I’m not trying to be cocky here; it’s kind of just fact. I am the open house king. I might even lobby to trademark the term. Open houses are like birthday parties to me, except year after year they make me feel younger, more alive, ready to open, work, close. I love ’em. Not only do I work the listing the open house is for, but also I meet new people, form alliances with new brokers and industry players, and open new clients.

I’m having a hard time talking about war and battle here because an open house just puts a smile on my face. Then again, so does the fight of the deal, the battle of real estate, the war of negotiation. Have I mentioned that I love those too?

Open houses are the cornerstone of selling strategy. They mark the open battlefield and the beginning of the bloodshed. (I introduced open houses for brokers, insiders, and buyers in Part I and touched on the basics.) Now it’s time to explain how you use them to plow your way through the front lines, taking names, weeding out the weak on your way to the king you plan to dethrone.

Always keep learning. Agents worth their salt will continue to check out other agent’s open houses, even off the clock, if there is such a thing in this game. You’ll see what works and what doesn’t. Even today with a family of my own, I’ll slip out on Sundays for a couple of hours to visit open houses in neighborhoods I’m curious about. I can get face-to-face with real buyers and keep my eye on the street.

Celebrity clients are great – as is their money – but I sometimes miss people that grind to pay the bills: people who don’t have assistants and money managers; people who keep me in tune with the game at a down-to-earth level. It’s like an NBA player going back for some street ball in the old hood. You remember the roots of the game. You take those roots and amp them up when you’re back at work at a higher level. Never forget where you came from, or you’ll risk losing the edge that got you there.

When it comes to the real estate open house, much of what we agents do has been done before. We’re not reinventing the wheel here. We’re just perfecting a new tire. That said, how is your wheel different? To be creative, to be fresh, it often helps to take a standard format and find your personal twist.

For instance, we at Altman Brothers hold open houses for buyers before we do broker’s caravans. We’ve turned the norm on its head. Let me explain:

Open houses are part of the work of closing a sale, but they’re also powerful active opens. Once the listing is back in the office and prepped to hit the MLS, we put the house on the market on Friday and show it to the public on Sunday. Then brokers see it on Tuesday, the exact opposite of how most realtors roll their listings out. Showing the public first accomplishes two main goals.

First, some house buyers come with their agents but many don’t. We land new clients with the potential of double-ending the deal. They may not have an agent to list their house should they be interested in either the one we’re showing or another listing we represent. That’s the active open. If nothing works out on this house, we’ve still broadened our reach for potential new business.

Second, we want a buzz on the street before agents walk through. Few worlds are as gossipy as real estate. If home buyers all call their agents on Monday to report a cool new house that just hit the market the day before, the local real estate industry takes notice. Tuesday’s broker’s caravan takes on a buzz, and we’ve launched the listing with as much velocity as possible.

Who to Invite?

Now, much like any industry, real estate is full of the usual suspects, the same top dogs. Some stats say that 20% of the registered agents sell 80% of the real estate, or the equally unbalanced 10% of the registered agents sell 90% of all the real estate. In my speeches, I use the number 5% and 95%. The numbers vary city to city, but let’s just say that a very few people sell a whole bunch of real estate. In Los Angeles, I’d say the same 15 people sell just about everything.

That being said, it’s not hard to come up with guest lists for your broker’s caravans. Announce them via the important feeds in your market and then email invitations to the top 10% or 20%. Make sure you bump into these agents at your event.

Be on your game. I can walk through a house and assess it in a hundred seconds. Most agents can. They walk in, move through quickly, hang around to make some calls or send texts, and leave. That means you have just a few minutes of their attention to engage before they wander off.

That conversation has to be smart – you can’t bullshit a bull-shitter, as a bull-shitter once said. Be focused. Get to the point. They know why they’re there. You know why they’re there. No need for much song and dance. So get in their face and get to business. You don’t have to be crude about it, but say what you came to say and keep them on their toes. With me, they’re expecting Josh Altman, maybe the same shark they think they see on television. I like to catch them a bit off guard. Put them to work.

