Are featured/highlighted listings worth it?

Hi all,

First time posting since the move from Somersoft.

Will be selling my property soon through an agent and hoping just to get some thoughts specifically on advertising fees. The agent has suggested as part of their marketing plan I go for the 'premium' listings on both domain/Real estate.com.au as they get much more views.

My questions are:
- Are the premium listings really worth it in the end? From my own buying experience I always sort through listings and click on all properties regardless if they are premium or not?
- Does anyone have firsthand experience or statistics on the benefits of premium listings?
- I thought agents had unlimited listings (standard listings not premium) on the websites for a monthly subscription fee. Are these fees always passed onto the vendor?
- What else should I know about agent fees (or anything else for that matter) that 1st time sellers should be aware of?

Thanks All.
D

 

This worked well for me for my development all sold within 4 weeks.

You Tube video, re agent put this together, all up I paid around $1500 for advertising, I think this included premium listing

Staging the property relatively inexpensive $3000. Would do this again as we achieve top prices because on the presentation

 

- Are the premium listings really worth it in the end? From my own buying experience I always sort through listings and click on all properties regardless if they are premium or not?

It depends on the suburb you are in, being a premium listing will give you the most amount of visibility for bang for buck. I would rather do premium listing and no paper advertising then non premium listing and 1 paper ad (depends on target market).

- Does anyone have firsthand experience or statistics on the benefits of premium listings?

Premiere Properties receive an average of 20 times more views and 9 times more enquiry than Standard listings on realestate.com.au

What is a realestate.com.au Premiere Property listing?


- I thought agents had unlimited listings (standard listings not premium) on the websites for a monthly subscription fee. Are these fees always passed onto the vendor?

Yes they are included either in marketing packages or in commission, the end user always pays/never such thing as a free lunch.

- What else should I know about agent fees (or anything else for that matter) that 1st time sellers should be aware of?

It really depends on the property and the target market, things I would do myself (not advice) is professional photography (costs like $100-200), twilight pref. Premium listing on the internet as this is the way most people will see your property. Floorplan as I dislike properties that do not have floorplans as it makes me feel there is something wrong (costs again ~$200). For sale board (min generic) if you don't get one neighbours wont know it is being sold and they might know someone who loves the street and wants to buy in there but not monitoring the market or worse people will drive past and see no board and think it is sold. If it has a lot of passing traffic photo boards are nice and if you get a lot of passing traffic larger for sale boards (if you get a lot of passing traffic that people will see then the REA might pay for it or go 1/2). Brochures are a yes my eyes as people can take them away.

 

To investors on this forum? No. We'll probably treat them just like any other listing.

To the average buyer, yes - simple things appeal to the average buyer.

 

What do actually get for a featured ad? Not much from what I can see.

 

I used it recently when trying to sell, but only after 30 days of standard listing. We noticed a surge in views which was a positive and shows it does attract more views.
Would I use it again, no.

 

Why no? Do you think you would have the same result?

 

Yeah I believe it would have.
I think if your property is presented well from the start, photographed correctly, chosen the best agent, and priced correctly, then it will sell.
I would rather spend the money on staging.

 

Just stay away from OOA agents. Many disasters have happened this way and savvy buyers will eat them up before they even know they were top of the menu.

 

Serious buyers will click on the ad whether premium listing or not. As a marketer my opinion is premium ads attract the wrong type of interest, time wasters.
The money is better spent on professional photography - twilight photos are great and definitely a nice visual floorplan.
And agreed with Leo2413 re OOA agents. Stats and general research show they get vendors lower prices due to a lack of buyer contacts and understanding of the local market. An OOA agent also has less interest to perform and motivation to gain market share in an area outside their own. They just want to get to OOA sale done asap and focus on getting new listings in their area.

 

All,

Thank you for the responses.

I have very similar thoughts simply from when I have been online searching for properties both PPOR and Investment. I've always gone through the entire list of listings with my criteria and then went through them several times again (if needed). I also have a tendency to skip premium listiings on other sites such as ebay etc. I almost see them as spam advertising.

Can I ask what an OOA agent is though?

Thanks,
D

 

Out Of Area agent.

 

Me too.

 

Up to you what you do but you also need to understand that not everyone is like you or me. I do the same thing, I actually prefer to see most recent and longest listing first as my filtering preference.

