Upscale Home Marketing: Five Simple Steps to Success
by Jim Remley, Speaker, Author, Consultant
Well now you’ve done it! You’ve gone and taken a luxury home listing. Pop the cork on the Champaign , buy a new suit, and dust off your polo gear (you do have polo gear, right?) because today is truly an exciting day, after all it’s not everyday that you land a big juicy listing, especially a luxury home listing. But wait; hold on a smidge, not so fast. Because now you have to do something before you can cash that big fat commission check—you have to sell the home.
Not to burst your housing bubble but selling a luxury home listing isn’t like selling your everyday home in the suburbs. Selling upscale housing means more than just plugging the home into your local MLS system, placing a sign in the lawn, and throwing a lockbox on the front door. In fact it’s very likely that a luxury home seller ma y not allow you to do any of those traditional marketing steps because of security concerns. Instead selling a luxury listing will require a concentrated, specific marketing plan dedicated to selling only this one home. To unlock some of the mystery of selling upscale housing let’s take a look at five components of a successful upscale marketing campaign.
- Meticulous Attention to Details. Selling a luxury listing requires that an agent spends time capturing every detail possible about the home. This will, of course, include the traditional walk through with the seller while taking copious notes, perhaps using a standardized form to capture each nugget of information. In addition it may mean, with the sellers permission, interviewing other household service providers, maids, butlers, or gardeners who can add to t his information. Agent may also choose to have the seller record what they feel to be the homes best selling features in writing, and to add to this collection of data some agents may choose to secure the original building plans, or architectural drawings. Finally many agents find it useful to research the home’s history or pedigree.
- Professional Photographs. Using your old Polaroid to take photos of your new luxury listing won’t work. In fact, many specialists in the field of upscale housing have a professional photographer on their team that will come and shoot t he property for maximum appeal, mixing inside and outside shots, with different lighting, settings, and times of day can dramatically influence the power of a photograph. For proof check out these websites for great examples at SFJones.com, or KerryJoyce.com.
- Renderings. A rendering is a representation of a home using ink drawings, water color, or in man y cases computer animation. Why not just use a photo? Because these renderings can often project a cleaner image in print and online than a photograph. In addition it’s a terrific way to set your listing apart from others that are using photographs and give your brochures, and presentation books a touch of elegance. For great examples of both computer and water color renderings visit VentureGraphicsInc.com.
- Web and Print Marketing. To capture the widest possible audience when selling an upscale listing many agents make it a point to mix both web and print marketing in non-traditional ways. For instance instead of advertising just locally in the newspaper many upscale marketers choose to place their high end listings into luxury specific journals like the DuPont Registry DuPontRegistry.com. Many also create high end brochures, or virtual business cards to market their listings by using companies like NicheStuff.com. In addition many top tier agents create websites specifically for their high end homes like Imprev.net.
- Property Videos. When looking at property videos there are many styles to choose from but two stand out - the first is a traditional moving video with full motion, action, and voice, and the more common photograph style mixed with narration often called a virtual tour. Which is better? This is debatable but the clear difference is price as a fully produced traditional vide o can run from $1000 to $10,000 a virtual tour can often cost less than $100. For a great website for your next virtual tour check out VisualTour.com.
So is there more to marketing a luxury home listing than mastering the five items listed above? Absolutely! One way to expand your knowledge is by partnering with someone in your office who has some experience in the field when taking your first upscale listing. Another terrific way to gain valuable insight into this market is to obtain your ALHS designation (LuxuryHomeCouncil.com). The Accredited Luxury Home Special designation is awarded to agents after an intensive two-day workshop in the field of luxury housing, as well as the completion of practical experience requirements.
Copyright Jim Remley. All rights reserved. Jim Remley is a speaker, author, and consultant. A frequent contributor to RealyTimes.com, he is also an active real estate broker in Southern Oregon where he owns a network of nine offices. Jim won the Rookie Instructor of the Year award in 2001 from Realty-U, the largest network of real estate educators in the nation. Recently he won the 2002 and 2003 Pacesetter Award. Along with his book, Make Millions Selling Real Estate, he has developed an extensive catalog of products and a personal coaching system. For more about Jim, visit ProPerformer.com.