A Real Estate Discussion Blog

I think this is a fantastic marketing strategy for a developer in Chicago  trying to close out the last of the townhomes in University Village. 

The general plan:

- On Sept 26th he is holding a 1 day only, last chance sale.

- Units open for show at 9am and they'll start taking contracts at noon.  Appts can be made to view the homes prior to this date.

- At noon, it is then a first come, first serve.

• 1st buyer gets 30% off
  
• 2nd buyer gets 27% off
  
• 3rd buyer gets 24% off
  
• 4th buyer gets 21% off
• 5th buyer gets 19% off
• 6th buyer gets 17% off
• 7th buyer gets 15% off

- In order to qualify, you must be pre-approved for a mortgage and prove that you have certified funds for the down payment.

Why I like this idea:

1) It creates urgency and makes it appear as if there is a large market for these last units.  It makes it look like you have to act fast with this language in the ad "people in line will receive numbers..."  Can you imagine having to give out numbers in today's market to see your listing?  This development has been on the market for over a year, and now all of sudden there is going to be a huge rush?  They sure do a great job of making it appear so!

2) Who wouldn't want to get a 15-30% discount!  Sounds awesome!  The reality is, you can get this discount on just about any house right now.  I like to think about Car Max for this point.  I know that if I go to just about any car dealership in Chicago right now, I can probably get them to come down off the price.  But if I were going to buy a car, I'd probably go to Car Max- no haggling prices.  You pay what is on the sticker, some people really like this idea. They never have to wonder if they would have gone lower or have to bother with the haggling. 

3) By requiring pre-approval, they should be increasing the quality of the buyer to better assure an easy closing.

I looked these units up in the MLS to try to get an idea of the list to sold price to see if this was actually a good deal.  There were over 250 sales, so I couldn't go thru them all.  And because they are new construction, it is so hard to get a grasp on this ratio because one doesn't know what all was negotiated into the contract.  I saw some that were sold right at list price, and I saw some that were actually more than 30% off.  So apparently this deal has existed all along, but the advertising campaign does a great job making you think otherwise. 

University Village has a good thing going here.  They just need to make sure they do a good job exposing the promotion to a wide enough audience to truly create a market.  (for starters, they should put it on their website....)

We all know that people want to see lots of photos on online listings (Zillow lets you upload up to 50 per listing).  There was a small update made to Zillow this week that makes the number of photos on a listing more obvious.

Take your Realtor hat off for a minute and put your consumer hat on.  Say you did a search for listings and this is what you got back.  Knowing that people usually have a finite amount of time they spend online and won't look at every house on a page, which of these do you think will get more looks? 

(Scroll down for a quick video on how to edit photos)

 

How to add, delete, or edit photos:

Make sure you get your next open house information on Zillow, it is free and easy to do.  The information will show up on the site a week before the event, and then automatically come down when it is over.  Here is a short video that walks you thru the process:

 

 

And it works!  Here is a quick story from a Realtor I met at the annual NAR convention last year.  She entered the open house info on Zillow, canceled the open house but forgot to take the info off Zillow. 12 people showed up, she got a buyer and actually double sided it. The mix up turned out to be a good thing!

 

Let's start this week with a little humor.  This weekend I rented the movie I Love You Man.  Paul Rudd, the main charector, is a Realtor.  There are some hiliarous scenes in the movie that Realtors will think are particularly funny. 

Warning- You will only think this movie is funny if you liked The Hangover, Old School or Superbad. 

 

The funniest scene is when another Realtor is trying to convince Paul Rudd that he needs to bring him on as a co-lister for Lou Ferrigno's, the Incredible Hulk, house.

 

 

Last week, Zillow launched our Local Pages, look for the new tab in the top bar.  Here you'll find tons of local data about not only homes that are for sale, but all homes in a market.  You can also find information such as demographics, population make up, and even see any local pics that may have been uploaded.  This week, we took all of that information and made it available in a free widget you can use on your website or blog.  Look in the right hand column of my blog to see one of the ways you can use this info. 

It is easy to install.  First visit this page where we list all the widgets available.

Chose the area for which you want the information.  You can go as macro as the city of Chicago, or down to a particular neighborhood.

 

Then chose what information you want displayed.  Here is your menu of choices:

 Do you want a large or smaller widget?

 

 The code is automatically generated for you.  Just hit the 'copy' button.

You can inset the widget on any website or blog.  But if you want to put it on your Active Rain blog, simply go to the Settings area of the My Home tab.  Then paste into the blog description and you are done!

Great, local, free content that will automatically be updated for you!

I know people have a lot of questions about Zillow, but finding answers isn't always that easy on the site.  Now we have a lot of the helpful content that has been produced in the way of articles, videos and in the Zillow Advice section - organized on one page for simple reference! 

Welcome to the Zillow FAQ page:

Our quarterly Homeowner Confidence Survey, conducted in partnership with Harris Interactive, was released today. How you feel about the results could depend on what side of the table you are on.

This is the third quarter in a row where homeowners as a majority have predicted that we’ve reached the bottom, believing that their personal home value will not decrease any further. Of the past three quarters, this quarter people were the most optimistic.

