How can you make your real estate listing stand out from the crowd?
In this article, we are going to explore the three most important factors that can help you as a real estate agent to get the best results for the homeowners.
The presentation of your property
How you are presenting your property can make or break the deal. Previously, we talked about ways to prepare your home for real estate photography in Canberra. We have mentioned some of the key stages to make your home look perfect before it is photographed.
LJ Hooker, a real estate agency in Australia, conducted a survey where they interviewed their top performing agents. 50 Agents were chosen for the survey, where they were asked different questions on the importance of the presentation of a home.
According to their article, the questionnaire included three questions:
1. How can a homeowner ensure they get the highest possible price for their property?
2. What is the best way to attract more number of customers?
3. Any tips for selling a property fast?
98% of the agents believe styling a home in a proper way can increase the selling price of a property.
38% of the agents said it could add over 2.5% to the sale price of your property.
Furthermore, 92% of the survey participants believed it could help in achieving a quicker sale.
They also mentioned, by “styling” their agents meant, anything that makes the living space more appealing. It can be de-cluttering, fresh paint or even trimming garden.
So, what are the home styling tips that are highly recommended?
“Online photographs are the first impression almost all potential buyers will have of your home.”— BucksPaRealEstate (Youtube)
The most popular and highly recommended way of home styling is to de-clutter. A Youtube channel named Bucks Pa Real Estate came up with an excellent kitchen de-cluttering and staging video.
It involves the removal of items that are sitting in the room. If the room is full of clutter, it will make the space look smaller. That’s not something a buyer would be interested in.
However, sometimes the agents and the sellers need to take other significant steps. The New York Times shared a story that mentioned about a homeowner who put their home on the market to sell. They invested time in de-cluttering but did not remove the eclectic mix of furniture. Even after dropping the price from $1.85 million to $1.66 million, the property did not succeed in capturing the potential buyers’ minds. Then an agent convinced him to engage a professional home stager. Thereafter, the furniture was removed, and a few new contemporary pieces were added.
As a result, the place was “mobbed” at the first open home and finally sold at a price of $1.80 million.
“It’s vital because most real estate is aspirational, and buyers want to see themselves someplace better and more beautiful. They want the feeling that if they move in there, it will be organized, clean and attractive.”— Jeffrey Stockwell, Senior Vice President (Stribling & Associates in Manhattan)
But why are the buyers’ expectations so high, especially in the large cities?
It might be possible that the buyers are highly influenced by the myriad of real estate shows on television. They broadcast high-quality listings that are immaculately presented. Therefore, the viewers set their standards high and expect the same when they walk into an open house or even check online listings.
Use drone shots or aerial images
Drone shots and aerial pictures have become very trendy. They certainly have the potential to capture the attention of the buyers. Now the question is:
When should you take aerial images for your real estate listing?
· If your property is in a great location, use a drone image to show your potential buyers how close the property is to the city or other important local landmarks.
· The property has lots of space? Aerial images can help you to show the size of the property.
· If your property has lots of trees around it, use the drone to capture a clear shot.
When should you not use drone shots for property listing?
· If your property is small and neighbours are very close, do not use aerial images.
· Drone images are a big NO if you have a bad roof.
“The last thing you need is a drone crashing into the neighbour’s house. Make sure you ask for a testimonial, see previous examples of their work, and ask if they carry general liability insurance.” — Will Caldwell
Will Caldwell wrote an article on Inman, where he pointed out three major factors to consider before you hire a drone pilot. According to him, not all drone pilots are trained or have great video editing skills, so you should be very careful while hiring someone.
Video marketing on social media platforms and Youtube works really well
At present, you will hardly find someone who does not use social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and so on. The majority of your potential home buyers are either scrolling through their news feed or Youtube feed. So, make sure your property listings are there as well.
According to a web blog of Brafton, property listings with videos have the potential to generate leads four times more compared to images alone. Here they also feature data from the National Association of Realtors that stated while searching for a home, 39% of the buyers use sites that display videos as well. 56% of them felt that the videos were very beneficial.
Also, according to Review 42, 51% of the shoppers use Youtube as their destination for research and staged homes sell 25% faster than the non-staged ones.
Therefore, you can understand how important it is to go with the flow of video marketing if you want to sell a property.
Pro tip: Share a short coming soon video before listing your property.
As mentioned in one of the articles of AgentImage, you should post engaging content on social media platforms. They also stated that getting a bit personal and using words like “I” and “me” actually hit the emotion of the buyers. They instantly feel connected to the content, and these types of posts get more number of likes and shares.
So, creating a short and simple “coming soon” video will keep your viewers and followers hooked, and they will anticipate what you are going to post next. You can hire a professional real estate videographer to shoot the video and edit it to embed the twist.
The Bottom Line…
In conclusion, it can be said that selling a property is not a cakewalk. The real estate market is highly competitive, so in order to sell a property, you must make it distinct from others. Hiring a professional real estate photographer to take mind-blowing images that would instantly capture your potential buyer’s attention is highly necessary. Other than that, you must stage the rooms properly and do some quality marketing as well.
