Marketing Luxury Homes in the
Age of the Internet
By Richard B Green
Selling real estate is a competitive business.
It is also one in which there is both tremendous risk and high earning potential.
That is especially true in the case of high-end luxury properties.
Real Estate Professionals Market Luxury Homes
For real estate professionals, marketing luxury
homes requires different strategies than selling more typical homes and
properties. When trying to sell a half-million dollar home,
and ad in the local Sunday newspaper is not the most effective approach to
take.
How to Distinguish a Luxury Home
The luxury home market is usually defined,
depending on the local market, as the top 10% of homes listed by asking price
or homes listed above $500,000. Something that makes luxury home sales
different from others is that each property often requires its own marketing
plan. Another difference is that the buyer is more likely to be from
out-of-town or state, often more than 500 miles from the location of the
property.
Luxury Property Market
Another common challenge in selling luxury
properties is that many of them are highly customized to the needs, wants and
tastes of the current owners. Unusual and special features make a home unique
but to many buyers, these homes would appear to require extensive renovating to
make them more suitable for them.
Traditional Marketing for Luxury Property
Placing ads in newspapers, local real estate
guides, and running open houses is not the most practical approach to reach
potential buyers of these homes. These tried and true techniques of selling
homes often do not reach people genuinely interested in purchasing high-end
luxury properties. Rather, they often attract people who are described as
interior decorating tourists or just those curious about what's inside these
stunning homes.
Reach Luxury Home Buyers on the Web
The Internet has opened up better avenues for
reaching buyers interested in luxury homes in markets across the country and
around the globe. Listing a luxury home online can extend a real estate agent
or broker's reach by hundreds or thousands of miles instantly.
List a Luxury Property Easily
In addition to multiple listing services (MLS),
the Internet is also home to a variety of sites offering other ways of listing
real estate for sale. There are listing sites that sell nearly everything
imaginable and others that are exclusive to homes and property.
With the ability to include detailed description
of a luxury home and its amenities as well as photos and, sometimes, virtual
tours or at least a link to drive traffic to an external site for more
information, these sites are very economical to a real estate agent's
advertising and marketing budget. Some offer free listings or charge a nominal
fee while others charge more for deluxe features.
Websites Where Luxury Property Can be Listed
Craigslist.org is one example. Anyone can list
almost anything, including real estate, largely for free. Craigslist.org is a
collection of some 30 million online classified ads in 450 markets in all 50
There are sites that are more specific to buying
and selling real estate. One example is houselist.com. This site has different
levels of listing from free to several hundred dollars annually. Each level
includes more selling features for an unlimited number of listings. Like
craigslist.org, houselist.com is searchable by state and city or by country.
Another option is to use an auction site. eBay is probably the best known of these online companies.
Listing expenses are generally linked to the value of the item for sale. There
are nominal insertion fees for posting the item on the site. When the item is
sold, additional fees are applied amounting to a percentage of the value of the
sale.
|
HighEndCrazy.com Sells the Luxury Home to a
Discriminating Market There are also websites that cater to more
discerning buyers who are looking for luxury items and homes. An example of
these is HighEndCrazy. The advantage of a site like HighEndCrazy. is that it attracts people in the buying demographic would
are most likely to be interested in purchasing a luxury property as their
primary residence or as a second home. Thus, a seller is more likely to
become a potential buyer. When developing a marketing campaign for a
luxury property, consider listing it online. The Internet is an ever-growing
and changing wealth of advertising and networking opportunities that should
not be overlooked. It is the latest twist on the "six degrees of
separation" that many real estate agents and brokers rely on, especially
when selling high-end luxury properties. Richard Green is a Civil Engineer who has been
active in residential, commercial and industrial construction and development
for over 30 years. Richard is currently developing an office park and
townhouse project in Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Richard_B_Green |