The five columns, and nothing else
Name, email, phone, whether they already have an agent, and roughly when they want to buy. That is everything a listing agent actually needs from an open house, and every one of those is about the transaction rather than the person.
The agent question is the one that earns its place. A visitor with no agent of their own is the most valuable person who will walk through that door all weekend, and on most sheets they are indistinguishable from the neighbours.
What not to put on a sign-in sheet
The Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination in the sale of housing, in NAR’s own words, “because of race, color, religion, sex (including gender identity and sexual orientation), familial status, national origin, and disability.” Seven protected classes. Your state or city may add more.
The trouble with sign-in sheets is not that agents intend to discriminate. It is that a sheet asking the wrong question creates a written record, in your handwriting, of you collecting information you have no business collecting. If a complaint is ever filed, that sheet is an exhibit.
So leave these off, even though you will see all of them on templates being sold today:
- How many people will be living here. Familial status. This is the most common offender by a distance.
- Do you have children, and how old. Familial status, directly.
- Marital status, or “Mr. and Mrs.” Ask for a name. People can write whatever name they want.
- Anything about a church, mosque, temple, or synagogue nearby. Religion. This turns up disguised as a friendly question about the neighbourhood.
- Where are you from, or where were you born. National origin. “What brings you to the area” is a conversation, not a form field.
- Any accessibility or medical need. Disability. If a buyer volunteers it, help them. Do not record it.
- A checkbox for the schools they want. Schools are a well-known proxy, and steering claims have been built on less.
The test. If a fair housing investigator read this sheet out loud, would any column sound like you were sorting people? If yes, cut the column. Nothing on a sign-in sheet is worth that.
A word on the phone number
Someone writing a phone number on a clipboard has not agreed to receive texts from you. Consent to text is a separate thing, and it needs to be asked for separately and recorded. Calling them is fine. Emailing them is fine. Blasting them into an SMS drip because they wrote ten digits on a sheet is how people end up on the wrong side of the TCPA.
Skipping the clipboard
The paper version has two real problems. Handwriting, and the fact that nobody follows up until Monday.
Showing Bell gives every listing a sign-in page the visitor opens on their own phone from a QR code on the counter. Same five questions, same omissions, deliberately. You get an email the moment somebody signs in, unrepresented visitors are flagged so you can call them the same day, and the visitor gets a thank-you from you rather than silence. It is part of a $9.99 a month plan and it is the same product that handles land, vacant, and short-term rental listings the big platforms cannot schedule at all.
If you would rather just print the sheet and never hear from us again, that is genuinely fine. It is up there, it is free, and there is no email box to get past.
Not legal advice
This is a practical summary written by working listing agents, not legal advice. Fair housing law is federal, state, and sometimes municipal, and it changes. Run your own sign-in sheet past your broker or your association’s counsel. Source for the protected classes above: NAR, Fair Housing Act.
