Generating real estate seller leads is the life-blood of any real estate business. Agents have traditionally generated leads through various ways, like using real estate SEO to target home buyers online.
But another proven real estate lead generation strategy is to have housewarming parties. Activities and/or apartment warming parties can draw sellers right to you and is a great way to meet the local homeowners.
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Here’s how it works:
- You help your buyers buy an amazing home.
- Once they move in, you throw a housewarming celebration for them.
- Ask them to invite their new neighbors.
- YOU send out the invitations.
- Show up early wearing a smile and your name badge!
Once the neighbors begin asking you about home values in the neighborhood, that’s your opportunity to give them your realtor business card.
Tell them the housewarming celebration is about the new homeowners and you’d like to keep business out of it, but you’d be happy to real estate follow up with them after the party and get their contact information. Also remember to take in counts you lead conversion rate to measure your marketing strategies.
Learn how to get seller leads with our home valuation landing pages
Don’t forget to mention your Home Value Leads website with a complimentary property valuation. However, let’s start off this article with some great party ideas.
Housewarming Party Ideas
The terrific thing about a housewarming party is how many reunion ideas it inspires. You can showcase the backyard with a fun barbeque or have an elegant dinner party. It can be a casual walk-through with open times, or something entirely different.
The structure of the celebration will inform what kind of entertainment to have. If it’s casual, soft music humming away in the background may be enough.
Another cool get-together idea they advise is to plan your entertainment based on the structure of the gathering.
If it’s more casual, some background music for people to mingle to may suffice (though you may want to put out a few lawn or card games for any kids who will be there).
A few game tips: bring out the card or lawn games for any attending kids, or have fun board and celebration games for dinner parties.
Your ideas will also be shaped by your budget, which dictates your guest list too. The more guests you have, the higher the costs. You can choose to invite the entire neighborhood or cast your net out wider to reel in potential get the best real estate leads.
As we can see, it’s really important that you plan every detail. Focus on the fundamentals which are food, fun, and refreshments.
Throw in some attractive flower arrangements from the likes of pickupflowers.com, and you’re good to go.
Fleshing out your party ideas will help you stay calm throughout the planning process. Evite’s tips are another great resource for more ideas!
Housewarming Party Themes
Having a cool theme is the bedrock of any party, for excellent celebration theme ideas such as gatsby, casino, and western themes. The theme does not have to be complicated.
Every home has character. Think about the kind of gathering you’d want to have and how it would complement the new home.
A garden get-together for a yard that has lots of foliage, or a dinner party that has an elegant and spacious kitchen as its backdrop.
Party.lovetoknow.com breaks down reunion theme ideas into categories. They distinguish block parties from open house parties, and offer an array of creative food, decorating, and invitation gathering theme ideas.
From tropical to seasonal and succulent themes, there’s so much to work with and keep you inspired.
Your theme should ideally be reflected in the invitations you send out, which brings us to the next topic.
Housewarming Party Invitations
Throwing a celebration means sending out invitations. So you need really good party invitations tips. Before escrow closes, let your buyers know you will be hosting a house get-together for them. Generate excitement. Inform them that it will be about a month after escrow closes, in order for them to get moved in and unpacked.
On the day of escrow closing, schedule the house warming celebration 30 days later. Put it on your calendar. Follow up with your buyers every week, since they will be busy moving and they may forget. Here are some realtor marketing ideas that you can implement during holidays.
Another clever celebration invitations tip is to get their mailing list of friends, family, co-workers, and new neighbors. It’s important that YOU be in control of the mailing. Send out nice invitations to the reunion along with an RSVP so people can contact you. Now your name is in front of a whole new sphere of influence!
Order custom return address labels for your new homeowners and put them on the envelopes. Seeing their new address will create enthusiasm among their friends, who will show up to the house celebration.
Brandongaille.com gives party invitation tips on creative and persuasive wording to use. Greenvelope.com goes as far as to detail 10 get-together invitation ideas, from cheese board themes to farmhouse chic inspired cards.
You could also think outside the square and door-knock to invite people to the event. As with any real estate agent marketing process, there are best practices associated with door knocking that you should be aware of.
With respect to the actual cards themselves, let’s now consider some specific celebration invitations tips.
Housewarming Invitation Cards
There are so many invitation card tips out there, you’ll be spoilt for choice. You can get lots of invitation ideas online.
Likewise, Home Value Leads provides a useful list of style-related invitation card tips. Here’s a snapshot of this list:
- Minimalism – This style allows you to effectively convey your message with minimum design elements.
