Is a Home Tour necessary?
I think this is a very important question.
If home tours are not good, not useful, or not effective, we would not have done more than 1,361 PropertyLimBrothers Signature Home Tours from 2020 till date (and counting) for our clients to sell their properties as one of the key elements in the entire spectrum of the marketing campaign.
So the key question perhaps is this: “If I am someone planning to sell my property today, 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 next few questions.
- Will this method ALONE, by leaving my photos on the property portals, be able to help realise or fulfil the maximum potential and value of this property?
- Could I have actually done something that allows me to say that I have done my best to eventually sell it to a genuine buyer who really appreciates the true value of the property?
- Did all the buyers out there actually know the true plus points and key factors of this property? And does everyone out there know that this property is for sale?
Let’s 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 a 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 out a mortgage loan to buy it and they have to pay for it for years or even decades to service the mortgage. Thus, to launch this product and market it to its fullest potential requires 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 in the newspaper.
And then 12 years ago, the invention of property portals came about with the rise of the internet. My seniors at that time did not believe in the property portals, but I used it with an open mind and started selling properties on the portals – and it was super effective. I could post the property online and buyers loved it because they get to see more photos from the comfort of their homes on their computer and laptops. But today, if I were to just depend on property portals to sell a property, it would be unfair to say that I have put in my best effort to fully realise the potential of the property to potential buyers.
Why? Because the majority of our attention has shifted and it’s different now in today’s context. What do you carry in your hands and in your pockets? How much time do you spend looking at your smartphone in a day? Our attention is now on our phones. 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 photos and put it on the property portals, can the property still sell? Yes, eventually. Probably yes, but in many cases, I wouldn’t be able to sleep well at night knowing that I have not maxed out the full potential of this property in terms of getting the right buyer, sold at the right price and right timeframe 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 tens of thousands listings on a single portal. Don’t get me wrong, we love the way the portals have come into the market. They made our lives easier with nice filters and search functions, and allowed the market to be transparent. And we love it, we still use it to a great extent to help our clients today. But what we think is that depending on it alone is too passive. Why? Let 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, budget, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, specific criteria of freehold or 99-year leasehold, and also project names, schools, 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 descriptions 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 not enough to learn the hidden qualities, plus points, advantages or unique points about this property – I simply cannot visualise all these just by looking at the photos. There are probably 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 like them if I had a chance to understand more about the property.
For example, back in 2020, we sold a super rare 2.5-storey strata house at Gambier Court. It was a 2,561 sqft strata house located in one of the most popular areas in Singapore. Not only would you get so much space for just over $3M in district 9, it also comes with a rich history. But a lot of people didn’t even know this property was for sale. And those who knew and came to view the place before failed to understand and appreciate why this place is so special.
The property had been in the market for over 2 years with multiple agents marketing it. When the owner approached us to take over the marketing, we immediately started thinking about potential buyers for this house. Who would love to live in this home with its rich Peranankan influence and history? We then crafted our Signature Home Tour to look for this specific buyer and bring out the historical element, the taste and character of the home in the process. We illustrated the plus points, the unique features, and the benefits to let the audience 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 running through our marketing campaign. Of course, the deal wasn’t possible with just the home tour. What comes after that is as important as the content itself, but let’s talk about that later.
The New Problem: The Waiting Game
If you were to use the traditional marketing method of posting static photos on the portals only, we would term this approach as a waiting game, or the “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 we were to take a creative approach in the marketing instead, we would first need to understand and reverse engineer based on experience: Who are the probable buyer audience that will fall in love with the property? What would make them fall in love with the property? We will then commence to conceptualise unique content and craft a story for the property, to rebrand it.
Developers Put In Max Effort To Sell… Why Not We?
In Singapore, close to 50% of 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 unit sizes are getting smaller as land cost inevitably gets costlier due to increased land price, construction cost, inflation, etc?
That is 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 showflats 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 provisioned in the actual property, why should we not be doing the same when we want to sell a home today?
Thus, if we want to draw attention to a property in the resale market, we need to firstly stand out from the other resale properties. Secondly, we need to stand out from new launches as buyers will inevitably contemplate between a resale or new launch property. If it’s a buyer that is specifically looking at resale, then the rebranding and property marketing of a good campaign will help it to stand out from the rest of the resale competition.
8 Reasons Why We Think Home Tours Help A Property Sell Better
So back to the question: can a home tour help the property to sell better?
1. It creates a story effect
Yes, definitely. Firstly, because it creates a story for the property by illustrating and showcasing the plus points into compelling content by way of an engaging home tour video.
Static photos might be able to tell a story as well. But left by itself without any narration, the story cannot be told and no one knows or 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 of a pig under water in a gallery. Little did he know that there was a rich story behind this simple photo. The artist explained to him that the pigs on this island all know how to swim because in the past, a restaurant owner would dispose of leftover food near the shore and the pigs all learned to swim in order to get to the food. Paul and his wife instantly bought the photo after learning 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 fullest potential by doing the minimum. When I started my real estate career, I used newspaper ads and then a combination of newspaper ads and property portals. And for a good 10 years, I felt that the way we sold properties in Singapore was really boring. So when we started producing home tours with a narration and presenter element in 2016, I could instantly feel the difference in the results it brings. And it makes real estate exciting for both buyers and sellers.
