How To Market Luxury Homes Online
This article is for a realtor or for a home owner preparing to sell a luxury home.
If you are a real estate agent a significant and lucrative way to operate your business is to work to get listings. If you have the nicer listings in the area then all the better. If you have the inventory then other area agents have to work with you to sell your inventory. You, effectively have them working as your agents selling your inventory to their buyers. It is a great situation.
So how do you get more and better listings? This is the big question. What I recommend is to do something that is different and exciting for the home owner. After all it is the home owner that selects the listing agent. Therefore, if you properly impress the home owner with how you will market their home then you are well on your way to gaining more listings than your competition.
Now ask yourself this question. Is the home owner more concerned about the listing price or the time on the market? Most home owners want to get the highest price possible and are willing to keep the house on the market a bit longer than the agent may want to achieve a higher selling price. It is your job to define a price that is reasonable given the comparable sales and time on market. If the priority of the home owner needs the equity in the house fast then you and the home owner need to agree on an asking price that is at a point that encourages showings and offers. Let say that you and the home owner(s) are in roughly the same place relative to the asking price then what do you do now to get the listing?
You impress them with the marketing tools and approach that you can apply to the selling to their property.
Here are some ideas that you can use to impress the home owner with and increase significantly your chance of getting the listing.
A Dedicated Website
There is a service offered by Luxury Home Marketing has a nice website platform that can be used to quickly set up a website dedicated to showcasing a specific home. Another advantage of this platform is that it is very affordable. For the right home you can set up a website that explains the home and its special features, the area as it relates specifically to the property and all relevant information can be included in a neat and tidy online package.
Also, with a dedicated website the search engine terms can be specific and customized just for the specific property and specific area. This is a big advantage over your main site as it would not be easy (in fact it would be very difficult) to maximize the search terms for a specific property while still maintaining a proper cross section of significant search terms for your business and the other properties on your site.
With a dedicated website a realtor can specifically set up on-page content that helps to get specific targeted traffic to the website. Also, if you want to run a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) program then, again, you can be specific with the search terms. The PPC can be specific and targeted. This is a big advantage that you can create over your main site.
A dedicated home showcasing website is sure to impress a home owner and it can be a deciding factor in getting a high-end listing.
Home Showcasing Voice Narrated Presentations
The next tool to use is an online video or online slide show. The feature to stress here with the home owner is the voice narration. As the listing agent you know the story of the high-end property better than anyone else. Your job is to tell that story to as many potential buyers as possible. To use the Internet to do this is a big advantage.
An online voice narrated slide show will work for the home owner 24/7 -even on weekends! This is a sure way to impress a home owner.
To get more listings it is important for you to develop tools that can showcase a home and then to present the home to the best possible audience. If you have a listing for a high-end home is likely to attract a sophisticated buyer. This type of buyer will be familiar with the Internet and this sophisticated buyer will expect a high-end property to be well presented.
Not only will you get more listings but you have move in the direction of selling the property faster and at a higher price as the home will be presented to more buyers and in a way that emphasizes the true value of the property.
Online Printable Brochures
It is important to offer the visitor to the dedicated website to an opportunity to print out a well designed brochure on the property. In our experience the most requested aspect of a realtor website are the printable brochures. Visitors like to print our the details of the key property they are interested in. They like to show these printouts to people for their opinion. A printable brochure should be a significant part of your marketing plan and can be easily integrated into your main site and the dedicated site.
Another related feature to showcase the high-end property is in online printable brochure on the area. This should compliment the entire marketing program for your luxury listings. A high-end buyer is buying the home and grounds, the area and even the life style. Your printable brochure on the area should integrate seamlessly with the marketing plan for all your high-end real estate listings.
The format for both the home brochure and the area brochure should be Portable Document Format (PDF). This has become the standard for online printing.
- This also creates the following advantages:
- The buyer only prints out the brochure if and when they want to.
- There is no need to mail or fax or send it by e-mail. The potential buyer can download and print it out right from the website.
- The buyer is immediately satisfied. The Internet is all about instant gratification. Give the visitor what they want and immediately when they want it.
- The cost to print is the visitors cost. You have no mailing cost, no printing costs and no labor (after you have created it – which you should be doing anyway) to get the brochure into the potential buyer’s hands.
- All branding information and contact information is in the brochure. If the potential buyer needs or wants to contact you then the information is right in front of them when they are looking at the brochure for the property.
In summary, a dedicated website with a multimedia slide show and printable brochures on the property and about the area are a powerful combination that will ensure a home owner of a high-end-luxury property will give you their full attention with you are being interviewed for the listing. Master the use of these tools and present them to the home owner and watch your ability to gain the high-commission listings increase significantly over the agents that do not.
Visit the website of Luxury Home Marketing at http://www.luxury-home-marketing.com/ to learn more and to see some examples of these high-end real estate showcasing tools.