Tag: real estate marketing

A New Wrinkle in Real Estate Marketing

Coffee shop employees sometimes “salt the tip jar” — putting a dollar or two in an empty jar to influence customer behavior. Now, some in the real estate industry are borrowing the idea and implementing it on a much larger scale.

Home staging companies have been around forever — real estate companies hire them to make vacant houses look lived-in. But until recently, most of the houses weren’t actually occupied.

That’s changing. The Wall Street Journal reports on companies that provide “faux homeowners” — people who actually move in. The idea is not completely new (some businesses did this during the California slump of the early 90’s), but it’s become a lot more prevalent. These companies

…fill high-end empty houses with occupants who play the part of happy homeowners, in a bid to remove the price-depressing stigma of vacancy…Temporary occupants bring their own furnishings and insurance to empty houses, and maintain the home, lawn and pool. They pay utilities and a monthly fee well below market rent. “They are not tenants, because they are instrumental in marketing the property,” says Ms. Heineke [Mary Heinke, owner of Quality First Home Marketing]. And besides, “a tenant isn’t seen as an asset.”…

Showhomes Management LLC, a franchise operation based in Nashville, has 350 “resident managers” living in homes for sale in 46 high-end markets, including in Florida, Arizona and Illinois. The company has seen revenues increase 88% since last year, says vice president Thomas Scott. Unoccupied staged houses aren’t selling as well as those with people in them, he says, “because people can still tell they’re vacant.”

During the boom years, many homeowners just put a for-sale sign on the lawn, and let buyers compete with each other.  Even if the home was in poor repair, buyers would use their imaginations as to what the house could be — and make an offer.

Now, it’s up to the seller to fill in the picture.

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Layaway Comes to Real Estate

Sometimes innovation means going backwards. And sometimes it means moving an old concept to a new industry.

Much has been made lately about the return of the layaway plan — a long-out-of-fashion retail program in which an item is kept at the store while the customer makes payments on it. Until recently, the layaway had been almost completely replaced by the credit card; customers preferred plastic because they could get instant gratification.

The credit crunch has made layaway popular again — Kmart, which never dropped it, is now putting renewed emphasis on the program. Parent company Sears Holdings recently brought it back to Sears after a 20 year absence.

Now, with mortgages difficult to come by, real estate companies and home builders are marketing the concept. According to Business Week,

K. Hovnanian Homes and Beazer Homes are offering contracts that let purchasers deposit downpayment installments in a no-interest escrow account. (Buyers who back out of such plans will lose whatever they’ve accumulated.)

This is a terrific example of what Dan Kennedy and Bill Glazer call “Swipe-and-Deploy” marketing. As a concept, layaway is nothing new. But by moving the concept from traditional retail to real estate, a couple of enterprising companies are generating publicity, interest, and buyers.

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Adjust Your Marketing to a Changing Market — A Great Example

If there’s one thing becoming increasingly clear in 2008, it’s that marketing techniques that have worked for years — and in some cases decades — may not get the job done anymore. Like it or not, the market’s different now. Nobody knows if the differences are temporary or permanent. But for the short term, at least, you may have to add some more creative steps to your dance routine.

A terrific Portland example appeared in the Oregonian over the weekend. Craig Reger, a principal broker at The Hasson Company, will be offering foreclosure bus tours beginning next month.

Reger, one of the region’s top producing brokers, normally works in the high-end market at $500,000 or higher. But the higher-end homes aren’t moving as fast as foreclosed homes.

“The market’s changed, and my business model’s changing,” Reger said.

Reger recognizes that the world is different now. He’s not sitting still, hoping it’ll change back — he’s making the necessary adjustments now.

The bus tours haven’t started yet, but it’s already gotten Reger quite a bit of attention. I called his office to see if I could help him spread the word, and his assistant told me he doesn’t need to advertise the tours right now — he’s getting all the free publicity he needs. [Craig, if you’re reading this, feel free to give me a call as soon as the media attention dies down…]

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Click this link to subscribe to Portland’s Finest Advertising Blog.

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