With an average of 350 new listings coming onto the website everyday at the moment as we head into spring you can get a bit overawed with the property for sale in NZ. However every once in a while there is a property that appears on the site that makes a lasting impression – just such a property caught my eye today.
Admittedly this is a very impressive property comprising 6 bedrooms and therefore you could argue that it is bound to be more of a dream property. I do believe that a key component of what caught my eye was the quality of the photography. The vendor in consultation with the agent chose to get in a professional photographer and create a very appealing and engaging portfolio of images.
These 16 photos are a superb example in my judgement of how to really market real estate. Those photos are the most powerful and effective way of grabbing attention as a would-be buyer scans the website and the search results. This property rightfully jumps out and says in confident and arresting tone “Check out this house”. As a vendor that is what you want from marketing and this is what the property achieves.
The proof is in the pudding – in just 7 days the property has been viewed over 1,000 times – the fact that it is a featured listing on the website is certainly one reason for the success, but without those powerful images the results would undoubtedly be somewhat less.
Added to the photography is a very compelling summary of the selling points of the property as well as the surrounding community, coupled with a map to provide locational information, this listing comes close to a perfect presentation – the only missing piece is probably the asking price expectation which is so often requested by users sharing their feedback with us on the site.
All of this supports the key finding from the latest Nielsen Online survey into the real estate market. The research surveyed over 1,200 people actively using real estate websites here in NZ during June.
A key question asked was “How useful do you feel the following online resources would be in helping you to research properties and find relevant properties for sale?
The results as seen from the chart below are unambiguous – consumers are telling us they want loads of large high quality images, this helps them make good informed decision as to how the property looks in all rooms and from all angles.
Additionally consumers want context – where it is and what is its surrounding neighbourhood like – this comes from an accurate address which can be mapped.
Lastly consumers want an accurate price indication – they want to know if this dream home really matches their budget.
These are what the consumers want – as a website operator this is what we want so as to provide the searching buyers on the site with what they want – to achieve this we need to get the real estate industry to embrace this message of rich, compelling content – that is a constant part of our role here at realestate.co.nz
Update 4th September
Below is a further chart providing results from the Nielsen survey showing additional items that buyers are keen to see presented on real estate websites.
Thanks Alister,
I see they left out the usefulness of video in their research
Mike
Mike,
Very good question – as you will see the updated version for his post shows the result for video at 63%.
The point I would make about video as a personal opinion from experience is that video complements a range of great images, never replaces photos.
A buyer scanning a result of listings needs to have a compelling impression of a property borne of great images. Once hooked they will see a video as a means of better “understanding” a property using the video as a virtual open home visit. A video on its own is lost and can never adequately service the needs of a buyer looking at a listing.
Agreed. I’m interested as to how useful photos/virtual/video would be vs just photos. I guess it all comes down to cost at the end of the day, but its seems people like to view as much content as possible.
Kruz
mike.
Bumber about the blogs (20%). I think many new zealanders are still coming to terms with how useful than can be? What I have found very useful about blogs for products I have bought is that people who have purchased a certain product give personal feedback as to how good the product is. This is a big difference between some selling a product and someone describing how useful they have found the product.
Mike
Mike
To be honest I was surprised and delighted to see blogs get a mention. To have 1 in 5 cite blogs as a valuable source given the scarcity of this content is an encouragement to those in the industry who do blog.
Additionally it should also at the same time act as a motivation for those who do not to appreciate the interest that people out there looking for property have to this medium as a source of information.