Fun with real estate marketing
It’s a difficult time for realtors. Here in Houston it’s not as bad as in many other cities; things have slowed down, but having missed the bubble that affected so many other large cities, we’ve been spared the bust to some degree. But it’s not exactly a seller’s market.
Tough times are good times to sharpen up your marketing; with a lot of houses on the market, prices not skyrocketing, and listings hard to come by, smart realtors are trying to make their client’s homes the most attractive things out there in a crowded market.
So it’s interesting, for example, to find a listing for a house in my neighborhood - which is one of hotter spots in Houston real estate - in a great location, with more room that most of our historic bungalows, listed as “partially renovated” and featuring these enticing pictures:
Look, I sold a home in an overheated market where you basically had to make sure the house wasn’t on fire and rats weren’t chewing the through the walls in order to have an offer during the open house, and I still put more effort into making it look appealing. (My realtor, who was a hoot, said, “You really just had to dust!”) This realtor is not doing his clients, or himself, any favors by not saying, “Get the crap out of the way for the photos, or find another agent.” I’m sure the clients who won’t clean the house before putting it on the market will be a lot of fun when they get into negotiations with a buyer!
And information is helpful. The house is large and reasonably priced, but the listing copy says that the renovation is incomplete. Well, if that means that it needs painting here and there, or that it’s got a retro bathroom that you can live with but you’ll never love, I’d go check it out at the price even if they had chickens running up and down the stairs. If that means “the back wall is missing,” it’s another story. Why not provide some details so that the only people who come see it are prepared to do the needed work, rather than wasting everybody’s time?
In the “audacious” category is a listing whose copy reads:”THIS IS A SHORT SALE! PLEASE BRING QUALIFIED BUYERS WITH APPROVAL LETTER.”
It’s a short sale? Oh really? Seems to me the length of the sales cycle has to do with when a buyers decides to buy it, not because the seller or agent just decided it was so. You can get away with “offer due on Tuesday” in a really hot market; in this market, the message of the copy is “jerks who you won’t want to deal with when the inspector finds a problem.”
Judging from the photos, the house (which is in a decent but not fabulous location, and is reasonably priced) actually looks pretty cute, other than an unfortunate bath enclosure that looks like someone was inspired by Mondrian but got lost somewhere along the way. The copy undoes what was accomplished by a decent set of photos and what looks like a smart pricing strategy.
These are tough times for realtors. In tough times, two things happen: the smart people use their smarts to succeed and to be there for the next boom. The less capable investigate other career options.
If I were looking for a realtor to sell a house right now, I’d ask to see all their current and recent listings, and look for things like this to separate out the smart from the less capable.
More posts on real estate marketing:
More posts about copywriting:
Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically each day to your feed reader. If you don't have a feed reader, you can always have these articles delivered to your email inbox every day. Click here to sign up.
Trackbacks & Pingbacks
Comments
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
The phrase “short sale” has a specific meaning in real estate. It implies financial hardship on the part of the seller, because the asking price is less than the outstanding balance on their current mortgage. If they cannot do a “short sale” on the house, then generally the next step would be foreclosure.
I didn’t know that; thank you, I appreciate the information & am glad you provided it.
Given that these kinds of notes (once only accessible to realtors, who’d know those industry terms) are now being made available to the public, I’d put that in the “good info to include” category.
Thanks for coming by & for letting me know I was wrong about the use of that term.
I actually have some sympathy for parents of little kids who are probably just too darned exhausted to clear out their crap, yet those cluttered scenes don’t look like any place I’d want to live. (”Is that a dining room under those piles?”) As you noted, their real estate agent should have made sure that they pushed stuff out of sight before posting those shots.
Thanks! I’m about to attempt to either sell or rent my home. I appreciate the input.
Looks like the Realtor hired a professional photographer. LOL.
Wow, yes…what a clutter in those photos!