contact management systems that will allow your attendees to actually type in their own name, phone number, and email.

If you choose to use such software make sure you have a way for people to hand write their information too. Some people won’t have a clue how to use the computer and you don’t want to embarrass them.

If there’s a crowd you’ll need paper and pen for folks anyway because you don’t want them jammed up at the computer.

You want to make it easy for everyone to give you ways to get in touch with them.

Display your website

Either your tablet or your laptop is a great way to display your own website. Keep an eye on it because people will click around and you may very well have to bring it back to home yourself or even reload it. The fact the people see website is a plus because when they go to it again it will seem familiar. The more people who see your website the better and open house is a good way to show it off.

Entertain kids

Having a couple of innocuous games loaded on either your laptop or your computer can be a great way to entertain the kids while you’re talking to their parents. In fact if you got a Game Boy or other device you could bring that may even be better. Be sure you ask their parents if it’s okay and accept whatever their answer is.

Entertain yourself

If for some reason the open house is poorly attended or there are long gaps between arrivals, your laptop or tablet can keep you entertained or even productive. Of course you’ll want to be able to quickly switch back to your presentation as soon as someone arrives, or at least close it or turn it over.

Even if you’re mostly just sitting there people who attend an open house want to know they can have your attention should they wanted. That won’t happen if you’re staring at a computer or smart phone.

Of course you can always use your smartphone to entertain yourself, but I like the larger screen of laptops and tablets.

And by the way it’s okay to bring a book too.

real esate

 

 

 


Anne Wayman

By Anne Wayman

Before Anne Wayman became a writer she sold real estate in Southern California. She worked with her father who learned the business from his father. Not surprisingly she learned a few things along the way. Since then, she has been freelance writing for over 30 years – she is a grandmother, loves cats and writes about a wide variety of topics including real estate.