[This section could do with an update due to the rise of influencer marketing and PR and trying to go viral, although I am not sure too many real estate developments really have been successful like some consumer brands have been.]
Receiving positive publicity for your development can trump all advertising combined. I have seen one newspaper article dramatically transform a development that wasn’t selling to almost sold-out in three weeks. For large developments you might employ a public relations agency to run a publicity campaign.
Getting the right type of publicity is not always that easy. Using social media runs a fine line between blatant advertising and trying to drum up positive public relations (PR). Once you start, the publicity route can be tricky to navigate. If your development strikes issues (and they often do) PR can work against you and amplify controversy.
Therefore, if sales are already going well consider not engaging in overt publicity.
Nonetheless, here are some ideas to help generate positive publicity with the ultimate aim to sell faster, for higher prices and increase your profit:
Pitch for editorials and news items. How does
your development become an editorial? Pitch stories with a unique angle to the
local newspapers and magazines. For example, promote a personal interest angle
(such as a couple buying one of your homes), an exposé about you the developer,
or a piece about the architect indirectly referencing your project (because of
all its high technology features or because your development is part of a
larger location gentrification story). All you have to do is try to get a story
written about your project that convinces buyers you are offering great value with
a fantastic product in a superb location and everything is going extremely
well! You may just find that a deadline is looming and the editor or journalist
can use your story to fill the page.
Associate with other businesses, charities or
products (such as the development site being used as the background to launch a
luxury car model, or the display suite for a fashion show). Indirectly attach
your project to the publicity they generate.
Stage events inviting prominent locals. Inviting
the local mayor, politician or celebrity to your development opening will increase
media exposure.
Create community functions that attract local
interest stories (such as farmers’ markets, night markets or sports tournaments).
Andrew Crosby +64 21 982 444 andrew@xpectproperty.com
Uncategorized — Comments Off on Selling #19: Advertising 15 Sep 25
[NOTE: This section of the book can do with an update, given the dramatic changes in social media, search and AI over the last few years.]
When you ask most agents for their marketing strategy they
send you an advertising budget. Advertising is not marketing. Advertising helps
you spread your message whereas marketing is about creating and massaging the
message. Of course, the two are inextricably linked — your marketing strategy
helps determine what advertising you will use and the form of advertising
available in the market influences how you present your message. Advertising mediums
include:
Direct selling — agent or developer targeting
existing contacts, or simple old canvassing and cold calling.
Internet — agent website, market wide multiple listing
websites, online adverts, social media.
Specialist real estate magazines.
Signage — bus-backs, bus shelters, billboards, on-site
advertising boards.
Newspaper real estate sections — national,
regional, local, ethnic.
Target market publications — flight magazines,
community publications, foreign magazines, home design magazines, financial and
investment publications.
Advertorials in publications and newspapers.
Flyers and postcards — distributed around the
neighbourhood, mailbox drops, placed in retail shops.
Radio advertising.
Television — mainstream channels, cable,
community or ethnic channels, on-demand internet TV
Sponsorship — local sports teams, charities,
radio or television programmes partnerships.
Advertising needs to be budgeted
for accordingly. Have your agent provide a breakdown of all proposed
advertising mediums and their cost over a one, two or three month sales
programme. Challenge the agent on each medium asking them to present the
evidence to justify you paying for this advertising. Listing your project and
individual sections or homes on multiple listing websites is very cost
effective and let’s face it — everyone who wants to buy a home is looking at
web listings every day, throughout the day. Therefore, do you even need a
newspaper or print publication advertisement?
Maybe, as it can help reinforce
your project in light of the competition and great advertising can be lost on
the internet as compared to in print. In addition, when you list on the
internet you have to define specific categories about your homes or sections
and therefore you are relying on the buyer’s search criteria finding your
project. If yours are the only sections being sold in your area, potential
buyers who have not considered buying a section versus buying a home and land
package may not even know your option exists.
Establish a way to measure how
effective your advertising is. Ideally you will determine your cost per sale
for each form of advertising. With real estate advertising typically utilising
multiple channels (and many building on and reinforcing others) this will be near
impossible to calculate. However, make
your best effort to record the data and measure over time. When the agent holds
open homes or gets contacted by a potential buyer get them to ask and record
‘how did you find out about us?’ A second more powerful question is ‘what made
you contact me today?’ Try to determine what advertising is best at
attracting buyers and what advertising has little effect.
When placing print adverts the
location and prominence on the page is important and the publication will price
accordingly. Expect to pay more for a right hand side page than a left hand. A
full page costs more than a half page which costs more than a quarter page (but
not necessarily proportionally). The cover is prime advertising real estate,
often accompanied by the inside cover and first page for a three page spread.
The rear page is also sought after. A typical approach is to launch your development
with prime adverts and continue with full page adverts in the first month. Then,
if sales are progressing according to expectations rely on smaller adverts. Expect
to do more advertising in a softer market.
Agents like to profile themselves
as much as possible and love having their photo attached to all advertising —
it helps them get facetime in their market and win their next listing. This is
not necessarily a bad thing for your development but you must be careful to
balance the development branding so it does not unduly compete with the branding
of the real estate agent or their agency.
