How to Sell Luxury High-Rise Condos
The most successful strategy entails defining a target market and then utilizing modern tactics to target, nurture, and ultimately sell to that market. Tactics such as virtual tours, social media marketing, and paid advertising are crucial pieces in any modern real estate sales and marketing strategy.
Incorporate High-Quality Professional Photos
Staged photos
Those in the market for a luxury condo don’t want to see images of bare living rooms or empty bedrooms. Instead, they want to gaze upon a beautiful, fully furnished space they could imagine living in themselves.
That’s why it’s worth hiring a professional photographer to take staged photos of one or more units in your building. Alternatively, some companies offer virtual staging services, so you don’t need to put the effort into determining the best furniture layout and accessories for the space.
By giving prospects a visual as to how their future home could look, you can encourage them to think about how they’d apply their own unique touches to the unit.
For those who don’t feel staged photos can make that much difference, the National Association of Realtors® found that 77% of buyers’ agents said, “staging a home made it easier for a buyer to visualize the property as a future home.”
3-D renderings of unfinished projects
It’s every property seller’s dream to have applicants pouring in before a building is even completed. Providing prospects with 3-D renderings of unfinished projects can help make this dream a reality.
A 3-D representation of a unit can give potential buyers the opportunity to see and become enamored with the finished product beforehand. More importantly, it offers a better sense of space and dimensions than 2-D images alone.
Since many people looking to transition from house to condo are worried about having adequate space, showing 3-D renderings of units can reassure your prospects that, yes, there is plenty of room for their possessions—and then some.
Implement Virtual Tours and Virtual Reality
Technology has advanced to the point where people can travel to faraway places without ever leaving the comfort of home. Those in the real estate industry should take advantage of such technology by implementing virtual tours.
As with staged photos and 3-D renderings, virtual tours allow prospective buyers to get a more in-depth look at what could eventually become their new home or vacation retreat. Additionally, it’s a more convenient option for individuals who lack the time to visit a unit in person.
VR usage is slowly gaining traction throughout a number of industries. As it will likely become commonplace within the next few years, those in the real estate sector should get on board sooner rather than later.
Unlike virtual tours that prospective buyers can take online, VR allows them to have a more immersive experience. By investing in the right gear, sellers can give their prospects the chance to walk down a hallway, gaze out a window, and step inside a room—even if they’re hundreds of miles away.
If your luxury property is not yet finished, or the unit you’re selling is far from a prospect’s current location, VR will prove to be an extremely powerful tool. Though 3-D renderings and online tours are still useful tactics, VR can give your prospects a more authentic “feel” of a unit.
Such technology also allows prospective buyers to tour a unit 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year—even during holidays. That means you never miss out on the opportunity to sell a unit.
Further, taking advantage of the technology now will put you ahead of your competition.
There are a number of software programs on the market that promise to take listings to another level with virtual technology. However, Matterport has become one of the most highly recommended applications for showcasing real estate.
Use Top-Rated Real Estate Listing Services
Gone are the days when people scoured the newspaper or visited their local real estate office to begin shopping for a new home. In 2017, more than half of buyers found the residence they eventually purchased online.
The list below highlights some of the most popular websites on which to post a listing:
However, it’s not enough to simply add a listing to one or more of these sites. Those who wish to sell out their high-rise condo should aim to have strategically placed ads on these sites that catch the visitor’s eye. You can place paid ads on these sites through the Google Display Network or DoubleClick, and even target combined demographics such as age, gender, income level, and more on these sites.
Further, listings should be optimized to ensure the highest possible results. Sellers should research competitive keywords and apply them accordingly. Also, due to the rise of voice searching, more time should be spent looking into how people phrase their searches, which can be implemented using a tool like AnswerThePublic.com.
Be Where Your Market Is Online
If you aren’t marketing in the right place, you might as well be shouting to an empty room. Having a solid social media presence is no longer a choice for those in the real estate industry—it’s a necessity. Failing to do so is a mistake that many sellers make, and it’s one that can result in missing out on a ton of leads.
Though you should conduct research to determine which social media platform your prospect uses the most, there are a few that you should hit no matter what. Apart from YouTube, these three websites have the highest usage rates among all demographics:
- Facebook– This platform offers the most advanced advertising targeting due to the plethora of data they have on users.
- Pinterest– Not just used to target female buyers, Pinterest is a very powerful ad platform because you can target your advertising based off a search query, as well as psychographic and demographic information, or all at once.
- Instagram– This platform has very powerful advertising targeting capabilities since it is owned by Facebook, but it allows you to reach a younger demographic if need be. Further, Instagram consists entirely of photo and video content, which are critical media pieces for real estate marketing.
