I think this is a very important question.
If home tours are not good and not useful or if it’s not effective, we would not have done 400 PropertyLimBrothers Signature Home Tours till date for our clients to sell their properties as one of the key element content in the entire spectrum of the marketing campaign.
So the key question perhaps that i will like to know.. if i am someone planning to sell my property today.. is that; “Can I still sell a home by purely posting it on property portals?” Of course, the answer is YES, I can…
But that leads us to the 2nd/3rd/4th question….
Will this method ALONE by leaving my photos on the portals.. be able to help realise or fulfil the maximum potential and value of this property?
Could i have actually did something that allows me to say that i have done by best to eventually have sold it to a genuine buyer who really appreciates the true and actual value of this property?
Did all the buyers out there actually know the true plus points and key factors and attraction of this property and do everyone out there know that this property is for sale?
Lets explore…
Distinct characteristics of a property when put into the market
When it comes to selling a property. What are we looking at? Selling a property is like launching a product in the market. But it’s like launching a very very huge tangible product that cannot move. I cannot bring it to the customers, it’s fixed in a specific location. Customers need to take the time and effort to travel down to view this physical property. It’s unlike a product that I can easily carry with me to show my customers.
And because it’s such a huge asset, it’s also a very expensive and important asset to a buyer, because they are going to live in it. They have to take a mortgage loan to buy it and they have to pay for it for many many years to service the mortgage. Thus, to launch this product to its fullest potential needs a lot of effort and pre-planning to effectively find the right buyer that will fall in love with it.
The Rise of Portals.. Thankful for that!
When I started doing real estate 14 years ago, my seniors showed me that the only way to market a property is to call their existing clients to promote a property over the phone or to advertise it on the newspaper.
And then 12 years ago, there came about the invention of property portals when the internet came about. My seniors at that time did not believe in the property portals but I use it with an open mind and started selling properties on property portals and it was super effective. I can post photos and buyers love it because they get to see more photos of the house from their computer and laptops.
But today, if I were to just depend on property portals to sell a property. It will be unfair to say that I have put in my best effort to fully realise the full potential of showing to potential buyers what this property is all about.
Why? Because perhaps the majority of our attention has shifted and it’s different now in 2020. What do u carry on your hands and pockets? How much time do u spend looking at this smartphone you have? Our attention is on the phone. And not only that, our attention is on social media today.
To sell a property now requires a few elements when it comes to marketing the property.
Simply said, if I were to take a few photographs and put in on the property portals. Can the property still sell? Yes, I think eventually… Probably yes, but in many cases, I wouldn’t be able to sleep well at night knowing that I haven’t maxed out the full potential of this property in terms of getting the right buyer, sold at the right price and right time-frame by just leaving it on the portals and waiting for a buyer to hopefully see my property out of all the listings and choices on the portals. Take a look at how many properties are listed on the portals? Probably 70 to 80 thousand listings on 1 singular portal.
Don’t get me wrong, we love the way the portals have come into the market, they make our lives easier with nice filter and search functions, it allows the market to be transparent. And we love it, we use it to a great extent to help our clients still today. But what we think is that… depending on it alone… is very passive.. Why? Lets us explore the Buyer’s Journey..
The Buyer’s Journey on Portals alone
The buyer’s journey is one where they have to sieve through the listings by keying in and filtering the listings based on their location, price budget, number of bedrooms, bathrooms, specific criteria of freehold or 99 years and also the project names, school etc, etc.
As a buyer, I have to sort out my selection on the portals based on my criteria. Secondly, I have to look at all the choices and scroll through the information by looking at the photos alone. How much information can I derive from just photos and words description alone? Probably enough for me to decide if I want to spend my time and effort to go down to have a look at the place. But probably there are some hidden qualities, plus points, advantage or unique points about this property that I cannot visualise simply by looking at the photos. Probably there are other blind spots that I cannot see as well. There could be beautiful plus points about the location and upcoming developments, features of the layout. Possibilities of what i can do to the interior if i spent a bit of money on renovation.
It’s also possible that I am missing out on other properties that are not within my criteria but I might probably like them if I had a chance to understand more about the property.
For example, we just sold a Super Rare two and a half storey Strata house at Gambier Court couple of months back. This 2,561sqft built-up area strata house is located in one of the most popular areas in Singapore. You not only get so much space for just 3.XM dollars in District 9/10, it’s also super rare and unique for its rich history. But a lot of people don’t even know this property is for sale. And those who know and came to view the place before fail to understand and appreciate why this place is so special.
This property has been in the market for 2 years or more with 3 to 4 different agents. When the owner approached us last year to take over the marketing. We immediately started thinking about potential buyers for this house. Who will love to stay and live in this home with a Peranakan taste and rich history? We then crafted our Signature home tour to look for this specific buyer. To bring out the historical element, the taste and character of the home. And then we illustrate the plus points, the unique features and the benefits to let the audience watching the home tour visualise staying in this house.