Whichever medium you use you need to employ your price
setting strategy to advertise your price. Price positioning can include several
techniques to draw buyers, for example:
Prices start from $500,000
From $500,000 to $750,000
4 Bedrooms $600,000, 5 bedrooms $750,000
One left at $499,000
First release pricing $399,500
All priced below $599,000!
You may decide not to present a price and
use by negotiation, tender or auction. However, you definitely want to instil a
call to action. One way is to advertise how successful the development is and
how many units you have sold. Overtime, buyers who look at the same advert each
week see available stock decreasing — this can act powerfully to create a sense
of urgency. Advertising ‘call to action’ examples:
30% sold out!
30% sold out first weekend!
Only seven left!
15 sold, 3 remaining!
Averaging 10 sales per week, only two weeks
inventory left!
All four bedrooms sold out — only five bedrooms
remaining[1]
[1] Be
careful this doesn’t create a negative reaction in a buyer — why does no one
want the five bedrooms?
Andrew Crosby +64 21 982 444 andrew@xpectproperty.com
Uncategorized — Comments Off on Selling #18: The Display Sales Suite — Where Are You Selling? 10 Sep 25
Where the agent is going to be doing the selling influences
what marketing collateral you will use. This will be the place where you present
the marketing that describes your development. Here are four options of increasing
expense:
Sell from your real estate agent’s office. Have
them dedicate wall space, a corner or even a separate room to market your
development.
Sell onsite in a temporary building or within an
existing onsite building.
Build a semi-permanent custom sales suite and
display either onsite or in space nearby.
Build the first house in your development as the
show home.
The larger and more luxurious your
development the further down this list you will likely need to go. Once you
have construction underway you could fast-track one home to act as the sales
suite for the other homes in the development. For options 2 and 3 you can
include building a mock-up of key features to give buyers a preview of what
they will be purchasing, for example, a kitchen or bathroom complete with
flooring, joinery, fittings, fixtures and appliances. If you do build in examples
of what purchasers will be receiving then you need to decide whether you show
the base specification or upgrades and optional extras. If the latter, then the
agent will need to carefully sell
potential buyers on what is the base and what is an upgrade.
Plan the layout of your display
suite to enhance the sales process.
Involve your agent in the layout. The entire sales suite should be designed to close
sales. Help the agent tell the project story in a logical flow like a fully immersed live brochure.
Here is an example of the agent interacting with a potential buyer in a
well-designed display suite:
Provide a comfortable entry setting to enable
the agent to build rapport with buyers and uncover their needs and priorities. This
may be an inviting reception room where there is plenty of space and maybe some
couches for people waiting.
The agent then takes the buyer into the display firstly
describing the background of the project, the developer’s vision and the
greater location — selling the big picture aided with printed and interactive
displays.
To reinforce quality and deliverability the
display may present a brief synopsis of past projects and experience of the
developer, builder, architect and urban designer.
The display progresses to outline the site plan
and amenity of the development — perhaps a spectacular model — to illustrate
all the benefits why one should buy in this subdivision.
Then the presentation can focus on the
individual sections and the features and benefits of each. This may be on the
model, through large rendered site plans, or computer animations where you can
zoom into individual sections and view the topography and building platforms.
Floor plans, renders and computer generated
animations allow the agent to present the types (size and design) of homes
available (or suitable for, if selling sections). Attention is limited to high
level key benefits at this point (such as two living areas so the kids can play
without disturbing the adults and a great deck for outdoor summer dining).
Before delving into too much floor plan detail the
sales suite evolves into a mock-up of the kitchen, living and bathroom. This is
where buyers can touch and feel the product and imagine themselves (or their
tenants) living there.
Material palettes, colour options and any
upgrade options are displayed so the buyer starts to personalise (in their
mind) their potential purchase.
The agent then goes from a presentation mode to
an initial closing mode. They show how many sections and homes have sold (like red
dots on a wall-hung site plan) demonstrating the call for the buyer to take
action. From there, with the hook well
and truly snared, the agent sits the buyer down at a sales desk, sales office,
or just on a couch to talk through specific floor plan options, section details,
pricing and the formalities of signing the agreement.
Even if a buyer is not
accompanied by an agent, they should experience the development within the
display suite as if they are being told an enticing story. The ending of course
is with them signing a contract!
Andrew Crosby +64 21 982 444 andrew@xpectproperty.com
Uncategorized — Comments Off on Selling #17: More Collateral 09 Sep 25
Site plans
and floor plans should be of a reasonable size (especially if they are
small in the brochure) and should be printed on good quality stock for handing
out and discussing with potential purchasers. Consider 3D house floor plans,
although done poorly they can make rooms look crowded and the layout difficult
to read.
Website
The easiest way to get a cost effective website up and
running is to book the designer
in and provide them with your draft brochure and tell them to ‘web it’.
Websites have actually decreased in complexity over the years, primarily to
allow for viewing on phones and tablets. You may even consider just making a
social media page as the website (Facebook.com if it still exists by the time
you are reading this). When the brochure is 100% then you can get the web
designer to drop in the final images or text. To avoid rework don’t have the
web designer undertake any graphic design themselves on the images to drop in
(like plans and renderings). Make sure the website is fast on both computer and
phone and easily navigable. The website’s overall quality should match the
level of quality and luxury in the development you are creating.
