For agents

Get paid to host open houses.

For the first time, the agent hosting the open house can earn real money before any commission: a lender sponsors the event, and the hosting agent keeps half the sponsorship.

The short version

  • Hosting open houses has always been unpaid labor — a Saturday you give up for maybe-someday commission upside.
  • Tycoda adds a second, immediate payoff: when a lender sponsors your open house, you keep 50% of the net sponsorship — paid for hosting, not for any loan outcome.
  • It's free for agents, it's not lead-buying, and it's not guaranteed — sponsorship is per event.

01 The thing nobody says out loud

The open house is the one thing you do for free.

Every other part of the job has a payday attached to it, eventually. The open house doesn't. You give up a Saturday, you buy the signs and the cookies, you stand in someone else's living room for three hours — and the pay is a stack of half-legible names and the hope that one of them turns into something months from now.

Any agent who has hosted a lot of these knows the math is off: the open house generates real, in-person, high-intent attention, and the person doing the work captures almost none of its value in the moment. That's the gap Tycoda closes.

02 How you get paid

How it works, end to end.

You keep hosting exactly as you do today. The only new thing is that a lender can attach to your event as its single exclusive sponsor, and you keep half.

  1. List your open house on Tycoda. Takes about a minute. You get a QR sign-in and a digital flyer.
  2. A lender sponsors the event. One sponsor per open house — exclusive. They're advertising on your event to reach the verified visitors who opt in.
  3. You host normally. Visitors scan, verify their phone by text at the door, and opt in. Nothing about your Saturday changes.
  4. You keep 50% of the net. Your share of the sponsorship is paid out to you — a hosting fee, never tied to whether a buyer uses the lender.
Plain terms

The sponsor pays to be associated with the event and to reach opted-in verified visitors. You're paid for hosting. No one is paid for referrals, and a buyer only ever talks to the sponsor if the buyer asks to.

03 The tier ladder

What a sponsor can unlock.

Sponsors choose how deep they want to go. Your job is the same at every tier — host the open house. Here's what each one adds:

Base

The verified visitors

The sponsor is the exclusive sponsor of the event and receives the opted-in, SMS-verified visitor contacts.

Qualified

Plus an interest signal

Adds a simple, opt-in signal of whether a visitor is interested in talking about financing — captured by text, on the visitor's terms.

Live connect

Plus an in-the-moment call

A verified buyer at the open house can request a live phone call with the sponsor and be connected on the spot. Always buyer-initiated.

More on that last one in the live connect explainer.

04 Why it matters most early

If you're newer, this is a real edge.

You don't need your own listings to benefit. Host open houses for agents who have listings, and you build a pipeline of verified visitors and earn from sponsorship at the same time.

Hosting other agents' opens is already how most people cut their teeth — it's how you meet buyers face to face when you don't have inventory yet. The difference now is that the same Saturday can put real money in your pocket and put real, reachable contacts in your database, instead of only one or the other on a good day.

Is the money guaranteed?
No — and there's no pretending otherwise. Sponsorship is per event. A lender chooses to sponsor a specific open house; not every open house will be sponsored, and there are no quotas or income promises. When one of yours is sponsored, you keep half the net. When it isn't, you've lost nothing — you hosted the open house you were going to host anyway.
Is this buying or selling leads?
No. This is event sponsorship, not lead-buying. A lender sponsors the open-house event and receives the contacts of visitors who verified and opted in at the door. You're not paid to send anyone to the lender, and any buyer contact with the sponsor is buyer-initiated. It is not a referral fee and not pay-per-loan.
Does this create a RESPA problem?
Tycoda is built to stay on the right side of that line: the payment is for sponsoring an advertising event, not for referring settlement-service business, and it's never tied to whether any buyer uses the lender or closes a loan. You keep hosting exactly as you do today. As always, run your own arrangements past your broker and compliance counsel.
How much do I actually keep?
You keep 50% of the net sponsorship — the sponsorship fee after payment processing. It's a hosting fee for the event you're running, paid out to you, and it isn't tied to any loan outcome.
Do I need my own listings to earn?
No. You can host an open house for another agent's listing, and if that event is sponsored you still keep your half for hosting it. That's exactly why this matters for newer agents — you can host, build your own pipeline of verified visitors, and earn from the sponsorship at the same time.

Host your next open house on Tycoda.

It's free for agents. List an open house, verify every visitor at the door, and keep half if a lender sponsors it.