Estate agents: booking open-house viewings with places

Instead of a two-hour open house where everyone arrives at once, split the time into short blocks, for example fifteen or twenty minutes, and give each block a few places. Buyers or tenants book a block online, arrivals spread evenly across the session, and you know exactly who is coming and when. Create one service per property, so the property name and address details sit in the service, and ask in the booking note for what you need to qualify each visitor.

An unbooked open house can mean a queue on the landing for the first half hour and an empty flat for the rest. Visitors who wait leave, those who get in can't ask questions, and you finish without names or contact details for half of them. Booked blocks keep the flow steady and give you a list of every visitor before the door opens.

On Book, each service has a name, a price and an optional description shown on your public page, and each slot belongs to one service, sits within one day and has its own capacity. For an open house, create a service named after the property, then open consecutive short slots across the session, each with the number of places you can show at once.

Lengths and places are examples: set your own. Smaller flats suit fewer places per block; a large house with a garden can take more.

Count how many visitors, or couples, you can greet, show round and answer at the same time without anyone feeling rushed. If a colleague helps, you can raise it. When a block is full, it disappears from your page, so later visitors pick a free block instead of turning up to a crowd. Your page doesn't show how many places are left, so the session stays calm without signalling demand either way.

The booking form takes first name, last name, email and phone, plus an optional note that reaches you in the new booking email and appears in the visitor's calendar file. Ask in the description for:

Don't ask for income figures or documents in the note; collect those later through your usual secure process.

If one session fills up, open a second on another day rather than adding places to each block. A weekday evening session and a Saturday morning session reach people with different working hours. Say in the service description which sessions are planned, and remove the remaining slots once an offer is accepted or the property is let.

Check your bookings list before you leave the office and print or save the visitor list per block. On arrival, greet each block together, give a short tour, then leave time for questions in the last minutes before the next block. Your bookings sync with Google, iPhone or Mac calendars, so the session sits in your diary alongside your other appointments.

Visitors can't move or cancel online: they contact you, and you move them to another block or another session from your bookings list, then confirm it yourself, since Book doesn't email clients about changes. Rescheduling works across services, so a visitor who misses the open house can be moved to a private viewing slot.

You now have every visitor's name, and their email or phone if they gave one. Call or write to each the same day: ask for feedback, invite offers or applications, and offer a second viewing to the serious ones. Book a second viewing yourself from your calendar; first and last name are required, email and phone optional, and the visitor receives a confirmation with a calendar file if you enter their email. For the vendor or landlord, the list gives an honest count of visitors and their feedback. Book costs €5/month, everything included: unlimited services and bookings, no commission, no contract.