Ginger:

Gabe and Lexie have offered some good strategies for you.  We have so little inventory in my community that open houses are swamped, sometimes over 100 people come.  Do check out Debbie Gartner's link.  There is more good information there.

Gabe Sanders has provided sound advice for you. Broker opens are another subject when food is expected.

Knock the community and invite those who live there an hour early as an exclusive community only open, this gives incentive as a perceived value over the rest of the general public. 

Here's the link to the original contest - Open house crowd sourcing.  it has all the submissions in the comments.

This looks like a webinar on open houses

Hope that helps.

Wow, that sounds crazy expensive and not sure your money is really focused on where it should be.  If you have to draw people to the open house w/ so many incentives, it seems that you may not be attracting the right type of buyer.

But, this topic has been written about extensively on AR and you should do a search wi/ AR on this to get ideas.  I think that Bob Stewart may have even had a crowdsourcing contest on this topic a couple of years ago.  There may even be a webinar for it.

spend a week preparing, then make sure to followup on the leads.

Praful does it very well.

Plan ahead and market on Facebook and some special groups.

According to NAR, less than 5% of the homes sold are a result of an open house.  Therefore, I am not a huge fan, but they do generate buyer leads.   Surprisingly, I get quite a bit of traffic off Zillow and Trulia's open house marketing but signs are my #1 source of traffic.

If you host an open house when the listing is new it helps.

Ginger, I think it depends on your location.  I have done really well with open houses in Williamsburg Virginia, but never had any luck with open houses in Florida.  I have gained clients as well as finding a buyer for the house that I was holding open.

 Ginger, some areas just don't lend themselves well to Open Houses.  I do agree that inviting neighbors is important because they know the home, and have a vested interest.  It also helps if there are other Open Houses nearby, and in the same general time frame.

Wow - $500 per open house - pretty darn steep.  Our area has no inventory so we are usually swamped at open houses - I feel rather generous just supplying people with a bowl Hershey Kisses!   For the first open house we send out flyers to neighbors inviting them an hour early to the first open house and supply cookies or sometimes mimosas or champagne.  For luxery homes, we some times do a catered spread for the neighbors who come early.  How about coffe gift cards.  Get 20  $5.00 gift cards that people have to sign in for or raffle them off.  Invite all your friends to come visit on Facebook.

Ginger, there are some good ideas posted here.  I like inviting the neighbors and providing information of value to have to visitors. Engaging potential buyers is key.  The latter can be as simple as other active inventory in the neighborhood. 

Pick a new listing... that hasn't had an open house before.  They work best if the house just came on the market.  Don't do it during a Panther's football game or holiday weekend.  Don't do it at a house that has had a recent open house (within the last 6 weeks). Staged houses are best.  

Put a Coming Soon sign out before the house goes on the market.

Put an Open House sign out at least by Tuesday of the coming weekend.

Preview as many of the for sale homes nearby.  Know as much as you can about all of them.  Price, size, bedrooms/baths.. pro's/cons.   

Put a flyer box out front with info on the open house.

Pass some flyers out around the neighborhood that say "pick your neighbors - tell your friends to come..."   

Put lots of directional signs up on Friday afternoon.   (If the house takes more than 4 turns to get to it may not be very successful.) 

Market your open house on MLS, Trulia, Zillow and Realtor.com at least by the Monday before the open house. 

Get Balloons and put them on the directional signs the morning of the open house day.  Check all your directionals to make sure they are still in place. 

Print out a little bit of info on the competition houses and those more expensive and less.  Put together info about you being a buyer's agent.  

Promote you open house on an e-flyer to all your mailing list/sphere... tell them all to come by and tell their friends.   

Wear comfortable shoes!!  

People will come.   It takes a lot of energy to get your open house ready but in Charlotte we have had as many as 30 - 60 people show up.