Eventually, a buyer saw our video on social media and came to look at the property with their broker. They fell in love with it and eventually bought the place. This property was sold in 3 months after rebranding, creating the content… and ran through our marketing campaign.. Of course.. its not just the home tour.. What comes after that is as important as the content.. Lets talk about that later..
The New Problem…The Waiting Game
So if you were to use the traditional marketing method of posting still photos on the portals only… We term this approach as a WAITING GAME, or WAIT AND SEE approach. This is essentially waiting for buyers to react, waiting for them to search for your property based on their criteria.
If a creative approach is put into marketing. First, we need to understand and reverse engineer based on experience as to what and who will be the probable buyer audience that will fall in love with the property. We will then commence to craft and conceptualise a unique content to create a story for the property and to re-brand it.
Developers take huge effort to sell… Why not we?
Now in Singapore… close to 50% of the transactions(estimated per month) in the private property market per month goes to new launches. There are more resale properties for sale now than new launches. But why are buyers flocking to new launches even though the sizes for the interior space are getting smaller as land cost inevitably gets more costly due to increased land price, construction cost, inflation etc, etc…
Because Singaporeans and buyers love new products. We love the newness effect. We love new things. It feels good that something is brand new from the developer, nobody has used it. It is brand new and it belongs to me.
If developers are taking so much effort to beautify their show flats and stage it up with nice furniture to draw attention and to help buyers visualise staying in it even though the furniture will eventually not be included in the new property… Why should we not be doing that when we sell a home today to bring out the best potential?
Thus, if we want to draw attention to a property in the resale market. Firstly, we need to stand out from the other resale properties. Secondly, inevitably the new launches if we are talking about a buyer that is contemplating buying a resale or new launch.
If it’s a buyer that is specifically looking at resale, then the re-branding and proper marketing of a good campaign will help it to stand out from the rest of the other resale competition.
6 Reasons why We think PLB Signature Home Tours help a Property Sell better
So can a home tour help the property to sell better?
One: Story Effect
Yes, Definitely. Firstly, because it creates a story for the property by illustrating and showcasing its plus point into compelling content by way of an engaging home tour video.
Now a photo, being static might have a story behind the photo. But if a photo were to be left by itself without any narration. The story cannot be told and no one knows and understands the hidden qualities, the plus points, the beauty behind the photo.
There was this story in a book i read by Paul Smith, where he and his wife saw a photo in a gallery of a pig under water. Little did he know such a rich story behind this simple photo when the artist Chris explained to him that the pigs on this island all know how to swim because in the past a restaurant owner will dispose the kitchen food near the shore and the pigs all learned to swim to eat the food. Paul and his wife instantly bought the photo when they learn about the interesting story behind the photo.
Similarly, when it comes to selling a property today. How can we leave the story untold and leave selling a property to chance? Yes i also hope that i can just sell a property well today and sell it to its true potential by doing very little. When i started real estate, i used newspaper, and then newspaper + portals. And i felt for a good 10 years.. Its really boring on the way we sell properties in Singapore. And so when we started using producing home tours with a narration and presenter element in 2016 late november. I can instantly feel the difference in the results it brings. And it makes real estate exciting for both buyers and sellers.
Two: We Bring the Home to Buyers, Not Wait for Buyers to Look for the Home
Secondly, because the content is created, it then gives us liberty and freedom to bring the property to everyone’s smartphones. Previously, we talk about the fact that property is an immovable product. But now it is moveable because we have crafted a content that shows the property on everyone’s phones. It benefits the buyers to be able to see it, visualise it and interact with it. And then they can decide if they want to come and view the physical place.
Based on our stats tabulated over the past 3 years, the number of people that came to our physical viewings today after we have pumped heavy dollars on the marketing of our properties on both the Social Media platforms with our video content and also on property portals. 70% of the people that came to view the physical properties were attracted by the video content after chancing upon it while browsing social media. And 30% of the people that came, came through property portals. This approach has helped our sellers tremendously which was why we sold 269 properties in both 2018 and 2019 alone with this approach.
This then creates what we call now an Active Campaign or a more Aggressive Campaign where we take action to create more eyeballs for the property, bringing the property to the people. Not just wait for them to look for us on portals. We can decide how much to spend to pump on specific platforms on social media, and they will create so much more probabilities. Which is why we put in so much effort and time to continuously create content on our YouTube, Instagram and Facebook account because we are in real estate for the long term. We love real estate, and we want to change the way properties are being marketed in Singapore. This is a crazy vision we have and we are excited about the real estate scene here. By creating a trusted channel with consistent content, our audience has more and more trust for our channel and whenever a property or new listing is being launched, it generates more interest and share-ability from our channels compared to other channels.
