If you’re a real estate agent and you sell trailers and luxury homes, you better segregate the two when developing your online marketing strategies.
And let’s go ahead and keep off the website the photos of you and your dog next to a trailer, said Lender Processing Service’s Brandon Wright, who spoke Thursday at HousingWire’s REO Expo in Fort Worth, Texas, about marketing luxury REOs. Clients aren’t expecting that and they don’t want to see it — they want the bells and whistles.
Wright was on a panel titled, “The Other Side of REO: Marketing High-End Listings.”
“Clients aren’t going to want to go to your website and see your $40,000 mobile home and your $2 million home listed right under it,” he said. “They’re going to expect two separate websites, two separate marketing plans — they can all feed to the same site, but they’ll expect a high quality website.”
When buyers google your name and your site pops up, these days, if it doesn’t have the virtual tours and the 20 photos, they’ll move on to one that isn’t listed next to a mobile home, he said.
“Because in my head I’m thinking your expertise is the mobile home, you’re just starting to dabble in the million-dollar price,” Wright said.
When you market to the client, think about what attracts you when you’re the consumer, when you’re selecting a professional. “Do you want to go the doctor who got C’s through medical school? Or do you want to go to the doctor that looks professional, acts professional and walks professional?” said Steve Brant, chief executive of Instaclose Real Estate.
Maggie Mathis, vendor manager at Blueprint Asset Management, said she’s attracted to professional photography, specifically the nighttime kind. But if you have to resort to taking photos with your smart phone, at least have the latest edition.
“I have seen high-end homes on the MLS that I can tell they just went out with their 3G iPhone as opposed to their newest one,” Mathis said. “As you’re going through the MLS, if you’re an agent, you’re going to stop on the pretty picture. You need to start with photography.
Man … if only they would have offered me some advice on how to market my line of luxury trailer homes!
jhilley@housingwire.com
