If you’re serious about data, clipboards and random Google Forms can’t be part of your open house plan.
Open houses haven’t gone out of style. What has changed is how the best agents treat them.
Data‑driven agents don’t see an open house as a three‑hour block on a Saturday. They see it as a high‑intent, hyper‑local data capture moment that can feed their pipeline, their CRM, and even their long‑term referral engine. If you’re predicting listings, investing in your website, and running targeted marketing, it makes no sense to let that data leak onto a paper sign‑in sheet.
Real estate agents who win open houses run them like systems, not events.
The problem with clipboards and DIY forms
Many agents still rely on one of three options:
A paper sign‑in sheet on the kitchen counter.
A simple Google Form or generic form app.
A “note on my phone” and hope they remember who was who.
Those options have the same problems:
Fake or incomplete info. Visitors scribble a first name and a barely legible email, or they write “Mickey Mouse” because they don’t want to be chased.
No real phone numbers. The phone field is “optional” at best, and there’s no reason for a visitor to give a valid mobile number if nothing is checking it.
Manual data entry. At the end of a long day, you (or an assistant) still have to type everything into your CRM and try to decode handwriting.
No consistent questions. One week you ask about time frame, the next week you forget. There’s no standardized data you can compare across open houses.
You end up with a stack of paper and a vague memory of who walked through. That’s the opposite of data‑driven.
What “verified” open house sign‑ins look like
A data‑driven open house starts with a simple rule:
If it isn’t structured and verified, it doesn’t count.
In practice, that means:
Visitors sign in on their own phones via a QR code or short link.
They enter their name, email, and mobile number.
The system sends a quick text to verify the mobile number before it’s accepted.
You ask 2–4 consistent questions that matter to your business (timeline, price range, already working with an agent, etc.).
All of that information is instantly stored in a structured format you can analyze and act on.
Now your open house isn’t just a “nice turnout.” It’s a set of verified, tagged contacts you can segment and follow up with.
Why verification matters more than you think
A lot of agents assume “if someone wants to work with me, they’ll give me real info.” The reality is more nuanced:
Buyers are cautious. They’ll often give a throwaway email or a fake number if they’re not sure who they’re dealing with.
You only get one chance. Once they walk out the door, you can’t fix bad data.
Follow‑up depends on quality. Even the best scripts and drip campaigns fail if they’re aimed at wrong or dead contact info.
When your sign‑in process verifies mobile numbers in real time, three things happen:
Your follow‑up list is smaller, but much higher quality.
You can confidently build SMS‑based follow‑up sequences.
You stop wasting time calling disconnected numbers or sending emails that bounce.
Verification is what separates “I collected some names” from “I built a real lead list today.”
The real estate open house data loop: from door to GenAI
Here’s the simple loop we aim for at Stuart St James:
Traffic: Your website, IDX search, and predictive tools (like Offrs) help drive the right people to your open house.
Sign‑In: At the door, visitors scan a QR and sign in on their phone. Their mobile number is SMS-verified instantly.
CRM: After the event, your verified attendees go straight into your CRM or email platform as structured data (tags, time frame, price point, etc.).
Follow‑Up: You work a simple, consistent follow‑up playbook: same‑day text, next‑day call, “did you find what you were looking for?” email, and so on.
AI & Referrals: Over time, those interactions feed into our GenAI‑powered referral and matching systems, helping us see who is truly engaged and who might be a fit for future listings or opportunities.
When you run that loop every time, open houses become one of your most reliable inputs to long‑term business, not just a weekend ritual.
Why we use Tycoda at Stuart St James open houses
There are many ways to piece together this workflow. At Stuart St James, we prefer a purpose‑built tool that does the heavy lifting for open houses, instead of forcing a generic solution to do a job it wasn’t designed for.
That’s why we use Tycoda to run open house sign‑ins with instant SMS-verification.
Visitors sign in on their own phones via QR or link.
Tycoda verifies mobile numbers via SMS at the door so your list is real.
You get a clean export with all attendees, ready to drop into your CRM.
A simple post‑open‑house summary shows attendance, new contacts, and suggested follow‑up steps.
In other words, Tycoda helps us live up to our own standard: if it’s not captured, verified, and structured, it’s not truly part of a data‑driven business.
If you strive to be a modern data-driven real estate agent but still use a clipboard or QR code that allows fake contact information through into your CRM, now is the time to upgrade how you run open houses.
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