OWNER’S GUIDE:
FINDING THE RIGHT AGENCY TO SELL YOUR PROPERTY
A question I get asked a lot is “Which real estate agency is best to represent my development or my property?”
When you look for an agency, take a good look at what they do and how they work first. There are quite a number of things to consider. However, first and foremost, I advise you only to work with an agency that can deliver the following four things:
1. an APPEALING brochure
The brochure of a property is like the business card to your product, so pick an agency that makes appealing brochures. Professional pictures and engaging copywriting assembled in an intuitive format by a graphic designer are crucial if you want your property represented well. I keep seeing real estate agencies that shuffle together a bulk of snapshots within a word-file, who call this their brochure. Their sales go accordingly. So don’t pick an agency that cannot deliver a good brochure - this should be the absolute minimum.
2. A PROFESSIONAL Video
Pick an agency that can make a video of your property. Videos are a great tool for the potential buyers to get a feeling for your property, and there are so many ways you can use them as well - you can spread them on social media, on websites, forums. Which brings me to my next point:
3. MarkEting & Advertisement
Have somebody that understands marketing and advertisement. Most agents tend to just put your property on the common platforms and portals known for real estate listings (like immobilienscout and immonet in Germany). While that is widely accepted as the industry status-quo, in my experience it pays off greatly to be more proactive as a real estate agent: The common platforms have to be accessed manually by the potential buyers, however, what you really want, is to grab the the users’ attention where their content is filtered by their actual interests, like in the big social media platforms - and not just one. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn all attract very different sets of audiences, so to get the optimal sales results you want to reach as many people as possible on the one hand, but more importantly the right people - potential buyers that is. You have to be everywhere to achieve that, so I advise you to look for somebody who’s really doing the extra work and is very proactive in the way of doing media buying.
4. MEDIA BUYING: POSITIONING YOUR PROPERTY
Finally, look for an agency with very strong media campaigns. Content is important, but positioning is critical. An agency or a real estate agent who understands how to position your property will find you the right people. Profiling and targeting accordingly is the key. The agent needs an up-to-date knowledge about technologies, web algorithms and the audience’s browsing habits. The online activity of an individual looking for a penthouse for his family is completely different from that of somebody who is looking to invest in Berlin real estate with a 50 square meter apartment to rent out. Completely different people. So: targeting and profiling.
If you have an agency that does all these things, you are on the right track to getting your property sold promptly and in the most effective way.