Open house follow up text script: get consent at sign-in, then follow up twice

Text an open house visitor only if they ticked a consent box when they signed in. Send everyone a thank-you email about two hours after the visit, add a short text for those who opted in, then send one follow-up two days later and stop. Here are the scripts, the sign-in wording and the rules behind them. The steps work by hand, and at the end you'll find a tested automation that does it with Follow Up Boss.

The follow-up is where most open houses fall short. In a secret-shopper test of 100 listing inquiries and open-house visits, analyst Mike DelPrete found that about 42% of open-house attendees weren't asked for their contact information, and 62% of in-person shoppers got no follow-up at all (HousingWire, August 2024, trade press report of one analyst's small test, not a national survey).

Not legal advice. We build and test automations; we're not lawyers. Texting rules come from the federal TCPA, your state and your brokerage. Have your broker approve the consent wording and every script before you use them. Checked October 28, 2026.

Step 1: Put a consent box on the sign-in form

A visitor who writes a phone number on a sign-in sheet hasn't agreed to automated texts. The safer path is to ask, separately and clearly:

• Name, email and phone fields, as usual.
• A text consent checkbox that is unticked by default, with wording your broker approves. For example: "Yes, text me about this home and similar listings at the number above. Message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to opt out. Consent isn't required to tour the home."
• "Are you working with an agent?" with yes or no.
• A record of what they agreed to: the time, the property and the version of the wording.

Why this matters: for marketing texts sent with an autodialer, the FCC's rule requires "prior express written consent", meaning a signed written agreement that clearly authorizes those messages (47 CFR 64.1200(a)(2) and (f)(9), federal regulation). A ticked box on a form, recorded with the date, is how most agents document that. Whether your follow-up counts as marketing is a question for your broker. Our TCPA checklist for realtors goes deeper.

Everyone who signed in can still get email, so nobody falls through the cracks.

Step 2: Ask about agents before you pitch

If a visitor says they're working with another agent, don't send them your sales follow-up. The NAR Code of Ethics says that when buyers are under an exclusive agreement with another broker, dealings should go through that broker, and it asks REALTORS® to find out whether prospects are party to an exclusive representation agreement (NAR 2026 Code of Ethics, Standard of Practice 16-13, trade association code). Send them a courteous thank-you and a way for their agent to reach you, nothing more.

Step 3: The two-hour thank-you scripts

Send these about two hours after the sign-in, while the home is still on their mind.

Text (only for visitors who ticked consent):

Hi Ana, it's Jordan Lee with Example Realty Group. Thanks for visiting 214 Elm St, Austin TX today! Any questions, just reply. Reply STOP to opt out.

Email (everyone without an agent):

Hi Ana,

Thanks for coming to the open house at 214 Elm St, Austin TX. I'm Jordan Lee with Example Realty Group. If you have questions about the home, the neighborhood or what it might take to make an offer, just reply.

Want to see more homes like it? Pick a time: [your booking link]

Email (visitors who said they have an agent):

Hi Ben,

Thanks for visiting the open house at 214 Elm St, Austin TX today. Since you're working with an agent, I'll leave it to them. They can reach me for disclosures or questions at (512) 555-0100.

Every message names you and your brokerage. The NAR Code says recipients must know a communication comes from a real estate professional and that the firm name be disclosed in advertising (Article 12 and Standard of Practice 12-5). In Texas, TREC's advertising rule covers emails and texts, and requires the broker's name to appear in each ad; for texts, the information may be on a linked page (22 Tex. Admin. Code 535.155, state regulation). Other states have their own rules, so ask your broker. All names, the address and the phone number in these scripts are invented.

Step 4: Respect quiet hours

Don't text before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. in the visitor's local time. That's the federal window for telephone solicitations (47 CFR 64.1200(c)(1)), and some states are stricter. If someone signs in at 6:30 p.m., the 8:30 p.m. thank-you can go by email, and the text should wait until morning. If your state spans more than one time zone, wait for the later one.

Step 5: One follow-up two days later, then stop

Send one more message two days after the open house, at about 10 a.m., unless you've already talked to them.

Text (consent only):

Hi Eve, Jordan Lee (Example Realty Group) here. Any questions on 214 Elm St, Austin TX, or want a private showing? Reply STOP to opt out.

Email:

Hi Cy,

Following up on the open house at 214 Elm St, Austin TX. Happy to send the disclosures, comparable sales, or set up a private showing of this or similar homes. Just reply with what would help.

This is my last automatic follow-up.

After that, it's your call, not the automation's. Two touches is a deliberate cap: enough to be helpful without becoming a drip campaign the visitor never asked for.