Further to this I setup notifications for properties that met my criteria.

This is not what everyone does but people who monitor and seasoned at buying will do this.

 

I agree staging is good especially getting an interior designer out to stage with your furniture, I think most REA offer this as part of the service (I know the locals do here - Melb). However staging with hiring furniture is not always possible.

 

I would disagree with you from first hand experience about premium listings (used to work as a REA). Yes you might get interest from time wasters (happens at every form of marketing), wrong type of interest not sure what you mean there as to me isn't all interest good interest?

If you work in marketing you would understand AIDA, similar to a sales funnel. The more you put in at the top the more will be at the lower stages. To sell a property you only need to find one buyer however to get best offer/price you need multiple offers/buyers, this is action. Before that you need desire where people have spent consideration to purchase your property. Before you get to desire you need to engage interest but you cant get interest without awareness.



From my REA experience I have seen/used a sheet offer to get my good offer up 50,000 (10% more, to get someone to increase their offer by 50k is very difficult with one purchaser.

Even if they don't take action what looks better 2 groups at an open house or 10 groups? Which will put the vendor in a stronger position?

Also I don't have a marketing degree but I know how sales work, something most marketing people do not understand.

 

Just trying to think it out logically - if one is in the market to purchase such a large investment - what type of person wouldn't go through all listings? Who would make a decision based on the first 2 pages of premium listing of a website? What type of person would be so casual?

Big Will -
I'm not in marketing, but I still have my reservations on AIDA being applied to a website like RE.com/Domain. Correct me if my understanding of the concept is wrong in the following example but making someone aware that there is a new movie out in the cinemas by a billboard (awareness), followed by them watching the trailer (interest/desire) seems like a far cry from the real estate game. People whom jump on RE/DOMAIN are already looking to buy. It also seems like less of a knee jerk decision to buy a property so it would just make sense to look at all the properties within ones criteria?

What genuine buyer doesn't get past page 3 on RE/Domain unless they are so up to date with listings - they only look at new ones?

Not trying to be argumentative, just trying to understand the rational of such a prospective buyer and if they would really be genuine.

thanks,
D

 

I didn't take any of it as argumentative, however in one of my saved searches I have got it has over 1,200 properties and this is from 4 suburbs (yes I have applied filters and it doesn't include surrounding). Now I am across most of these properties just as a monitor new ones come in on a daily basis (have notifications). However am I like everyone else when looking at buy property? I highly doubt it as a matter of fact I very much doubt it.

Yes you would think that people would read as much as they can but not everyone is in touch with property and investing as people on the forum. There is something like 4,000 members and there maybe 4 large property investing forums so we can assume maybe max 20,000 people or 30,000-40,000 people as couple might use or get benefit from it (e.g. my wife doesn't read PC at all, leaves it to me and I have been interested in property for 10years+).

So 40,000 in 13,000,000 (rough number taking 1/2 out for kids and elderly to old) or 0.003% of the Australian population gives a damn about their futures. So to me I don't think people give two hoots about how to effectively buy property and just look for simple.

Regarding the awareness if I was looking at going to the movies I would look at what was on and go to the website for the cinema (like going to RE/Domain). After that I would then click on certain movies (maybe filter out the G rated, unless going with child) and then click on 2-3 movies (properties) and then watch the trailers (open house for movies) and then take action and book tickets (contract).

Being interested is for someone to put you into their consideration set of properties to inspect which TBH is about 3-5 per weekend (think back to how many opens you go to). Reason it is so low is that people generally can only see 1-2 per hour and are unable to take the whole day off to look at property due to other commitments (e.g. kids sport). As a vendor you want to be the first 3-5 each week for people as this 3-5 also includes second inspections (what you really want).

More about consideration sets from when I worked in RE;

1.Individuals are aware of a lot of houses in any given price range.
2.However, not all houses are seriously considered
for purchase.
3.The consideration set is made up of the houses
that are taken seriously by the consumer in his
or her purchase decision.
4.The Consideration set is small – averages maybe
in the 3-5 region.
5.Some purchasers may have consideration set of
size one, but they are rare. - To give you some context last weekend I saw one property
6.Getting purchasers to take your home seriously
is harder than making them aware it exists.
7.Most house failures take place because while
awareness is achieved, desire is never attained.