Realtor Prepping for Better Home Showing Results
A home showing is a key event for a home seller offering their property to the market. And it’s a key part of a selling strategy for progressive, commission-minded Realtors.
And when other sellers see how you sell firsthand at a showing and visit your social page/website, it’s a great opportunity for one additional sale.
When your client sees you prepare like a pro, with powerful online promotion, to nurture each online lead with caring via exceptional digital content (images, video, feature descriptions) and nurture useful conversations, all before they arrive, they know you’re creating more buyers, increasing engagement with good leads, getting higher offers and even launching bidding wars.
On that note, Realtors don’t talk enough about bidding wars and how to use showings to peak buyer intent. And little is said about selling strategy online that precedes the showing event to ensure high interest, emotional impact, and the buyer’s competitive instinct.
Sales breakthroughs happen when you view your challenge differently and perhaps to see that what you’re doing simply isn’t enough. Too much pressure on the showings could mean your lead gen funnel isn’t doing all it needs to accomplish.
Sales and promotion psychology absolutely come into play because it’s all about the buyer’s belief about the home’s value/relevance to them. Blogs, listing photos and descriptions, social posts and more are the pre-sales conditioning that generates more buyer engagement and higher bids.
The psychology of staging is all about tapping into buyers’ emotions and creating a connection that makes them feel at home. When a potential buyer walks into a staged home, they should feel comfortable and able to imagine themselves living in the space. — Steven Thompson, Linkedin
More Successful Spring/Summer Showings
This spring and summer, tens of thousands of real estate agents are hoping to represent sellers and stage a very successful home showing that will generate offers. It’s a selling-in-the-moment thing where owners expect the showing itself to create the great offer, perhaps when buyers see other eager buyers wanting to make a good offer too.
Yet, in the moment unprepared, buyer intent/interest is weak and can be lost fast. Building and strengthening their intent beforehand makes their intent at showings more lasting and determined. Which means they’ll look past all the weak and negative things they’re going to find on your showing day.
And sometimes it’s not the problems they see that negates interest, it’s that they don’t understand what the house represents to them and they’re not feeling it before they arrive. Every buyer asks “what will this house do for me, and how will my family and I fit in here.” That’s more important than the features of the house.
Bad Showings
Unfortunately, things can go wrong at a showing that erode the buyer’s impression of the home’s value, other buyer’s negative impressions, stylistic turnoffs, smell and feel of the home, and problem features of the house.
The negatives might hit the prospect hard and it’s not easy for the Realtor to empathize and respond to what’s really wrong.
And when buyers aren’t prepared to view the home, aren’t focused on its positives, aren’t seeing the potential, and feeling like they will be the winning bidders, they might not show up, or their interest and intent are weak. So without preparation, successful showings are less likely.
The issue with capturing the moment, is that it’s in the moment, where prospects do discover in person, the real value of the home and its missing appeal. If buyer prospects arrive without your psychological prep, there might not be a context for a good showing. If they show up as strangers, not fully aware of the property/neighborhood, and you as a Realtor don’t know enough about them, they could arrive and leave quick.
You’ve probably seen too many viewers come and go without much of a comment and not much interest. They likely just saw the MLS listing and weren’t prepared themselves to view it.
Other times, the Realtor didn’t fully prep leads by making emotional impact, creating high significance, and maximizing intent to follow through. Buyers should show up fully involved in being the next owner.
Let’s do a roll call of Home Showing Mistakes often made, because of inadequate preparation:
- bad scheduling – wrong time of day, not enough time to view
- overtalking — too much talk and not enough listening
- not focused on what they want — introduction/showing focuses on their specific personality
- open house mystery visitor — little known about them and how you might create a connection to this home
- home not staged properly — not visually appealing and doesnt’ evoke what it might do for them
- stinky smell — a home not cleaned well suggests a lower selling price
- bad aesthetics— bad features, walls dirty/cracked, creaky floorboards, water stains, old light bulbs make it look uninviting
- no rapport — can’t seem to build enough quick rapport with some strangers from scratch
- plumbing/appliances not working – makes prospect nervous and feel they have to come back again
- too close too far – not sure how much freedom to give the buyers as they wander around and make their own estimations and discoveries
- wrong clothing — prospect feels uncomfortable or doesn’t resonate with your personal style thus they lose interest in connecting with you
- bad breath/perfumes strong — if you eat garlic or use colognes heavily, it makes buyers recoil away
- home price is too high — a high price creates stress so buyers won’t relax and enjoy the experience
Home Showing Preparation
The meaning of this post is that all buyers go online to find and view homes and the real selling should happen there.
Treating pre-showing activity as irrelevant is unwise. Your website, blog, images, videos, and descriptions of the property help to impact them and prepare their focused interest and intent to buy. When they show up intrigued, excited, informed, and ready to have what they believe validated, their interest is greater. Conversations flow smoother and effortlessly.
When you create a powerful big picture comfort and joy, the details don’t matter. The annoying details are actually about their irritation at not being certain about the homes meaning and value to them. It’s also about a feeling that they’ve wasted their time, and that you failed to peak their interest.
When they show up for the showing, they want to be sold. They hope for a grand, personalized introduction to their next dream home, and to move forward at a good pace to buy it.
Keys to Great Home Showings
Before the showing, it’s important to prep your audience first with delightful teasers! Yes, well-timed messages resonate on the top reasons they want this home so much. Write for the people who really want this home.
The seller or you should clean and declutter then take more pictures from different angles and lighting conditions so you’ll have better shots to present in your listing and your blog post for this property showing.
Use a new shot of the home for your email blast, not the old ones. A fresh presentation rekindles their attention and interest. Feature the showing on the front of your Website, Facebook and Instagram pages. Promote strongly.
Prepare some creative social media posts with plenty of great pics with a special comment on kitchen, bedrooms, yard, new features if any, open concept layout, character if any, and the location and neighborhood. They’re buying more than a house.
Top Home Showing Tips:
- depersonalize — stage and bring in classy items/wall art that elevates esteem
- declutter — remove anything that detracts from the ideal
- brighten up rooms — open drapes, blinds
- spotless cleaning — clean sinks, toilets, carpets, and showers spotlessly and remove dust on anything
- curb appeal — trim bothersome unsightly foliage, branches, garbage cans etc from front yard
So online marketing and promotion then, greases the track and builds their comfort, confidence, and intent to buy.
The showing is just the icing on the cake, since they already feel that house is right for them. The more of the introduction to you, the home, neighborhood, and how it would serve them, the easier it is to convert them to a sale.
Promotional preparation online shortens the discovery experience and reduces friction so the showing is more of a formality.
Make your digital marketing strategy a prelude to a viewing not a phone call. Visualize a happy, pleasant showing with the lead as you create all your digital content, including emails and social posts.
Successful Realtor Marketing Packages
In real estate sales, your content has to achieve a lot — prospect reach, traffic, impact, purpose, engagement, branding, emotional connection, and personalization with impactful information about the property.
And your Realtor Brand as a prepared, successful, resourceful, approachable, and delightful person is key to sales. Home buyers like all consumers buy brands. It’s your promise of value and doing digital marketing well gets reach to buyers and gets them ready for easy sales conversion.
A real estate digital marketing package is just a set of deliverables that create purposeful, inviting, warm and enjoyable conversations with prospects.
Build your real estate sales success with me, Gord Collins. I’m ready to work with you at an affordable price because I know the last few years have been tough for everyone. This way, you can put more funds into your digital content design and PPC spend.
Contact me at 416 998 6246 today!