You should not only have your own account so that you can communicate with prospects but also invest in ads on these sites.
In addition to appearing on various social media platforms, you should strive to come up on other websites that your prospects may frequently visit. This can be accomplished by implementing PPC (pay-per-click) marketing. Most digital ad platforms have very advanced tracking in the back end of their systems, and additional tools such as CallRail.com can be used to justify these expenditures and prove ROI (return on investment).
By sponsoring ads on popular websites, you can generate clicks to your own. Though some sellers may be hesitant to pay for what they deem an unnecessary expense, the value of paid traffic should not be ignored. Facebook retargeting is an especially powerful way to stay top of mind in those who have demonstrated an interest in your property before.
Have a Fast Website
People today expect answers and results within seconds. Waiting for a page to load is the last thing someone wants to do when searching for their future home online. That’s why sellers are strongly encouraged to have a fast, user-friendly website in place.
Having reliable web hosting, utilizing a CDN (content delivery network) such as Cloudflare, and uploading web-optimized images can help in improving website performance so that your prospects don’t get frustrated and leave.
To demonstrate just how critical website speed is to online commerce, Amazon once estimated that for every extra second of website load time, they would lose $1.6 billion in sales a year.
Use Content to Nurture Skeptical High-Rise Buyers
In the world of digital marketing, content is king. To increase your conversion rates, it’s important to provide high-quality content to your prospective buyers ahead of time. Blogs, videos, podcasts, infographics, and other forms of content deliver value ahead of time, which helps in establishing trust and makes you an authority in your prospects’ eyes.
As we live in an age of information, sellers need to remember that those in the market for a new home or weekend condo are initially looking for just that—information.
To address this, you should post content on your website that speaks to and educates your prospects at every phase of the buying process:
- Choosing a location– What does your city have to offer in terms of job market, education, culture, etc.? What kind of activities are available to those in your target demographic?
- Choosing to downsize– What are the pros and cons of downsizing? How can your prospect start to downsize?
- Choosing to buy a second home– What are the benefits of investing in a second home? What should your prospect look for in a second home?
- Choosing a desired lifestyle– What specialized amenities and/or services are offered to residents? Are there any other noteworthy aspects of the building or zip code?
The content should then be shared on your social media platforms (outposts) to direct traffic back to your website (home base).
Offer Financing Options
In a perfect world, sellers could fill up every unit with new, cash-paying residents. Though your ideal prospects likely have the means to purchase a luxury condo outright, there’s a good chance they lack the desire to do so. Depending on the perception of market conditions, an example could be that your prospective buyer may prefer to stay more liquid in their finances and would rather put down a large down payment but have a conventional 30-year loan.
By offering financing options for your units, you can open the door to a much wider audience, as well as provide more convenience to your existing audience if you were previously only offering cash or short-term loans as payment options. Individuals within your target demographic who would rather make payments for their home over a number of years will appreciate the opportunity provided to them.
The financing options made available to your prospects may vary depending on what route you decide to take (five-year loans, 10-year loans, etc.), but the result will be the same—greater interest in your property and higher conversion rates.
Add (or Increase) Event Marketing
Event marketing is an excellent way to draw attention to your property. By hosting events at your building, you can not only encourage prospects to visit but also strengthen your bond with the community. Although being in the digital era means that buyers may be 80% sold before you ever talk to them, there is still something to be said about getting a buyer to physically visit your property.
Some examples of event marketing tactics to incorporate into your strategy are as follows:
- Movie screenings– Invest in a projector and use your outdoor space to show films; note that this will be especially appealing to couples and families.
- Live music– Allow musicians to play in your common area and invite prospects to attend.
- Community gatherings– Host community gatherings such as fundraisers and art shows.
- Open houses– Schedule a monthly or quarterly open house with refreshments and provide attendees with tours of available units.
A frequently overlooked benefit of event marketing is that it can garner interest from individuals you may have neglected to target in your other marketing efforts. A couple that comes to a fundraiser at your property may be so taken with the layout and décor that they wind up requesting a private tour, bringing you one step closer to crossing another unit off your list.
A well-thought-out marketing strategy can do what property sellers once thought was an impossible task—selling out a luxury high-rise condo. With the right help, you can begin targeting prospects, getting interest, filling up units, and moving on to the next project.
Contact us at Viral Solutions today for a FREE, 45-minute marketing strategy call.
At Viral Solutions we are committed to seeing YOU succeed. It is our goal to grow your business with proven digital marketing strategies that will help your business for the long haul.
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