When I approach an agent at a caravan for my listing, I try to flip the expectation of my attack into a question for them. Instead of running my pitch in selling my listing, I’ll ask something like “What would you say about this house if you were me?” The agent relaxes into answer, often gives me great ideas for my pitch, and ends up thinking that showing the house to their client was their idea. You can turn a coalition of the unwilling into the willing with a few well-placed questions. Pluck their answers and insert them in your pitch. Pros help pros, even when they don’t realize it.

While I like to take most of the credit for the Altman Brothers killing it as much as we are, it is our reach to so many others that has fueled our success. We can attribute that to open houses and broker’s caravans. Say 50 agents pass through my listing. The law of averages says it will get a couple of mentions to a third party, perhaps even a buyer. Do the math. One person leads to 3, which leads to 10, and so on.

Network through a caravan, Everyone’s just a few phone calls away. You can get to anyone in this day and age. Get creative. Be bold. Network. Make the call. Get in their face. Form a relationship. Give the invite. Get ready to make a friend, even if you hate them.

Work the Party

Everyone wants to be the cool kid who throws an awesome party. That’s not your job. You are there to open, work, close. You are there to sell the house. Not to overshadow it. Not to trash it. Not to even enjoy it, though you’d better. You are there to sell it. Play to the house. Let the style of the home, neighborhood, and staging be the focus. Be subtle. Be clever. Be simple.

Food at LA broker’s caravans is always over-the-top and usually pointless. A $36 million listing might get you made-to-order omelets and a salad bar. Some realtors love it. They’ll brag about their events’ spread. Some even go for the food. Me? I’d rather be showing a house, locking down a deal, or hanging out with my wife and daughter.

Costly catering can eat up marketing budgets and with the 5% / 95% split of agents doing the work versus those who don’t, I don’t see how feeding 95% of the people who don’t sell houses will help sell a house. If you want to close, focus on other closers. Focus on the house. Maybe serve a few drinks to loosen them up.

We recently had a listing in the brokers’ caravan for a penthouse in downtown L.A. The area was a dead part of the city for a while, but now has exploded with luxury real estate, and a lot of old movie theater marquees from the original LA Broadway exist now as storefronts, giving the area a very old New York vibe. The place we were showing had three glass walls with views towards Santa Monica. We had an elegant violinist and served martinis and canapés. It was swanky, elegant, old school, refined. The refreshments were inexpensive, right for the property, and crumb-less.

Just like an over-produced video, an over-produced buyers caravan can hijack the focus from the house. Find an appropriate entertaining idea for the property. I wouldn’t serve those same martinis at an open house for a Spanish-style ranch in the Valley. I’d go with a single Spanish acoustic guitarist, Rioja wine, with charcuterie and cheese. Subtle. Simple. Clever. Don’t overproduce it. It’s just not worth it, and I’ll tell you why.

We represented a fantastic house and wanted to give it a power-launch. Through connections, we partnered with Rolls-Royce for an event. They parked their newest cars in the driveway and underwrote the party. Million Dollar Listing LA covered the opening and the camera loved those cars, giving Rolls-Royce a good bang for their marketing buck.

What happened with the listing? Nothing. For real, nothing happened. Not one buyer or their agent came back because of that opening. I still have agents come to me all the time and say, “let’s do an open with Rolls-Royce for my $2.9 million listing.” My answer? “Hell no! The car is worth more than the house.” That party was great reality television but bad business. We’ll never do it again.

What About Neighbor(hood)s?

I’ve talked a lot about neighborhoods in the Part I, so by this point you’ve done the research, right, checked the biggest players in internet real estate listings – Zillow, Trulia, Redfin – and made a cheat sheet in case someone throws a question your way. Beyond selling the neighborhood, consider what other details will affect hosting an event that will bring a crowd. How’s the parking? How’s the street activity? Consider the neighbors. Nothing dampens an open house like the guy from across the street cursing you out in the driveway or the kids next door hitting a baseball through the window. Is the area safe? Is the street gated, restricting your guests? Is local law enforcement or security aware you’ll be drawing a crowd?

