What goes on an open house flyer? It depends who holds it

Open house is Sunday. On Wednesday night you build the flyer: exterior photo, price, beds and baths, OPEN HOUSE SUNDAY 1–3 across the top. You print a stack. Some go on the neighbors' doors on Thursday. The rest sit on the kitchen island for Sunday's visitors to carry out.

One sheet, two jobs. It does one of them badly.

The neighbor on Thursday needs to know when and where, and needs to read it standing on the step. The visitor on Sunday already knows when and where. They're standing in the kitchen. What they need is a way to remember this house on Wednesday, when they're sorting the four they saw. Put the same headline on both and one reader gets the wrong page.

What should an open house flyer include?

An open house invite flyer should include, from biggest to smallest:

1. The words "open house" with the day, date and time, readable at arm's length.

2. The street address, just as large.

3. One photo of the front of the house, so people know which house it is.

4. One line on why the house is worth twenty minutes of a Sunday.

5. The price.

6. A QR code to the listing, and your name, phone number and brokerage.

The flyer visitors take home at the open house is a different sheet. It leads with the house, not the date.

What is a real estate open house flyer?

A real estate open house flyer is a printed sheet that promotes one open house, and in practice there are two of them. The invite goes out before the day and sells the event. The take-home leaves with visitors and sells the house.

Count every piece of paper one open house produces and there are four, each with a different reader and a different biggest line:

The paper one open house produces, by who reads it

Sheet	Who reads it	When and where	Biggest thing on the page
Invite flyer	Neighbors, people passing a notice board, your buyer list	The days before, on a doorstep or a wall	Open house, the day, the time, the street
Open house sheet	Visitors in the kitchen	On the day, standing at the island	The price
Take-home flyer	Visitors, and whoever they show it to later	After, on a kitchen counter at home	The one thing that makes this house memorable
Brokers open house flyer	Other real estate agents in your market	The days before, in their inbox or office	The day, the time window and what you're asking of them

For a public open house, that comes down to two things to print. The invite goes out in the days before. On Sunday, visitors get the take-home, and the copy you stand on the island can be the same take-home set in larger type, as the one-pager post shows. The brokers flyer is only for a brokers open house.

The take-home has its own standard, the fridge test: will it survive a week on a kitchen counter? In short, it carries:

One large photo of the thing that makes the house memorable.
One line that says what that thing is.
The price and the address, smaller.
Three or four facts the photos don't show, like the roof's age or the HOA fee.
A QR code to something they haven't seen yet, and your name, phone number and brokerage.

The rest of this post is about the flyers that get people to the door.

A look from theater programs

A theater prints two things for the same night. The poster outside sells the date, the time and the venue to people walking past who haven't decided to come. The program handed over at the door assumes you're already in your seat, so it's all about the show. Your invite is the poster and your take-home is the program.

What goes on an open house invite flyer?

The day, the time and the street go at the top, bigger than anything else on the page. Under them come one photo, one reason to come, the price, a QR code, and your name and firm, each a little smaller than the last.

The test is the doorstep. A neighbor finds the invite in the door handle and reads it standing on the step, keys in the other hand. Hold your proof at arm's length. If you can't read the day, the time and the street without bringing the page closer, the type is too small. It's the same idea as the two-pace test for the sheet on the island, at a different distance.

What earns its place on an open house invite flyer

Include

Open house, with the day, date and time'Sunday, November 15, 1–3 pm', not 'this Sunday'. An invite gets read days before the open house, and sometimes after you meant it to be.
The street address, as large as the dateThe neighbor knows the street. The address tells everyone else where to go.
One photo: the front of the houseThe photo tells people which house it is. The kitchen can wait for Sunday.
One reason to comeThe fenced backyard, the walk to the park, the third bedroom that's actually a bedroom. One line.
The priceLeave it off and every reader has to guess whether the house is for them.
A QR code to the listingFor the reader who wants the photos now rather than on Sunday.
Your name, phone number and brokerageAt the bottom, readable. The brokerage name isn't optional (see below).

Skip

Beds, baths and square footage as the headlineThey matter, but they don't tell a reader when to come. Put them in one small line under the photo.
A grid of six photosOn a doorstep, six thumbnails read as clutter. One photo at size reads as a house.
'Thinking of selling?' on the neighbor versionThe neighbor invite asks a favor. Turn it into a listing pitch and the street feels prospected, and those are the neighbors you'll want on your side for the next listing on it.