Colour Boards
Colour boards that show the key finishing materials and
colour palette options for the houses you are selling can be put together by
your architect, interior designer or just do it yourself. Don’t provide too
much choice as it gets difficult to manage the different options chosen between
purchasers. Consider limiting it to two or
three colour schemes with no mixing and matching or substitutes allowed.
Anything else is to be priced as an upgrade. Examples for the base that the
materials will be glued or taped to you include a large tile, wood board, foam
board or plastic/polymer sheet. On each base board material include the ten or
so core interior materials:
Wall paint
Ceiling paint
Feature wall paint (if any)
Carpet
Kitchen and entry tiles
Bathroom tiles
Kitchen benchtop
Kitchen splashback
Kitchen joinery
Bathroom vanity top
Bathroom vanity joinery
You could also include a kitchen cabinetry
handle to highlight the materials.
Upgrades
If you are offering upgrades then you will need product
information or material samples available as well.
Marketing Collateral Plus
Beyond the
minimum described above there is plenty more marketing collateral you
can present (and pay for). Consider the following if you and your agent
determine it will help sales and make your project more profitable:
A
slideshow of artist’s impressions and floor plans.
A computer animated rendered fly thru of the
development.
Drone flyover of the existing site, highlighting
location amenity and views.
A professionally made movie, starting with
actual location and amenity scenes and zooming in and through a 3D fly thru of
the development and then individual house types.
Computer
rendered interactive rooms where you can move throughout the home, linked
to virtual reality headsets.
Touch screens linked to website, or a custom
application providing a menu for the buyer to select from to learn about the
design and features of the development.
A physical model of the development’s greater location.
A physical model of the development site, with lights
to highlight individual sections.
Physical models of house types, with a removable
roof or cutaway section to display internal layout.
Andrew Crosby +64 21 982 444 andrew@xpectproperty.com
Uncategorized — Comments Off on Selling #16: Artist’s Impression 06 Sep 25
It used to be an actual artist would paint or draw an image
in perspective of the development based on the plans that the architect would
provide. Nowadays every architect has software that will generate a three dimensional
render. Except for large firms with dedicated staff, the quality of these
renders typically does not compare to firms who specialise in producing photo
realistic renders. The very best ‘artists’ create images that look like
professionally staged photographs — especially interior shots. The artist’s
impression renderings are crucial to help sell your product so put your best foot
forward. The old ‘a picture tells a thousand words’ is never truer. To get an
artist’s rendering right takes some management as there is a number of issues
to consider:
Exterior
Prepare wireframe or quick block renders first
so you can choose the best view angle for the render. Don’t leave it to the
architect or artist to choose this and don’t proceed with the render until you have
agreed the best angle. For a subdivision you will probably want to show a
render of a streetscape profiling a couple of different house types close up.
You may also consider doing a perspective of the entire development from above.
If you are selling sections, without any house design, you still will want to
evoke the emotion of what the development could look like when houses are
actually built. By focusing on amenities, like a park, you can leave the houses
in the background so you don’t have to worry about detail you haven’t actually
designed.
Include your agent as the perspective proceeds. Have
them to comment on sales emotions invoked by the render.
Cars, are they modern, current and match the
target market?
Do the people shown represent the aspirations of
your potential buyer profile? Are there enough or too many? What are they wearing?
What ethnicity are they? Are there any double ups (where the artist has cut and
pasted a clone in different parts of the picture). Consider if you need people
in the perspective as it is difficult to make people look realistic.
Lighting. Is this to be a day shot or a night
shot? Consider what time of day to get the best effect from sun shading for
your development.
What materials and colours has the artist used?
Are they compatible with what you have planning permission for and what the
architect has specified? Artist’s perspectives are typically done before the
architect has completed their specification detail. However, the rendering is
what buyers believe they are getting, so in essence the artist’s impression can
trump the architect’s plans if there is a discrepancy. You may find yourself
selecting construction materials as part of the artist’s perspective process
rather than during the architectural developed design process.
Use glazing to add interest by adding
reflections or depth with furniture and people behind the windows.
Interior
Choose the wireframe views before it is fully rendered. If you
are on a tight budget consider just a kitchen and dining render. Other interior
renders can include bathroom, living, bedroom, a combination view or even an
angle from standing on a deck if the outlook from your development is a key
selling feature.
Are you going to have a view superimposed on
shots where there is a window (requiring drone photography onsite)?
Does the furniture and interior decoration match
your likely buyer profiles? Be careful not to clutter small spaces so the
effect of spaciousness is lost.
Once again be careful about materials and
finishes — are you really providing full height glazing? A continuous
splashback across the entire kitchen wall? Intricately detailed lattice work on
the stairs? A custom made integrated joinery unit?
People are difficult to include without
detracting from the shot, especially as they will be close up. Frame the render
like a real life interior design photography shoot and be very selective on
using people, if at all.
Andrew Crosby +64 21 982 444 andrew@xpectproperty.com