In the olden days, two years ago to be exact, it was common practice to hold open houses and have in-person showings whenever you wanted to sell a house. When the big bad coronavirus hit, the industry had to pivot 180 degrees, and the practice of open houses was lost to history; well, sort of.
With pandemic protocols barring physical access to almost anywhere, at least during the initial phases of the outbreak, these strategies that required people to physically be present and be within proximal distance of properties just weren’t too appealing; at least not during then; nor were they ‘legally allowed’.
Zillow notes that:
“the share of listings with an advertised open house fell to just 1% in April 2020. While they’ve bounced back slightly since those days, only 12% of listings featured open houses as of this summer down from 20% pre-pandemic.”
Just like with other industries and businesses, with the traditional approach being temporarily neutralized and being just downright inapplicable, real estate agents were forced to adapt. Many relied on technology, where listing and video-tours were greatly augmented, while others opted to get more creative, turning to the likes of social media and connection-building.
One agent, Rochelle Atlas Maize, said that 2020 was “The Year of Creativity” as she actually enlisted the help of TikTok creators to sell a house in California for $5.3 million. Maize goes further on to emphasize that “The housing market is booming, and old-fashioned walkthrough open houses no longer cut it.”
You may or may not like it, but agent Maize is right; and it’s probably always been that the traditional way of doing things eventually had to adapt to the newer trends that often involve technology. Planning to buy or sell a house anytime soon? Then these new marketing strategies will surely help you out.
1. Virtual/Video Tours
If physically being present for open houses and in-person showings isn’t possible, what do you think is the best alternative then? Virtual tours of course! With the sudden rise in consumption of messaging and video services such as those offered by Zoom and Messenger, sellers could host active sessions and simply allow potential buyers to hop on, allowing them to ask questions while they go around the property, essentially video-calling what’s there to see.
At the height of the pandemic, real estate brokerage Redfin reported a jaw-dropping 494% surge in video tour requests.
2. 3D Walkthroughs
Perhaps a more interactive, and equally more intensive, option to virtual-touring are 3D walkthroughs. 3D walkthroughs work very much in the same way as Google’s ‘Street View’, where prospects can essentially take a “virtual” trip to explore a digitally reconstructed model of a real-life house. Agents usually create these using rendering software such as Matterport or Zillow’s 3D Home app.
As per Zillow:
“listings with these 3D walkthroughs are up almost 200% from pre-pandemic days. In some markets, almost a third of all listings boast one.”
3. Live-Streaming
A popular influencer and gamer option, live-streaming proved to be equally effective for real estate as well, with broker Mike Zschunke from Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Arizona Properties stating that ‘Lives’ are effective ways to connect with buyers, providing a suitable alternative for video calls in which non-uniform connectivity could cause either parties to experience technical difficulties.
Glen Langford, an agent with Coldwell Banker Realty in Austin also makes a good point when he says that live-streaming has better reach and provides more access to an unrestricted number of viewers, by virtue of replayability, when compared to spending hours virtually touring a home for only a limited number of people.
4. Social Media Marketing
Besides real estate, social media marketing applies to all businesses; as long as you take your operations online, chances are that it’ll involve social media marketing one way or another. Social media simply is where your audience is – that’s been true since 2010 and it’s doubly true now! Millennial-focused agent Kseniya Korneva deemed Instagram her ‘Bread and Butter’ after having amassed over 15,000 followers across her two accounts. If you think about it, that’s 15,000 potential prospects from where? Social media. Hence, social media marketing.
5. More Creative Listing Photos
Instagram birthed the whole ‘Creative Shots’ philosophy, where people take the most ordinary of situations and clothing, and turn them into absolutely gorgeous, magazine-worthy shots. If your images look good and appear clean, then they’re automatically a bigger draw as opposed to competition that makes use of stock, unedited photos.
Becki Danchik of Warburg Realty, for example, uses more editorial-style photos as opposed to the traditional wide-angle type ones typically seen on listings.
Becki explains:
“If the living room has a wonderful cozy corner that is perfect for reading, why not elude this in a photograph that tells a buyer exactly how they might be able to utilize the space?”
The Wrap
To put it concisely, virtual strategies have not fully replaced in-person open houses, nor will they ever. It’s only that these have become popular options because they were the ones most viable during a period of lockdowns and quarantines. In fact, some would argue that touring houses virtually is actually easier and more convenient since they don’t even have to get out of bed, though certain detail-oriented buyers will insist on being physically present to fully inspect property they’re interested in.
Nonetheless, what we can glean for the last two years is that home-selling, and real estate in general, can equally be as effective and transcendent online as it has been traditionally all these years, it just takes a little bit of exploration and reorientation to mix both real-life and virtual strategies in order to arrive at the most efficient solutions. TikTok did make an auto-marketing playbook, so it’s very likely that it can make something similar for real estate agents, too.
Subscribe to our ‘Bottoms Up!’ Newsletter. Get the latest social media news, strategies, updates and trends to take your business to the highest level.
Sources