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
