Question 1

What has to be posted at your sign-in table?

Accepted Answer

New Jersey is one of the few states that writes the open house disclosure into the statute itself. At any residential showing that is generally open to the public you have to post a sign, either at the entrance or at the sign-in sheet, telling visitors that the brokerage firm hosting the open house represents the seller only and has no relationship with the prospective buyer. The section then sets out the exact words that sign has to carry, including a line warning visitors that anything they tell you is not confidential under New Jersey law and could be disclosed to the seller, and a line telling any visitor who is already exclusively represented to disclose that on the sign-in sheet. So print the statutory sign, put it where people actually stop to sign in, and add a field to your sign-in form asking whether the visitor already has a buyer's agent.

Question 2

Can you call a visitor after the open house?

Accepted Answer

New Jersey has its own telemarketing statute, and whether your follow up is regulated turns on whether it counts as an unsolicited telemarketing sales call. The statute says a call is not unsolicited if it is made in response to the customer's express written request, or if it is made to an existing customer who has not told you to stop. A visitor who ticks a box on your sign-in sheet asking you to get in touch is giving you that written request, so word the box as a request for contact and keep the record of who ticked it and when. If a visitor leaves a number without asking to be contacted and is not already your customer, neither exception covers you, and the call is an unsolicited telemarketing sales call under the statute.

Question 3

Does a visitor have to sign a buyer agreement first?

Accepted Answer

No. The Consumer Protection Enhancement Act ties the buyer paperwork to when you start working for the buyer, not to when someone walks through the door. In a residential transaction the brokerage firm has to enter into a brokerage services agreement with the buyer before, or as soon as reasonably practical after, the firm starts rendering brokerage services to that buyer. Nothing in that section makes a signed agreement a condition of attending an open house, and the statutory open house sign in the same act assumes the person in front of you may have no agent at all. The moment the conversation turns into you working for that visitor, such as agreeing to show them other homes, paper it.

Question 4

How long can you keep the sign-in list?

Accepted Answer

New Jersey has no open house specific privacy rule, so a sign-in sheet is handled as a customer record under the state's Identity Theft Prevention Act. Once you are no longer keeping a visitor's details, the law requires you to destroy them so the personal information cannot be read or reconstructed, which for a digital list means actually deleting it rather than leaving an old export sitting in a downloads folder. The same act requires a business to notify New Jersey customers when computerized records holding their personal information are breached. Decide up front how long you keep a sign-in list, delete the spreadsheet copies you no longer need, and keep the live list in one system you can account for.

Open house rules for New Jersey agents

What has to be posted at your sign-in table?

Can you call a visitor after the open house?

Does a visitor have to sign a buyer agreement first?

How long can you keep the sign-in list?

How this page is put together

Open house rules where you also work

Your disclosure text, on the screen, at every open house