Three: Home Tours Expand Possibilities and Increase Buyers Pool
Thirdly, when audiences see the video, they get to expand their possibilities and considerations after watching the home tour compared with the previous approach where they search for properties based on a fixed set of criteria.
For example, someone could be fixated to only look at freehold properties. But then after looking at a specific home tour, they realise that this specific 99 years property has so many plus points and intangible benefits that the freehold ones cannot offer based on his other criteria of buying in a specific location. And so because of the home tour, his possibility is now expanded.
Four: It puts the Property at its Best
Fourth, When a buyer sees a home tour video, a feel-good factor is created. We buy properties for own-stay and family needs based on several sets of criteria. But as human beings, our 5 senses and emotional feel also comes into play especially for an own-stay property other than logical facts and factors. We want to be able to feel good about buying something. Something has to click when we walk into a place we possibly want to call home.
And a home tour puts a property in its best light. Because to launch a home tour. There are a lot of works involved behind the scenes. Our sellers and us spend time and effort to talk and work on decluttering, keeping things, packing, doing home dressing and making the space feel good again just as if we were walking into a show flat. Because we believe that every property has its best potential and it’s our responsibility to help make that happen so that both seller and buyer can win. It is only fair to showcase a product in its best innate potential and not let small little items affect our vision, for example, cluttered room, toys or items hanging around.
Five: It brings more genuine buyers and not shoppers
Fifth, How many times have we started selling a home and then a buyer shows up and commented that oh, they didn’t know that this only has 3 bedrooms, or oh, I didn’t know that this is a low floor unit, or oh, I didn’t know this has no storeroom… it’s frustrating to the seller, and also wastes everybody’s time and effort including the seller, buyer and the professional agent.
A home tour illustrates the home and if done properly, it’s an art by itself to showcase the story and backdrop of the property. Allowing the buyer to be clear if this is possibly suitable for their family. And thus viewings become qualified.
Six: It makes buying a home experiential and creates emotional appeal
Sixth, Home tours are fun and interesting. We love doing them, we love talking about real estate, we love showcasing homes. And because it’s fun, we want to bring this joy to our audiences as well. Because owning a home is exciting. Families are created, kids build memories, it’s a place where all of us retreat to and feel safe in after a long day of work. It’s a place where we share happiness and sorrow. It’s a place filled with wonderful memories. And we love creating home tours. It is our passion. As creative marketers in Real Estate.
Conculsion
So to answer the question here again after illustrating the 6 points above on the benefits and plus points of having a video home tour to represent a house. Is a Home Tour Necessary when it comes to selling a property today… Our answer is YES. It’s not only necessary, it is extremely beneficial.. BUT… There is a BUT… It will be necessary and Beneficial IF the following components are met after the HOME TOUR VIDEO is created:
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The Video is represented on a channel that has proven results and has an existing trusted audience so that the organic reach is strong in terms of share-ability and viewership.
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Marketing dollars have to be spent to continuously distribute the video content to the right audiences by an experienced marketing team so that there are enough eyeballs and attention on the property content. And this has to be done until the property is successfully sold.
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The video has to be engaging and entertaining as well. This is an important element for the video content to catch audiences eyeballs and attention. And to be engaging and entertaining the focus has to be on the home itself, the home is the star of the video and the presenter’s job is to bring the attention of the audience to the property’s pluses and unique features. The main goal is to drive actual physical viewership to the property and to get it sold.
So if the 3 key factors are achieved, YES a Home tour is extremely useful and necessary in selling a home today by PropertyLimBrother’s standards.
Finally back to the question if using Portals alone useful.. I think to answer this question.. It will be good to ascertain what we want to achieve when marketing our properties for sale. If we are happy to use Portals alone.. Thats good and useful.
Final word on Portals and PropertyLimBrothers Signature Video Home Tours
At PropertyLimBrothers, we still use all the major portals, we are great partners with our portals providers.
Our methodology is to use tools that have proven themselves to be effective and efficient for our clients. Our focus is to always ask ourselves, what is it that can help our client’s properties to stand out, what creates uniqueness for that property we are marketing. And when that question and focus is set as 1st focus, i think the answer will be clear.
For now, property portals are one of the 20 tools that we use for our clients in the marketing campaign.
Similarly, Our signature Video Home Tours is also one but a very Major element of our 20 tools in the marketing campaign.
Hope this answers the question.
See you on the next article
Check out all the Currently For Sale Home Tours here
and all our Sold Home Tours here
Melvin Lim
Co-founder,
PropertyLimBrothers Team & PropertyLimBrothers Media
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