Open house checklist for agents: before, during and after

A good open house checklist is split by when each job happens: the week before (seller agreement, promotion, signs), the day before and morning of (the house, your kit, your phone), during the event (greet, sign-in, safety) and the follow-up (thank-yous within a day, a seller summary, a recap post). Most failures are small — a sign left in the car, a sign-in sheet with no pen — so the list's job is to give every small thing a time. Rules on advertising, visitor sign-in and consent differ by state, country and brokerage, so add whatever yours require.

Most open houses do not go wrong in big ways. They go wrong in small, avoidable ones: the signs are still in the car, the phone dies, the sign-in sheet has no pen, the follow-up slips to the weekend after. A checklist is not clever. Its value is that every small job has a time attached, so none of them is decided in the doorway.

The list, by stage

Stage	What it is about
The week before	The seller, the listing and the promotion
The day before and the morning of	The house, your kit and your phone
During	Greeting, sign-in and safety
After	Follow-up, the seller summary and a recap post

You can print the whole thing, with your name and the address on it, from the free open house checklist. Untick what you do not need and add your own lines; many agents keep a version per brokerage or property type.

The week before

• Agree the date, hours and access rules with the seller, and put it in writing.
• Post the event on the listing and your own channels a few days ahead. A printed poster helps with neighbours and passers-by.
• Ask the seller to prepare the house: declutter, tidy the garden, and arrange for pets and valuables to be out of the way.
• Get your paperwork ready: a sign-in sheet, feature sheets or flyers, and a consistent answer for price and offer questions.
• Order or print signs early enough to fix a mistake. The sign guide covers placement and local rules.

The day before and the morning of

• Arrive early and walk every room: lights on, blinds open, a check for smells and mess.
• Put signs out and check each turn from the main road.
• Charge your phone, pack a charger, and tell someone where you will be and when you expect to finish.
• Put the sign-in sheet and a working pen where people will see them as they enter.

During the open house

• Greet every visitor the same way and ask them to sign in.
• Note what people say about the home. It becomes the seller summary later.
• Keep an eye on exits, valuables and the front door. Do not hold a house open alone if it feels unsafe, and follow your brokerage’s safety policy.
• Mid-event, take a few phone clips for a recap post. The open house reel guide says what to film.

After the open house

• Thank each visitor within a day, by the method they gave you. The fill-in follow-up templates cover same day, two days later and a week later.
• Send the seller a summary: how many came, what they said, what you would change.
• Post a recap while it is recent.
• Store paper sheets safely. Local rules on visitor details differ.
• Hand serious buyers a tour sheet for their next showings. The free buyer home tour checklist has items to check, questions to ask and a notes column, with your contact details on it.

A note on rules

A checklist is a memory aid, not compliance advice. Rules on advertising, sign-in, consent, safety and what a listing agent must disclose differ by state, country and brokerage. Check yours and add anything they require. Treat every visitor the same: the same greeting, the same materials, the same follow-up wording. That is good practice and keeps you on the right side of fair-housing rules.

Make the promotion part cheap

The promotion lines are the ones most often skipped, because they take an evening. The invitation reel needs no new footage, only the listing photos and a date card; the invitation script and caption bank fill in most of the words.

Common questions