Step 6: Honor opt-outs right away

Under the FCC's rule, people can revoke consent "by using any reasonable method". The words "stop," "quit," "end," "revoke," "opt out," "cancel" and "unsubscribe" count automatically, and you must honor the request within a reasonable time, no later than ten business days (47 CFR 64.1200(a)(10)). Keep one opt-out list that every tool checks. Someone who texts STOP may still get your email, unless they also ask you to stop emailing.

Doing it with Follow Up Boss and n8n

If you already use an open-house app or a CRM feature that follows up, start there. If you use Follow Up Boss, one detail matters: posting a "Visited Open House" event triggers Action Plans, but Follow Up Boss Automations only fire on Registration, Property Inquiry, Seller Inquiry and General Inquiry events (Follow Up Boss API: POST /events, vendor API documentation). That's why open-house visitors often get no automatic follow-up.

Our open house follow-up recipe fills that gap:

1. A tablet sign-in page (included) with the unticked consent box, an agent question and a hidden spam trap.
2. Each sign-in becomes a "Visited Open House" event, so the person is created or matched in Follow Up Boss, and your own action plan can pick them up.
3. The thank-you goes out at two hours (email to everyone, text only with consent), inside quiet hours.
4. One follow-up goes out two days later at 10 a.m., skipped if you've already been in touch, plus a call task for you.
5. The opt-out list is shared with our lead auto-reply recipe.

What it costs (illustrative arithmetic, not a measured result): four open houses a month with 15 sign-ins each is 60 thank-you emails and about 50 follow-ups, within Resend's free plan (Resend pricing, vendor page). If 20 visitors tick the consent box, that's about 40 texts and 10 replies, or 50 segments at Twilio's $0.0083 each (Twilio US SMS pricing, vendor page): $0.42 plus carrier fees. That's about $1 a month on top of Follow Up Boss (Grow is $69 per user per month, or $58 billed yearly, per its pricing page) and your n8n server.

What we tested, and what we didn't

The recipe was run end to end in n8n 2.45.4 against a local mock server, not live systems. The mock stands in for Follow Up Boss, Twilio, Google Sheets and the email sender, enforces Follow Up Boss's rate limit, and really checks the webhook signatures. Every visitor, agent, brokerage and address is invented, nothing went to a real phone or inbox, and the workflow uses no AI model.

The latest run (October 28, 2026) passed 6 of 6 scenarios:

• O1: four sign-ins became Follow Up Boss "Visited Open House" events; text consent was recorded only for the two visitors who ticked the box. Nothing was sent yet.
• O2: a spam-trap submission, a wrong form key, a sign-in for the wrong day and a double tap were all dropped.
• O3: nothing went out before two hours. At two hours, all four got a thank-you email, one got a text (consent, no agent), and the visitor with an agent got the agent-respectful note.
• O4: a 6:30 p.m. sign-in got its email at 8:30 p.m. The text was held overnight. Our test treats Texas as spanning Central and Mountain time, so the text waited until 9 a.m. Mountain and went out at 10:05 a.m. Central.
• O5: the two-day follow-up went out by email only to the visitor who had texted STOP, was skipped for the visitor the agent had already contacted, and nothing went to the visitor with an agent. Call tasks were added.
• O6: later runs sent nothing more (two touches maximum).

What we did not test: your real Follow Up Boss account, carrier delivery, A2P 10DLC approval, your state's rules or how visitors respond.

Related reading

• The real estate hub lists every recipe, with the TCPA, Do Not Call, advertising and Fair Housing notes.
• Speed to lead: an auto-reply for portal leads covers online inquiries, the other half of the DelPrete test.
• Is missed-call text back legal? explains texting someone who called you first.
• After the sale, the past-client anniversary recipe keeps in touch. During escrow, the lender and title status chase does the chasing.
• Browse all recipes or the blog, or suggest a recipe.

For the rules by trade in one place, see Can I text them? Texting consent rules for 5 small-business trades (not legal advice) and how we test our recipes.

Sources

All checked October 28, 2026.

1. HousingWire: almost half of listing inquiries don't receive a response (DelPrete test) (trade press report of an independent analyst's test)
2. 47 CFR 64.1200, TCPA rules: consent, quiet hours, revocation (federal regulation)
3. NAR 2026 Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice (trade association code)
4. 22 Tex. Admin. Code 535.155, TREC advertising rules (state regulation)
5. Follow Up Boss API: POST /events (vendor API documentation)
6. Follow Up Boss: pricing (vendor pricing page)
7. Twilio: US SMS pricing (vendor pricing page)
8. Resend: pricing (vendor pricing page)