Two of those lines carry rules. The QR code needs room, so leave white space around it. DENSO WAVE, which created the QR code, says a code needs a blank margin on every side at least four of its own small squares wide DENSO WAVE, so don't crowd it against a photo or the edge of the page. Point it at the listing page, or at a short listing video made from the listing photos if you have one. Someone who scans from the doorstep wants to see inside, and a video can show more rooms than an invite has space for.

The brokerage name is the other. If you're a REALTOR®, the Code of Ethics says you can't advertise a listed property without disclosing your firm's name "in a reasonable and readily apparent manner" NAR Code of Ethics, Standard of Practice 12-5. On an invite that means the firm name in type someone can find, not a logo shrunk into a corner. Your state's license law and your brokerage may ask for more.

How do you word an open house invitation?

Say what it is, when, where, and why it's worth twenty minutes, in that order. For neighbors, add one line that asks them to pass it on.

Neighbors are easy to skip, and they can be the ones who know who wants to move onto the street. The invite works when it asks them for that person, not for their own house. Three versions for one illustrative listing (the address and details are invented):

Neighbor's door: "You're invited to an early look at 18 Alder Lane, open Sunday, November 15, 1–3 pm. If you know someone who's been hoping for a house on this street, bring them along or pass this on."
Café or library notice board: "Open house Sunday 1–3 pm. 18 Alder Lane. Three bedrooms, two baths, fenced backyard, two-car garage. $489,000. Scan for photos."
Text or email to your buyer list: "18 Alder Lane opens Sunday from 1 to 3. It's the fenced-yard three-bedroom we talked about. Listing and photos here."

Each version keeps the same facts in the same order. Only the reason to read changes.

Write about the house and the event, never about the kind of person you hope walks in. The Fair Housing Act makes it unlawful to publish an advertisement for the sale of a home that indicates a preference based on familial status, among other protected classes 42 U.S.C. §3604(c). So "perfect for a young family" is out, and "three bedrooms and a fenced yard" gives a reader the same information. The rules table in the one-pager post covers the other two lines on printed listing material that carry a published rule.

Stuck on the flyer's one-line description?

The reason-to-come line is the hardest part of the invite to write. Give the listing description generator a few of the home's features and it writes three versions. Pick the best sentence, cut it to one line, and check it against the listing before you print. No account needed.

Open house flyer examples and ideas, by who's holding it

Below are four flyers for one illustrative listing. The facts don't change from one to the next. What's biggest on the page does, because each one has a different reader.

1. The invite

Illustrative mockup: the house, listing and agent aren't real.

2. The take-home

Same listing, a different biggest line.

3. The notice-board poster

Ask before you pin it up, and take it down after.

4. The brokers open house flyer

Facts another agent can repeat, no lifestyle copy.

The test that tells them apart takes a second. Pick up the sheet visitors carry out on Sunday. If the date and time are still the biggest words on it, you printed the invite twice.

Three ideas that make the set work harder:

Give each flyer its own QR destination. The invite's code opens the listing page. The take-home's code opens something they haven't seen yet, such as the full photo set, the floor plan or a short follow-up form, because that reader has already walked through the house.
Ask the sellers for two lines for the neighbor invite. A line like "We've grown tomatoes in this yard for twelve summers" lands differently on the street than anything you'd write. Check it against the fair housing rule above before it goes on the page.
Build all four from one layout. Same fonts, same photo, same color. Change the hierarchy, not the design, so the set looks like it came from one agent.

What goes on a brokers open house flyer?

A brokers open house flyer invites other real estate agents, so it leads with the day, the time window and what you want from them. Agents don't need persuading that the house exists. They need a reason to give you an hour on a weekday and a clear ask once they're there.

What earns its place on a brokers open house flyer

Include

Brokers open house, the day and the time windowBiggest on the page, same as the public invite.
Food or coffee, if there is anyOne line. It's part of the invitation, so say it plainly.
The askWalk it and leave a price opinion or feedback. A QR code to a three-question form saves you typing up a stack of comment cards afterward.
Three facts their buyers will ask aboutRoof age, HOA fee, school district by name. The things another agent needs to pitch the house in one breath.
Access and parkingWhere to park, which door, whether the sellers' dog is home.
Your name, phone number and brokerageThe same firm-name rule as the public invite.

Skip

Lifestyle copyOther agents read past 'entertainer's dream'. Give them facts they can repeat.
The full photo setLink it. They'll see the house in person.

Where should open house flyers go, and when?