• 34% think their home’s value will increase 
• 47% think their home’s value will stay the same
• 19% of homeowners think their home’s value will decrease. 

Those numbers represent what people think of the future. How do they feel about the past quarter?

• 22% think their home’s value has increased
• 19% think their home’s value has stayed the same
• 60% think their home’s value has decreased

Unfortunately, this isn’t what our national numbers show. According to analysis of Zillow’s Q2 Real Estate Market Reports, 83% of U.S. homes declined in value over the past year – up from 80% in Q1.

When we look at what people think happened to their home values, verses what our numbers actually show, we are able to calculate a Home Value Misperception Index and compare it quarter to quarter. For Q2 of 2009 this index is 13 (zero would mean homeowners’ perceptions were perfectly in line with actual values), compared to 6 in Q1 and 11 in Q4 2008.

Going back to my opening line of how this affects you could depend on who you are representing. A growing Misconception Index could mean that is may be harder to convince Sellers of a realistic listing price. On the other hand, the renewed optimism may mean more Buyers come off the fence and are more realistic with their offer prices.

Either way, let’s hope this renewed optimism continues to grow to the point where attitude could be an effective ‘stimulus package’.

 

 

 

Perceptions can vary region to region:

To minimize risk, many agents now require their buyers get pre-approved before they begin looking at homes.  This is a smart tactic, since it's important for buyers to know right from the beginning how much they can afford to spend on a home.  In addition, some sellers require buyers to get pre-approved just so they know that a lender has looked at their financial picture.

On Active Rain, when we talk about Zillow, we spend a lot of time talking about real etate and Zestimates, but did you know that there is also a very popular, free mortgage section where Buyers can begin the loan shopping process? 

A quick and easy way for your buyers to get pre-approved is to have them visit Zillow Mortgage Marketplace, where they can request custom loan quotes from thousands of lenders.  Buyers submit a loan request - anonymously - using the Zip code where they are looking and a target price, along with other information such as the down payment amount, estimated credit score, income and debts. 

In just seconds, they receive custom loan quotes from a network of thousands of participating lenders.  Buyers  find the best quote by sorting, filtering, and comparing quotes side-by-side.   They also learn about lenders via lender profiles, ratings and reviews. 

Once they've had a chance to compare quotes and lenders, buyers contact lenders to request a pre-approval...lenders don't call them.  Borrowers are in control and remain anonymous until they decide to make contact with a lender.

Learn more about how Zillow Mortgage Marketplace works from Mary Miller, Product Management, Mortgage:

 

And Lenders, if you haven't signed up to quote yet, here is a link where you can try it out and see what type of loan requests have been made in your area. 

Still trying to decision if you want to join a social network, get a smart phone, or start tweeting?  Check out this amazing video. 

 

Hat tip to @doverby where I found this link on his Facebook status.

Zillow makes money by selling ads on the site.  To be a successful media company, you need to make sure your customers are making money from their ads.  To help our customers do this, it is important to look at what the best performing ads look like, and the lowest performing, because ad content is crucial to performance. Actually, these findings can apply broadly to any advertising campaign, not just those on Zillow.

If you take one thing away from this, here it is - LISTING ADS PERFORM A LOT BETTER (in terms of click thrus) THAN AGENT HEADSHOT ADS. 

Observations from the Top 50:

• 100% of the ads were of listings
• 45 of 50 of ads were an exterior home shot, 3 were interior, 2 were aerials
• 42 of the ad mentioned a specific area (neighborhood, city or addres)
• 8 central messages revolved around Short Sale, Foreclosure or price reduction
• 2 were Open Houses ads
• 0 photos were renderings, all were actual photos
• 0 ads promoted a specific person, business or brand
• 22 of the ads have a specific price in them
• 7 had a phone number on the ad
• 50 of the photos were taken on a sunny day

Observations from the Bottom 20

• 18 Of the ads were promoting an agent/broker/brand
• 1 had no photos (and no clicks)
• 1 had some type of call to action on the ad
• To protect the innocent, I'll just type the more popular tag lines from these ads:
  • Buying or Selling?
  • Let's Make It Happen!
  • Greater [City] Expert
  • [State] Specialist (you specialize in the whole state?)
  • Call For Results
  • Buyer Rebate
  • Luxury Living
  • I'll Get Your Moving
  • Need Perspective?
  • Local [Large City] Expert (would be more effective if neighborhood name was used)
  • 31 Yrs Selling Experience
  • Certified Mtg Planner  (does JoePublic know what Mtg is?)
  • ..and the most common  No tag line - Just company name

The Top 50 ads on the site this week:

In case you aren't familar with Zillow Showcase Ads, they are zip code targeted ads that can be updated at any time.  Here is a page on Zillow to read more about Showcase Ads and get started.  If you want to get an idea of cost, you can call 1-866-324-4005 and one of our marketing consultants will be glad to give you a local quote, as prices vary depending on much traffic your area recieves. The marketing consultants would also be happy to consult with you on creative, whether you are a new or existing client. 

If you are a visual person, please watch this video with more information about how the ads work: