Sourced and dated · Not legal advice
Open house rules, state by state
The questions that come up at the door and almost never have a clear answer online: who you have to tell what, before a visitor signs anything, and what you are allowed to do with their phone number afterwards. One page per state, every claim quoted from a primary source with the date it was checked.
Written by working agents who host open houses, then checked against the state sources themselves. Read it alongside your broker, not instead of them.
Pick your state
Where we have done the reading
Only states we could source appear here. A state missing from this list is one we have not finished, not one with no rules.
What a state page covers
Four questions, per state
Any of the four we cannot source is left off that state page rather than guessed at.
Agency disclosure at the door
Whether a visitor walking into an open house has to be told who you represent, when that has to happen, and whether anything has to be in writing.
Consent before you text a lead
What a sign-in sheet has to say before that phone number becomes a text message, and which rules are federal rather than state.
Open house rules after the NAR settlement
What changed for the agent hosting the open house, and what did not, once written buyer agreements entered the picture.
What you may do with visitor data
Whose information it is once it is on your list, how long you may keep it, and what a visitor can ask you to do with it.
Straight answer
How these pages are built
Every claim on a state page carries a link to a primary source and a short quote from that source, in its own words. If a claim cannot be quoted, it does not go on the page. We do not build a citation from memory, we do not infer one state rule from a neighboring state, and we do not repair a citation that will not resolve. We drop the claim.
Each claim also shows the date a person last opened that link and confirmed the quote still says what it says. An old date is information too, which is why it is printed rather than hidden.
This is not legal advice
We are software people, not lawyers. These pages are a plain reading of public sources, gathered so you can go read them yourself. Rules change, and how any rule applies to your situation is a question for your broker, your association, or an attorney licensed in your state.
Spotted something wrong, or something that changed? support@openhouseconsole.com. We will fix it or take the page down.
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