Neighbors get the invite by hand about three days before, close enough to remember it and early enough to tell a friend. Notice boards and your buyer list get it as soon as the date is set. Visitors get the take-home on the day. And neither flyer goes in anyone's mailbox.

That last rule comes from federal law, which fines anyone who knowingly and willfully puts unstamped "circulars, sale bills, or other like matter" in a mailbox to avoid paying postage 18 U.S.C. §1725. So hand-delivered invites go in the door handle, under the mat, or into the neighbor's hand, never in the box. If you want every door on the route rather than the ones you can walk to, USPS Every Door Direct Mail delivers to every address on the routes you pick, addressed to "Postal Customer", with no mailing permit. At the time of writing it costs $0.26 a piece at retail, with a minimum of 200 pieces per ZIP Code per day USPS Every Door Direct Mail.

Where each open house flyer goes, and when

Where	When	Which flyer	Watch for
Neighbors' doors, by hand	About three days before	Invite, neighbor wording	Door handle or mat, never the mailbox
Every door on a route	Early enough to land before the weekend	Invite, board wording, 8.5×11	EDDM: 200 pieces minimum per ZIP Code per day
Notice boards	As soon as the date is set	Invite, board wording	Ask before you pin; take it down after
Your buyer list and social	Three to five days before, and a reminder the day before	A digital copy of the invite	Same day, time and street as the printed one
Other agents	When you set the brokers open house	Brokers open house flyer	The ask, not the lifestyle copy
The entry table	On the day	Take-home flyer	Not a second stack of invites

It's the same five-day run-up as open house marketing ideas, with neighbors three days out. For the social version of the invite, an open house promo video does the same job the flyer does on a doorstep.

Open houses haven't gone away. In NAR's 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, 59 percent of sellers who used an agent said the agent hosted an open house, 67 percent said the agent put up a yard sign, and 43 percent of buyers rated open houses very useful NAR, 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers.

What size should an open house flyer be?

Print the invite and the take-home on standard 8.5×11 paper. Use a half-sheet only for invites you'll hand-deliver yourself.

The reason is the mail. An 8.5×11 sheet is big enough for Every Door Direct Mail and a 5.5×8.5 half-sheet isn't: USPS only takes an EDDM retail piece that's more than 10-1/2 inches long or more than 6-1/8 inches high USPS Domestic Mail Manual 143. For a notice board, an 11×17 poster version reads from across a room.

Whatever the size, print the QR code bigger than feels necessary. DENSO WAVE recommends printing the code "as large as possible within the available printing area" DENSO WAVE, and a reader on a doorstep is scanning from further away than you are at your desk. Print one proof and scan it from arm's length with two different phones before you print the stack.

A checklist for your next open house flyer

Open last weekend's flyer. If the date is the biggest line, that's your invite. Make a second version for the take-home that leads with the house.
Hold the invite at arm's length. If you can't read the day, the time and the street, make them bigger.
Give each flyer its own QR destination: the listing page on the invite, something new on the take-home.
Hand-deliver the neighbor invites three days before, in the door handle, not the mailbox.

Frequently asked questions

Should I use an open house flyer template?

A template is a fine starting point and saves layout time, but know its limits. Many are built to look good on a screen at full zoom, so check that the type is still readable from a doorstep. The popular ones are popular, so your invite can look like every other open house invite in the neighborhood. And one template file tends to become both the invite and the take-home. If you use one, change the hierarchy before you change the colors: the day, time and street biggest on the invite, the house biggest on the take-home.

Can ChatGPT design a flyer?

Use it for the wording rather than the facts. Paste in the listing details, ask for a neighbor invite and a notice-board version, then check every line against the listing before you print. Whatever builds the layout, the hierarchy is your call: on the invite, the day, time and street are the biggest words on the page.

Do open house flyers still work?

They work as an invitation and a reminder, not as the thing that sells the house. The invite brings neighbors and passers-by to the door, and the take-home keeps the house in a buyer's mind after a day of viewings. Buyers still rate open houses as a useful part of their search, and the invite is how the street finds out one is happening.

How many open house flyers should I print?

There's no published figure worth relying on. Count the doors you'll walk to for invites, and the groups you expect on the day for take-homes, plus a margin. If you're mailing with Every Door Direct Mail, the minimum is 200 pieces per ZIP Code per day, so plan the print run around that.

Send every QR code scan to a listing video

Every flyer in this post carries a QR code, and that code needs somewhere worth sending people. Dunphy turns the listing photos you already have into a short listing video, so a neighbor who scans the invite on their doorstep sees inside the house.

Turn Your Photos Into a Listing Video →