Having seen a number of luxury homeowners put their luxury estates homes on the market recently, you may have become inspired to put yours on the market, as well, but before you do, here are some of the luxury home marketing basics that you, or your agent, need to know, courtesy of Broker Agent News.
1. 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 this 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.
2. 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 the 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 www.sfjones.com, or www.kerryjoyce.com.3. Renderings ? A rendering is a representation of a home using ink drawings, water color, or in many 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 www.renderings.com, or www.venturegraphicsinc.com.
4. 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 www.dupontregistery.com. Many also create high end brochures, or virtual business cards to market their listings by using companies like www.nichestuff.com. In addition many top tier agents create websites specifically for their high end homes like www.veryspecialhomes.com. Finally some tech savvy agents create web-commercials for their listings using point and click services from companies like www.imprev.net.
5. 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 video 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 www.visualtour.com.
It's also a good idea to create an individual website for the home, or an individual blog for the home. It can take years to sell a luxury home, making it highly important for it to be both aggressively and elegantly marketed.
Here is some very good advice for those interested in real estate. Maybe some of it is not new to those into this business, but it is of real help for those who want to close the deal for themselves, without using the services of an estate agency.
Posted by: chicago news | November 14, 2006 1:23 PM | Permalink to Comment