After discussing all angles with your client, circle the block at the time you plan on hosting your open house before you even schedule the event. Look for any potential issues that could throw off your open house. You wouldn’t believe how others may act when they feel annoyed or territorial when strangers invade the neighborhood. Get ahead of this by mere acknowledgement. Knock on the adjacent doors, introduce yourself, explain the scenario, and make sure all are at ease. You may even land a new client.

Sell Strong Points and Knowledge

Let me beat you over the head with this piece of advice of Part I: Sell, don’t tour.

Anyone can point to a bathroom and say, “Here’s the bathroom. Isn’t it nice and big?” Come on. How about: “This bath has double sink vanities, state-of-the-art rainfall shower, granite tiles, tons of storage, and a soaker tub. You won’t find a bathroom like this one for 30 blocks in every direction. It’s killer. I wish I had a bathroom like this.”

You have to sell, sell, sell. To do that, you have to love what you’re selling. The passion needs to show on your face and in your voice. Believe it or they won’t believe you. People need to get excited. You need to hook them. You need to wow them. You need to close. You can do this at an open house or later, at a private showing.

So many mediocre agents dismiss the importance of guiding the walk through, but it’s as important as the house itself. If you don’t accentuate the strengths of the homes you sell, and paint the picture of what it’s like to live in them, potential buyers may not see the vision on their own. If this is a weakness for you, then work on it until you get it right. Rehearse it. Create a script for yourself if you need to. Punch up the selling points. Punch up the passion. There’s no other option. Adjust, adapt, and overcome. Open. Work. Close. Sell.

Get enthusiastic. If you can’t legitimately find something special in the house that warrants getting excited, get creative. Stage it even. Almost every house, every room, has something to accentuate in sales. It’s your job to find it and “frame it” for the consumer. It’s a pitch, a nudge – a positive way to view the real estate, to sell. Make comparisons to other houses for sale in the neighborhood. You know buyers have probably walked through them if they’re in the middle of a serious house hunt.

Focus on the house as a whole – the architecture, the design, and the history. These details are important to people, as if by knowing a home’s history they will own a piece of that too. Use this. You need to be able to talk knowledgably about all styles of architecture in and out of the neighborhoods you are selling.

Most regions of the United States are characterized by particular styles, and when you sell houses, it’s a great point of reference for you and your clients. Matt and I have made modern residential house design a specialty of ours because we love it, and modern is a major style on the West Coast.

The Stahl House, for instance, designed by the renowned architect Pierre Koenig, is an extraordinary midcentury modern built on a sliver of a Hollywood hill in 1959. All concrete and glass, it pulls views from the Griffin Observatory to the Pacific right into the living room. This house is a point of reference for any passionate modernist out here. After studying this iconic structure, we actually got the chance to sell Koenig’s personal home – and we did so for a profit.

Every state has famous houses and architects, and the more you understand the culture behind the design, the more you inform them, the more you impress them, and sell.

Try drawing a comparison between your listing and a famous architectural design. For example, if you live in New England and are the listing agent for a spectacular modern home rising over the potato fields of Connecticut, you might want to invoke Phillip Johnson’s Glass House in New Canaan.

If you are in the Midwest, the Prairie-style as defined by Frank Lloyd Wright is a good touchstone. Dallas can’t get enough “Tuscan.” Colonials are beloved all over the country. While one may claim that one-story homes speak to the huge number of baby boomers hitting retirement, if you’re in Arizona, the single story is “cool” due to a hot climate that requires low-cost air-conditioning.

Your business is houses. Be an expert on houses. People trust experts. Do you spend millions of dollars with amateurs or with experts?