In real estate, slowdowns require quick thinking.
According to FloridaRealtors.org, that’s just what real estate agents and homebuilders are doing as Southwest Florida’s housing market rounds the curve from hot to not-so. With pending and closed sales down dramatically in the region from a year ago, marketers are relying on everything from high-tech tools like apps, drone photography and interactive digitalized floor plans to events like open houses, fundraisers and dinner parties. Some of the techniques have never been tried in this market before.
For instance, earlier this month John R. Woods launched a news-based web video series that it calls “SWFL Real Estate TV.” It focuses on issues affecting Naples, like development on Fifth Avenue South and the Vanderbilt Beach area, to complement its lifestyle-based video series on neighborhoods. To help agents keep in contact with customers who’ve gone North, the company is also holding social media, branding and blogging classes to help agents sharpen their online skills. And it’s promoting agents’ open houses, which have ballooned since last year. More than 100 are held weekly from Sanibel to Marco Island.
Yet some agents from different firms are trying a twist on the usual brokerage-centric model and are banding together to hold simultaneous open houses in a single community. Agents need to be creative and think outside the box. To get families to tour more than one home, agents are giving away different trinkets to the guests at the open houses. But innovative marketing techniques need to be introduced thoughtfully or they can run afoul of homeowners association rules or wind up irritating the neighbors.
Nevertheless, most agents feel they have to do more than just present the facts to compete, and many are paying more out of pocket to gain a marketing advantage than they did a year ago.
Ultimately, all of the promotional tools in the world can’t make up for the one thing that sells a home the quickest. A seller who sets a realistic price. The market is contracting, and for what we have in our inventory right now, we need to be super sharp on pricing.
