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The open house rarely sells the house. It harvests the buyers.
Six sign-ins, an 8% lead-to-client rate, a 50% closing rate, and a $9,000 average side make one open house worth $2,160 in expected commission — $540 an hour against $150 of signs and refreshments. This calculator runs your own funnel numbers so you can decide which listings deserve your Sunday.
Agents use it to budget Sundays: 6 sign-ins at an 8% funnel is $2,160 of expected commission — $540/hr against $150 of signs, if the sign-in sheet actually gets signed.
Rarely — industry surveys consistently attribute only a low-single-digit share of sales directly to open houses, and serious buyers almost always arrive with an agent. The real product is the sign-in sheet: unrepresented buyers walking in are the highest-intent leads an agent can meet face-to-face, and the expected-value math is where the open house justifies itself. At 6 captured leads, 8% conversion, and a $9,000 average side, each open house carries about $2,160 of EV — roughly $540 per hour, which beats almost every other prospecting activity on a per-hour basis. Agents who skip the sign-in sheet or let visitors wander unregistered get the foot traffic without the asset.
The math is unforgiving: EV scales linearly with captured leads, so doubling capture doubles the value of the same afternoon. Digital sign-in on a tablet at the door (with a genuine reason — listing disclosures, the full photo set, or a neighborhood report sent by email) outperforms paper sheets, which invite fake names. The highest-converting move is requiring registration for the follow-up item: "I'll send you the comparable sales for this street" converts far better than "please sign in." Door-adjacent placement matters — greet, register, then release. Expect 60–80% capture with a system versus 20–30% with a clipboard by the snacks.
When the EV/hour falls below your next-best prospecting alternative. Low-traffic neighborhoods, price ranges dominated by represented buyers (luxury), and listings with poor showing windows all crush the leads input. Run the break-even: at a $9,000 side and 8%/50% funnel, you need only 0.4 leads to cover the $150 cash cost — but the hours are the real expense. If your database prospecting returns $200/hour of EV and a weak-location open house returns $150/hour, skip it and work the phones. Also count the seller-relationship value: an open house that impresses the listing client generates referrals that never touch this calculator — some agents price that in by bumping the lead count by 1–2 "seller-pleasing" credits.