According to the recently released 2009 National Association of Realtors’ Member Profile, 39% of Realtors generated “some” business from holding an open house. Not an enthusiastic response for a business practice that for years fueled their industry, and now is far less relevant given the research opportunities on the Internet.  Many Realtors will tell you they hold open houses simply to please the sellers to illustrate they are working hard to market the property, others will hold open houses even on properties they have offers on to generate leads for others.

For media companies, open houses provide a real opportunity to be of service to Realtor advertisers by driving qualified traffic to the door. However, the days of bland listings sorted by town should be over. Not only does the Internet provide many more opportunities to enrich the open houses experience, there are new options for print as well. Companies like AdPerfect and Classified Concepts provide strong tools for publishers to create robust online and print experiences for open houses.

But the question is, could media companies be doing more? Absolutely. And, they could be making money while doing it. Some ideas:

Print:  Go beyond the bland listings to incorporate maps to create an easy to use and easy to read guide to open houses by town, neighborhood and property type. Consider pull out sections that a reader can bring into the car and refer to. Reverse publish content from the web into the print product.

Online:  Put your home shopper hat on and create a much more creative and robust experience than just the standard interactive maps. Offer the ability to plan your route and get driving directions throughout. Allow users to create their own map by choosing the properties they want to visit – those with open houses as well as others in the neighborhood they’d like to drive by. Offer options to search by open houses overall, by town or property type. Consider the ability to send the map, the list or an individual listing to their mobile smart phone so they can refer to it easily in the car. Allow me to build a list of homes I’d like to see for my agent to show me.

Our challenge for today: If only 39% of Realtors feel open houses generate “some” business, what can we do to help increase this number for them?

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