- Typography – Eye-catching layouts and fonts can be used in your invitations.
- Abstract – Play around with random objects and patterns to attract the attention of your invitees.
- Retro – Bringing to life the Victorian era and the Industrial Revolution may be the magnet that brings people to your party.
- 3-Dimensional – 3D designs are very trendy, you can use them to show a life-like reflection of the home.
You can find further invitation card tips on their website relating to colors, hues, and layout design.
Housewarming Decorations
When throwing a house party, ask the new homeowners to think of decoration ideas to make the home inviting. Let’s now consider a few decoration tips from industry experts.
- Homedit.com suggests awesome DIY activities if you’re on a tight budget. This includes adorning the porch with simple garlands, modest hanging streams for the ceilings, and using colorful frozen water balloons as your ‘ice’ for the drink bucket.
- According to givingassistant.org, if you’re looking for uniqueness, simplicity, and great-looking decorations, their decoration tips will work a charm. The Planter Pot Tray Caddy, Mason Jar Hanging Wall Lights, and Wall Art Decals are just to name a few.
- When preparing food for any party, Theunlikelyhostess.com advises you to include at least one thing that is: fresh, filling, sweet, and quenching. ‘Help yourself’ drink stations and bite-sized nibbles are also highly recommended.
As you can see, there are so many decoration tips you can implement to add that extra flair and oomph to your housewarming do.
Housewarming Games
So far we’ve talked about party themes, invitation cards, and decorations. Now for some real fun; bring on the games! If you’re after game ideas and game tips, you’re in the right place.
Playpartyplan.com has a list of 10 fun ideas on their website. Some of these include:
- Room Memory
- Home Trivia
- Pick A Key. Any Key
- Trivia Scavenger Hunt
A few additional game tips recommended by thespruce.com include House Style Crossword, Unscramble Our House, and Famous House Match.
Lovetoknow.com also provide creative game ideas for the planning stage of your games. They suggest the following factors to keep in mind:
- Whether you’ll be playing games outside or inside the home.
- How well your guests are familiar with each other.
- The number of guests that will be in attendance.
- The age of your invitees.
The game tips above are a great starting point for you and the host homeowners to implement.
Housewarming Food Ideas
Your gathering won’t be a gathering without party food, and there are lots of get-together food ideas that you can find online. Tasteofhome.com recommends light desserts, finger foods, and fun cocktails to spruce up your event.
Givingassistant.org lays out really cool food ideas, along with links on where you can purchase the list of celebration food products on Amazon. Have you heard of a wooden taco holder? Well, that’s just one of the nifty products sure to add some pizzaz to your event.
Then there’s ibelieveicanfry.com who offers party food ideas and a complete guide to party etiquette for the host, such as:
- When to serve beer, wine, or mixed drinks
- How and when to send out the invitations
- Sending out personalized thank you notes after the event
Also, bhgre.com lists 5 food ideas to thrill your guests’ taste buds, which go a long way to making the party a success.
- Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad
- Loaded Deviled Eggs
- Slow Cooker Spinach and Artichoke Dip
- Flatbread with Goat Cheese and Caramelized Onions
- Caprese Salad Skewers
As tantalizing as the above food ideas are, you won’t be doing any serving up if you have a virtual event though. Nonetheless, let’s now have a look at how virtual house parties can still be a roaring success.
Virtual Housewarming Party
Also, there are plenty of virtual get-together ideas to help get you going, so you never have to run out of inspiration.
No doubt, a traditionally home staged residence will sell faster. However, making use of virtual ideas using real estate virtual staging might be worth it, especially in light of the current social distancing climate.
Virtual housewarming parties cost less, there’s no risk of property damage, and they give you creative freedom. In fact, to make things extra exciting, Jb Moving suggests your gathering should have a theme.
Simplysweethome.com recommends that the first step is to choose the right video streaming platform. They mention a number of options such as Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube.
Use real estate drone photography to record and capture the virtual staging. Also, go with the platform that you’re most comfortable navigating. Decide how you’ll guide them through the home by planning a virtual tour of the rooms.
Remember though, your invitations should not be virtual. Physical invitations are more memorable. Another virtual housewarming gathering idea is to build up a bit of hype around your celebration.
So there you go! You now have everything you need for throwing a get-together that will be sure to thrill your guests. Keep these tips handy for when you need fun celebration ideas.
Your event will serve as a wonderful ‘get to know your customers’ day’, where you can also generate seller leads, and ultimately draw them into your online funnel. You should then use Home Value Leads Facebook marketing to increase lead generation even more and see your lead generation catapult.
