How I Market Condominiums
My marketing philosophy is fairly simple. I try to set myself apart from other real estate agents by being a specialist in condominium sales. I want people to call me first when they start thinking about buying or selling a condominium. I do this by becoming knowledgeable about my specialty, accepting listings that are only within my specialty, and by assembling a tool box of resources that buyers and sellers of condominiums find useful.
I promote my expertise and resources in places where home buyers are looking for information. Hopefully, this all sounds straight forward and logical. However, it is a very different approach than most real estate agents take and usually not what most sellers expect.
Becoming A Specialist
The first step in closing a sale is to make the phone ring. Nothing is going to happen unless the phone rings. I think the best way to make this happen is to become a specialist. The physician analogy best explains this rational. If you have sore feet, you go to a podiatrist, not a general practitioner. If you have heart trouble, you go to a cardiologist, not a GP. I believe the same thing is true in real estate. If you wanted to buy a condo, would you call a Realtor who specializes in “single family homes, waterfront property, mobile homes, condominiums, commercial businesses, farmland, and empty building lots” or would you call the one that specializes in “condominiums”?
You would choose the true specialist. I use this example because if you ask most realtors in town about their specialty, the response will be that they specialize in everything. This makes them a generalist. I practice only in my specialty. I never accept commercial business and if I do accept a non-condominium residential listing (single family home or lot), it is only because the seller is a past client, friend, or family member. I don’t actively solicit this business and I carry very few in my listing inventory.
I Promote My Specialty, Not Individual Listings
Here is where I am going to part company with nearly all other real estate agents, most sellers, and world renowned syndicated real estate columnist, Robert Bruss (my guess is that he has made a lot more money selling newspapers than he ever made selling houses).
During a listing presentation, most agents will talk at length about the exposure that they will provide for the seller's home. They will talk about newspaper ads, real estate guide ads, maybe even television ads. Most sellers, because they have read Robert Bruss’s latest article, will ask about advertising. Open houses are another favorite “exposure tool” for real estate agents and usually demanded by sellers.
The facts indicate, however, that individual house ads and open houses are very ineffective at selling a particular house. When the market is glutted with inventory, these methods are even less effective due to the over abundance and clutter of ads and open house signs.
Each year the National Association of Realtors conducts an extensive survey on homebuyers and sellers. A pool of over 2000 recent home buyers and sellers are asked questions about their home buying and selling experiences. The following question in the most recent 2004 survey is particularly telling about the effectiveness of print advertising and open houses.
Where Buyers first learned about home purchased:
• Through their real estate agent (38%)
• From the sign in the front yard (16%)
• Through the internet (15%)
• From a print ad (7%)
• Friend/Relative (12%)
• Home Builder (7%)
• Other (5%)
All print advertising (newspapers, real estate guides, etc) account for only 7% of the results. Open houses are included in the “Other” category and account for less that 5% of sales. Based on this information my time would be better spent calling the friends and relatives of the seller than advertising in the local newspaper. I should note that the second most common method of matching buyers with sellers, the yard sign, is not applicable to most condominium transactions. “For Sale” signs are generally not allowed by most homeowners associations.
If house ads and open houses are so ineffective, then you have to question why they are used at all. I think there are three reasons:
• They are an easy, albeit costly, way to show your customer that you are doing something to sell their condo
• Most real estate agents aren’t aware of these statistics
• They can find customers for the agent – but not necessarily for the home that is being advertised.
The only valid reason for running house ads or open houses is the last one. They can make the phone ring and give the agent the opportunity to sell something. However, it’s just not nearly as efficient as the specialist strategy outlined above. With hundreds of very similar looking and sounding house ads, its nothing but luck if a prospective buyer calls on yours. Consider the two sets of ads below. If you were in the market for a condo, which ad would you investigate first?
 
Rather than spend my time and energy capturing the 7% category, I am choosing to focus on the 38% and 15% categories. I want to spend my time and energy on the areas that generate the most buyers.
All of my ads promote me, my specialty, and my website and always include some sort of offer or call to action. All of the ads are large (typically 8” X 5”), usually in color, include some eye catching graphics and are created by a professional personal marking firm. My ads will always stand out regardless of where I run them (newspaper, on line, real estate guide, etc.). I believe that this approach gets my ads read more than the smaller black and white house ads.
 I try to run my ads in a variety of places. I promote my website on line through Google, Yahoo, and other major search engines. I also advertise in the on-line real estate section of the local newspapers. I run the large color ads in the print versions of the papers and the local real estate guides.
The only problem with this approach is that it gives the illusion that I am doing nothing to sell an individual condominium. If I am selling your condo, you will rarely see your specific condo advertised in print. However, that doesn’t mean that I am not spending money on advertising. The large color ads cost large amounts of money to produce and insert. Internet advertising is expensive and maintaining a high quality web site costs big money. My guess is that few agents outspend me. Fewer yet do so in a way that will more effectively sell your condo.
Remember the one of the first assertions that I made at the beginning of this article – “nothing happens until the phone rings”. The question you have to ask yourself is which type of marketing is more likely to make the phone ring first – The marketing that looks just like every other condo on the market or the marketing that truly stands out and delivers a compelling call to action.
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