Top Real Estate Marketing Trends for 2018

We’ll admit it: The real estate industry is notorious for being slow to embrace change and new technology. In the midst of a digital revolution, are real estate agents keeping up with the times?

Nine-five percent of home buyers will search for their next home using the internet, according to NAR 2017 report, Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, and that number is only expected to go up over time. A top-notch internet marketing plan is the most important factor in getting your home sold for the best possible price. Here are some of the marketing trends that changed real estate for the better in 2017, and what we can expect in the new year.

Top Real Estate Marketing Trends in 2018

1. Lightening-fast Lead Response. In any online sales environment, the new standard is for customer service to be immediate and intelligent. It’s especially true for real estate, where buyers expect that the person who follows up on their inquiry not only do it in a timely manner, but also to have some knowledge about the listing. In 1990, it may have been okay for your real estate agent to take a day or two to get back to customers; in 2018, that won’t fly! Our team has a three minute average response time to online inquiries coming from major real estate portals. It is no longer good enough to send out an autoresponder text or email, these are live and intelligent responses. Real estate agents are turning to live 24/7 support systems that provide instant response to buyer leads, typically by text. These live operators are either trained professionals or in some cases a smart AI chatbot texting you. Either way these instant intelligent and capable response systems are essential. Be sure to ask your real estate agent what their strategy is to respond to online leads on your home.
2. Featured Listings. Most of the web traffic for your home is coming from major real estate portals like Zillow, Realtor.com, Trulia, Homes.com, Redfin, etc. What many home sellers do not know is that some of these major portals allow real estate agents to pay extra for more exposure for your home. This featuring can lead to more online views, which can lead to more visitors, which can lead to more offers on your home.
3. Coming Soon Online Promotions. While pocket listings can be dangerous (not listing the home on your local MLS or multiple listing service) coming soon promotions can be a positive way to create “steam” about your listing before it is placed on the public MLS. With Zillow now allowing coming soon postings, this method packs some real power behind it. We list all of our coming soon listings on Zillow and on our own website as well as in our company’s (largest Realty company in Oregon and SW Washington) online forum. Together, this can generate a lot of interest, collecting names and numbers before the home is publically available. We tell all interested parties when the home is going on the public market so they can mark their calendars.
4. Professional Media. Once again home buyers surveyed by NAR (National Association of Realtors) in the 2017 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, choose pictures as the most important element in their home search, ranking photos above price and location. Unless the home is a total fixer or tear down, I believe professional photography is an absolute must. Depending on the property we also add professional videos, drone videos, 3D modeling, staging consultation and more.

Top Luxury Home Marketing Trends in 2018

In the past few years, real estate technology has taken some major leaps forward, allowing buyers to view homes from their computer like never before. While some of these technologies are overkill for your average Portland two-bedroom bungalow, if you’re listing a home for more than $500,000 the following tools can definitely improve the sale:

1. 3D Tours. Buyers can go in and out of rooms, look up at the ceiling and down at the flooring, and get an overall “feel” for the home without leaving their office or living room. Luxury home buyers are usually short on time so they are less likely to go in person to tour dozens of homes. Instead, they are using 3D tours, or at least video tour walkthroughs, to narrow their selection and tour just a handful of homes with their buyers’ agent.
2. Drone video. This sales tool goes beyond aerial photography to show the exterior and grounds of luxury homes. It’s a view buyers can’t get even while physically at the home. Imagine what it could do for your luxury home listing!
3. Targeted marketing using Big Data. Luxury homes appeal to a narrow demographic of buyers, and these buyers can be hard to reach. Fortunately, there are services that glean the Web for metadata on potential home buyers, so that real estate agents can target them specifically on social media platforms.

As real estate agents, we can either shy away from new technology, hoping it will go away, or put it to work for us! Guess which strategy we’re using here at the Stephen FitzMaurice Team. For the answer, head over to our listing package page (and our luxury home package page) to find out how we’re using all the latest and best marketing strategies to get your home sold fast, and for the best price!