MARKETING WHEN SELLING YOUR HOME
Marketing, Communication to Buyers, Attracting an Audience
Line drawings, line ads, and brief headings, perhaps one grainy black and white photo. This was the reality for marketing property until the early 2000’s. Expensive ads in the newspapers featured bigger photos, still in black and white.
The explosion of the internet created a whole raft of marketing changes in real estate. When realestate.com.au came along, the world of real estate marketing changed again. Our expectations increased along with the technology. Where once we relied on a few sentences (the more words used, the more expensive your ad), we now expect many coloured images, a floorplan, a video, and copy that is often as boring as it is extensive. Too many words, too many images, expectations that all the information will be laid out before us.
Marketing, Buyer Expectations
With my buying clients, if a property doesn’t have a floorplan then it increases the time I need to invest in that property to see if it might be suitable. If there are a large number of properties that meet my clients needs then I may quickly move past the property without a floorplan. A floorplan shows what the words and images do not. How versatile is the property, is the fourth bedroom really a bedroom, the study really a study, the car spaces indicated by a symbol, really a garage, or a carport, or merely open space available for you to park your car?
We expect video on facebook and instagram, of agents doing a walkthrough of the property, or extolling the virtues that only short form video can capture. As a home seller we expect many videos, they don’t need to be polished, scripted, or staged, they need to exist.
Marketing, Staging
The difference between a vacant home and a staged home is amazing. The coldness a home gives off when it is vacant, versus the messaging sent by artwork, decor, and furniture. 17 Ernest Rd in Kalorama is a prime example. Without the staging of furniture, artwork and decor, it can be hard to visualise the size of the spaces, it can be hard for a buyer to imagine themselves in that space, living in that space.
Again, back in the day before the internet burst into our lives, before digital photography, and society expectations, staging was not a thing. The first time I heard about staging was early in my real estate career when a buyer mentioned it with the sale of their home in Ivanhoe. I had no idea what they were talking about it.
Marketing and Ai
There are companies that digitally enhance home photos with furniture, helping buyers visualise the space. Ai has enabled us to add a photo from our marketing, and asking ai to show us the same space with the furniture in different positions, using this to enhance the space, particularly showing different uses for the space following comments from buyers. It is incredible.
There are many uses for ai in real estate, marketing is just one where it is already proving to be successful. We are limited by law as to the changes we can make to images. We are not allowed, for example, to hide a TV or transmission tower, a tree, or other offending object. We can make the sky bluer, the grass greener, and we have been able to do this for some time, ai brings a whole swathe of new options.
Marketing, Seller Approval a MUST
Marketing must be approved by the seller. The words, the images, the floorplan, and the price. It is not the agent being difficult, it is the agent ensuring that marketing is correct, that pricing is at a level the home seller agrees with. An agent can recommend a price to attract attention, the owner must agree with it if it is to be published.
Marketing, New Laws
New laws by our state government (not inserting a political opinion) will have reserve prices published the week before auction. As real estate goes, agents work for the seller and the aim is to use marketing to increase competition for the home. The main two sales methods used in Victoria are auction and private sale. Auctions are transparent. As a buyer you can see, and hear, other buyers bids. The area that the government should focus on (and this is just one) is on private sales and the complete lack of transparency about offers, genuine or not. However, that is for another time.
There are MANY articles being posted about the intended auction reserve price law change and they are coming from all sides.
Want to chat about improving the potential of your home, and how to attract competition? Call me and let’s discuss working together.
