Open house sign in sheet

A clipboard loses half of what it collects

Handwriting at a front door is bad handwriting. An email address written on a line by somebody balancing an umbrella is a guess by the time you type it up on Sunday night, and the ones you cannot read are simply gone.

A tablet by the door fixes that on its own: the address is typed by the person it belongs to, it is validated as they type, and the list exists the moment they hand the tablet back rather than after an evening of transcription.

It also lets somebody sign in on their own phone if there is a queue — the same link, scanned from a printed code by the door.

The agent question, asked first and asked plainly

It is the question that decides what every other answer is worth, and it is the one most sheets bury at the bottom or leave off entirely.

Asked directly, it costs nothing and it is answered honestly — most buyers who have an agent will say so. What it saves is the follow-up call to somebody who was never going to be your client, and the awkwardness of making it.

Three questions that sort a Sunday into a Monday

Timeframe, financing and price range between them separate the neighbours who came to look at the kitchen from the two people who could actually make an offer this month.

None of them is intrusive at an open house — a buyer expects to be asked — and together they mean Monday morning starts with a shortlist rather than forty rows.

Feedback the seller can actually be shown

Sellers ask what people thought, and the honest answer is usually assembled from memory a day later. Written at the door, in the visitor's own words, it is evidence rather than impression — and when six of them say the same thing about the second bedroom, that is a price conversation with something behind it.

The question about what would stop an offer is the more useful of the two. People are polite about what they liked and specific about what they did not.

Permission, once, in writing

The last question is the one that makes the rest of the list usable. Somebody who ticked yes has asked to hear from you; somebody who ticked no has not, and both answers are recorded against a name and a date.

Also worth knowing which listing site or sign brought people, since that is the only measurement of the marketing spend that produced the day.

What you get back

Every visitor in one list, sortable and searchable, downloadable as a spreadsheet for whatever you keep your contacts in.

The printable version is free and needs no address, so if the property has no signal or you would simply rather use paper, take that one.