Send Out a Halloween Themed Email That Discusses Curb Appeal

The email could be titled “Keep Your Home From Looking Like A Haunted House to Potential Buyers”.

Remind clients to look at the outside of their home from the perspective of a potential buyer.

• Is the paint chipping or faded?

• Are the windows clean and their frames in good repair?

• Is the lawn mowed? Are the shrubs, flowers, and trees healthy-looking?

• Are the sidewalks and driveways in good shape?

Host a Home Decorating Contest on Your Website

Ask your clients to post photos of their decorated homes to your website. Award prizes for the best decorated homes.

Ideas for prizes include:

• Gift certificates to local restaurants, movie theaters, video stores, or shopping centers

• Gift certificates for free chimney cleaning or furnace check

• Coupon for free home market analysis

• Coupon for free smoke and/or CO2 detectors

• Halloween gift baskets



The Housing Market Doesn't Have to be Scary!

Real estate agents love to send out postcards, and homeowners love to be remembered, that’s why your clients will appreciate a helpful postcard for Halloween.  One way to grab their attention is by sending a Halloween themed postcard with a cute greeting such as, “The Housing Market Doesn’t Have to be Scary” along with your information. On the other side of the postcard, you can include tips for safe trick-or-treating on Halloween. As a parent, or adult, who will be handing out candy, it’s always good to have a thoughtful reminder of safety tips.  Usually these postcards will end up on refrigerators, and after Halloween, they can just be turned around leaving your information visible year-round!

Keep Trick-or-Treaters Safe This Halloween

Send an email to your clients with tips on how to keep their kids safe while trick-or-treating.  Some suggestions include:

• Never trick-or-treat alone
• Never enter a stranger’s house
• Wear a light-colored costume or put reflective tape on a costume so the child is visible to cars
• Never run across the middle of a street – stay on the sidewalks and cross at crosswalks only
• Make sure children can see clearly if they are wearing a mask
• Don’t eat any goodies until you have inspected them
• Take a flashlight
• For older kids who are going with a group of friends – find out where they are going, with whom, and when they will return

 

Treat Your Neighbors to a Free Service

Give the kids and parents in your neighborhood free treats.  Assemble treat bags for the kids and insert, or attach, a coupon for the parents for a free market analysis on their home.  Be sure to include your name, company, email, phone number, fax number, and website address.

Remind Clients to Winterize Their Homes

Send a postcard to clients with a checklist of things they need to do to get their homes ready for winter.  Include items such as:

• Clean your firplace and wood stove chimneys
• Make sure smoke and CO2 detectors are working
• Schedule a furnace inspection
• Clean and cover outside condenser of a/c unit
• Insulate exposed water pipes and turn off outside faucets
• Insulate your hot water tank with an insulating blanket
• Check and replace weather stripping and caulking around doors and windows
• Check the roof for missing shingles and tiles
• Clean gutters of fallen leaves and other debris

 

Everyone's a Winner!

Hand-deliver pumpkins to your past and current clients - one pumpkin per child in each household.  Have the children carve their pumpkins and email pictures to you.  Pin the pictures to a wall near the entrance so that visitors, office staff, and other agents can enjoy them.  I suggest that you don’t have winners and losers.  They are all winners!  Send everyone who sent you a picture, a gift certificate for a kid’s meal at a local restaurant.  The children will have fun, and parents will remember you for making their kids feel special!

Host a Costume Contest on Your Website

Send an email to clients inviting them to post pictures of themselves, their children, or even their pets in their Halloween costumes to your website. Award prizes for the best costume(s).

Ideas for prizes include:

• Gift certificates to local restaurants, movie theaters, video stores, or shopping centers
• Gift certificates for a free chimney cleaning or furnace check
• Coupon for a free home market analysis
• Coupon for a free smoke and/or CO2 detector
• Halloween gift baskets

You can have one or several categories for costumes: 

• Best children’s costume
• Best pet costume
• Scariest costume
• Cutest costume
• Most original costume

Thank Your Homebuyers with a Bulb Basket

What better way to welcome your clients into their new home than with a nice bulb basket.  A large basket would contain some gardening hand tools, a knee board, some gloves and, of course, large bulbs.  Your clients can plant those bulbs in their new home this fall and enjoy the benefits come spring with a splash of color! 

Be creative and have fun! Your clients will appreciate the thoughtful gesture!

Host a Halloween Home Buying Seminar

Host a Halloween-themed home buying seminar at your office or local community center. Put an ad in the local paper inviting the public to the seminar.  Invite someone from a local lending institution to speak about financing.  Hand out brochures with pictures and descriptions of your listings. Serve cider and donuts. Give out Halloween treat bags with your business cards and the lending institution representative’s business cards in them or buy gift bags with your business information already printed on them.

 

Some ideas for the Halloween treat bags include:

 

• Disposable cameras for clients to use to capture their Halloween memories 
• Halloween or fall themed stationary
• Halloween picture frames
• Pen and pencils with your business information on them
• Halloween or fall candles (choose scents like pumpkin and apple)
• Halloween key chains with your business information on them

 

Keep Halloween Alive

In most neighborhoods, a carved pumpkin is an invitation to ring the doorbell!  What better way to keep the spirit of Halloween alive than to deliver a pumpkin and a door hanger to your clients door!  One side of the hanger could have tips on carving their pumpkin, while the other side could have an amusing message with your name and contact info.  What a thoughtful and “ghoulightful” idea!

Send out a Halloween Themed Flyer about the First Steps to Buying a Home

What is the first thing you should do in the home buying process?  

• Conduct research! Use the Internet and local library as resources to find out what you need to know about buying a home. Learn real estate and mortgage terminology.
• Set a budget.
• Get pre-approved for a mortgage.

Remind buyers that an agent can help them with any step in the home buying process.

 

Helping Clients Navigate the "Spooky" Waters of Home Financing

In these tough economic times, clients can be worried about being able to obtain financing for their new home purchase.  To ease their fears consider sending Halloween themed flyers showing them how to “Navigate the Spooky Waters of Home Financing”.  The flyers could contain a checklist of the things your clients can do to obtain the best possible financing for their new home purchase.  Some things to include are: check credit reports from all 3 reporting agencies, resolve any discrepancies on the reports, and pay off any small debts if possible.

Make sure you include your business card as well as cards from loan originators that you have worked with.  Assure your clients that financing a new home is not out of reach.