2. We bring the home to buyers, not wait for buyers to find the home
When the content is created, it gives us liberty and freedom to bring the property to everyone’s smartphones.
Previously, we talked about the fact that property is an immovable product. But we have made it movable because of the content that we have crafted and delivered to everyone’s smartphones. It benefits the buyers to be able to see, visualise, and interact with it. And they can then decide if they want to come and view the physical space.
Based on the stats that we have tabulated over the years, the number of people coming for physical viewings after we have invested in social media marketing and also on property portals have increased significantly. 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, found the property through portals. This approach has helped our sellers tremendously, which was why and how we sold 1,275 properties from 2018 to 2023.
This creates what we call an Active Campaign or an Aggressive Campaign, where we take action to create more eyeballs for the property, bringing the property to the people instead of waiting around for them to find us on the portals. We can decide how much to spend on specific platforms on social media, and this creates so much more probabilities. That is why we put in so much effort and time to continuously create content on our YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook accounts 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 channels that post consistent high-quality content, the audience’s trust in us will continue to grow. And whenever a property or new listing is launched, it generates more interest and shareability from our channels compared to other channels.
3. Home tours expand possibilities and increase buyer pool
When the audience sees our videos, they get to expand their possibilities and considerations after watching the home tour compared to the previous approach where they search for properties based on a fixed set of criteria.
For example, a buyer could be fixated and only looking at freehold properties. But after looking at a specific home tour, they could come to realise that this specific 99-year leasehold property has so many plus points and intangible benefits that the freehold ones cannot offer. And so because of the home tour, their possibilities have now expanded.
4. It puts the property in its best light
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, aside from logical factors, our 5 senses and emotions also come into play especially for an own-stay property. 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. To launch a home tour, there is a lot of work involved behind the scenes. Together with our sellers, we spend a lot of time and effort to declutter, to pack, to stage, and spruce up the place to create the same effect as walking into a showflat. Because we believe that every property has its best potential and it’s our responsibility to help show it so that it’s a win-win for both sellers and buyers. It is only fair to showcase a product in its best innate potential and not let little things, a cluttered room or toys scattered around the place for example, affect our vision or impression of the property.
5. It brings more genuine buyers and not shoppers
How many times have we started selling a home and then a buyer shows up with comments like, “I didn’t know that this unit only has 3 bedrooms,” or “I didn’t know that this is a low floor unit,” or “I didn’t know this unit doesn’t come with a storeroom.” It’s frustrating to the seller and it wastes everyone’s time and effort.
A home tour illustrates the home and if done properly, it’s an art by itself to showcase the story and essential information of the property. It allows the buyer to be clear if the property is possibly suitable for their family and viewings become qualified.
6. It makes buying a home experiential and creates emotional appeal
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 audience as well. Because owning a home is exciting. Families are created, parents build precious memories with their kids, it’s a place where we can retreat to and feel safe after a long day at 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.
7. Problems are brought up and solved within the home tour, reduces objections from buyers
Although the home tours are meant to put the property in its best light, we also do not downplay the potential obstacles and flaws. In fact, we make it a point to anticipate and address these potential concerns that buyers may have, and propose possible solutions within the home tour video. This reduces objections from buyers, as they are not caught by surprise. If the buyer continues to show interest in the property even after the potential obstacles are addressed, it means that these concerns are likely not deal breakers for them.
8. A home tour is a FIRST viewing, the physical viewing is the SECOND viewing
That brings us to the last reason. Our home tour videos include comprehensive details and in-depth analysis of the property, equipping potential buyers with all the necessary information to make informed decisions. The home tour video serves as a first viewing for the buyers, and to us, it serves as the first layer of vetting and filtering for qualified buyers. When they take time and effort to come down for a physical viewing, they are already aware of the pros and cons, it is a second viewing to have a physical feel of the space. This approach increases the likelihood of genuine buyers, increasing the likelihood of genuine offers, and speedier deals.
In Conclusion
Is a home tour necessary when it comes to selling a property today? Our answer is YES. It is not only necessary, it is extremely beneficial. BUT, it will be necessary and beneficial only IF the following components are met after the home tour video is created:
- 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 shareability and viewership.
- Marketing dollars have to be spent to continuously distribute the video content to the right audience 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.
- The video has to be engaging and entertaining as well. This is an important element for the video content to catch 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 plus points 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, then YES, a home tour is extremely useful and necessary in selling a home today by PropertyLimBrothers’ standards.
Final Word on Property Portals and PropertyLimBrothers’ Signature Home Tour Videos
At PropertyLimBrothers, we still use all the major property portals, and we are great partners with our portal 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 can help our clients’ properties stand out and what creates uniqueness for that property we are marketing. And when those questions are set as the 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 Home Tour Videos is also one but a very major part of our 20 tools in the marketing campaign.
