Advertising Tips to get your Water Mill Property Sold

It’s a competitive market out there, and as technology has changed, so have the ways that buyers search for and compare potential home purchases. If you’ve invested in renovations, yard maintenance, a new paint job, a good photographer, a professional stager, and a great agent, then you’re on the right track. But people have so many more ways to find homes than they used to, and that means the pool is larger. There’s a different level of competition, even if your home is in the best possible shape it can be. So how do you get people to see it online?

Consider this: The person who might be interested in buying your home is inundated by digital material all day long. They’re holding the portal to your house in their hand, but those smartphones are constantly buzzing with new distractions: Facebook updates, Instagram likes, texts, news alerts, email alerts — the list goes on and on. You want their first impression of your home to pull them in. Here are some crafty ways to go about getting those eyeballs locked on your property.

Get a Drone

Yes, you read that correctly. Amateur drones have become quite affordable and accessible — there are even summer “drone camps” for kids these days — and the real estate market has been steadily increasing its use of drone video and photography. (Estimates have real estate listings being 22% of the overall drone market by 2020.) If you’ve got a fabulous property, why not show it off from above? With a drone, you get a steady camera attached to a machine that can zoom out, zoom in, swivel, and fly around your home and yard. That type of experience can stop a buyer in their tracks on any size screen.

360 Video

Just as cutting-edge as drone video is the use of an immersive, surround visual experience. 360 cameras provide viewers with a view of the world that no human eye can ever provide — you literally can see an entire room by dragging your finger on a screen or mouse. This gives the potential buyer the power to “walk through” the entire house at their leisure, without even setting foot on your property. This type of offering in a house listing can completely blow away any standard video on other listings, and will really give you an edge.

Magic Words

You have to sell people the idea of your house just as much as you sell them the concrete facts and visuals about it. People read so much content on their phones, tablets, and computers these days that their brains are just inundated with text. And you can’t rely on visual tricks alone to pique their interest. They need phrases and words that get stuck in their heads and stay associated with your house when they picture themselves in it. A few key ideas:

• Backyard paradise
• Open floor plan
• Stunning water views
• Charming bungalow
• Vintage chic
• Exclusive neighborhood
• Brilliant, modern renovations

Facebook

This is an incredibly powerful tool for a homeowner. Most people spend more than 30 minutes a day on Facebook, so it’s like you’re fishing in a very busy pond. You can literally tailor your listing to an extremely specific target group and direct your listing into their News Feed. Facebook has so many parameters you can tweak that it will make your head spin, but anyone can do it, and the reach that a posting has is, in many ways, far greater than a Zillow listing or an agency site. You can target people based on income, age range, zip code, ownership status, or market a specific pool that mirrors groups of people who have already purchased homes. The potential here is not to be underestimated.

Know Your Targets

Millennials are in one of the hottest demographics of first-time homebuyers right now. Not all of them may have incomes that are going to land them in Water Mill, but the rising creative and tech-savvy startup market in New York City actually might have deeper pockets than you think. And that’s where all the technological advances and social media tools listed above can come in handy. But baby boomers shouldn’t be ignored — people who are near retirement age also use Facebook and have embraced the idea of smart features in homes: dishwashers, washer/dryers, and refrigerators that are connected to the internet. Are these things that could push your listing over the top for a buyer like that? If so, it could be worth another layer of investment, because once those items are in your listing, you may have a buyer.