I’ve spent hours and hours and hours monitoring property marketing; learning and understanding what works and doesn’t work and how to get the best results out of a Rightmove listing. By results I mean the maximum number of high quality enquiries, thus achieving the best price possible.
I’ve just seen this property for sale in the Charminster area. I don’t know the owner and this is not a blog post to bash the marketing efforts of the owner either. I see the same mistakes time and again when people sell privately (and far too often by estate agents too), so thought a quick guide would help others to sell their home more effectively and ensure they get the best price possible. Also, if people are selling privately and they’re not getting much luck, they will find these tips work very well in generating better quality interest.
Cards on the table, I think selling privately is a dangerous game. You’ll be better off than if you used a poor quality estate agent, but a good estate agent will provide an essential middle-man in the sales process above and beyond ensuring your marketing is right.
Click here to view the listing we’ll take a look at.
1. The first picture is incredibly drab. A flat in this age of building has a lot of positives, but external aesthetics are not one of them. That first image is all potential buyers will see when performing their search on Rightmove. It will likely appear in the search ‘BH8, 2-bed minimum and with a maximum price of £175k’
Click here to see that search list.
The first job of that initial picture has to be to grab attention. Not necessarily leading with your best image, but just the one that will help it stand out amongst the competition. There are 46 2+ bedroom listings in BH8 between £160k and £190k. 15 of those listings are under offer. That leaves 31 that missed out. When you consider that in this price bracket people will generally buy within 8 viewings, it gives perspective as to how important having good quality details are. If you’re not in the top 8 for that buyer based on the online details, you won’t sell to them as they won’t ever see it.
2. Picture 2 and 3 are totally unsuitable. Once they click to see more details, You’ve got about 3 seconds to get the potential buyers interest before they stop looking at your home. We get loads of listing feedback from Rightmove, but don’t provide bounce rates. It would be really interesting to know how long a potential buyer spends looking at your home. These two images HAVE to be key enticers for the buyer. Actually, all the images have to do that job.
3. The rest of the images are of very poor quality. Working in order through them.
The kitchen is actually a key feature as not that many flats have kitchen/breakfast rooms, yet the image makes it look cramped and is really poorly lit. The kitchen sides really must be cleared to open up the space. The child’s seat at the table needs to be moved so it looks as though there is room to comfortably walk past.
The lounge looks like the hallway. A VERY basic tick-list requirement for nearly every person is the ability to sit comfortably and watch TV. It’s not exciting and it’s not sexy, but it is essential. It looks like really unusable space. The sofa also looks like it’s slightly obstructing the doorway too. I’m sure this room is also very bright, but with low level camera equipment, it’s really hard to show this off. It needs re-doing entirely as far as a marketing image goes.
Bedroom two out of focus. You really need a wider lens when you’ve got bigger rooms to really show them off. Not to make them look enormous, but just to give a good representation of what’s there. It’s 11’6″ x 9’10” which is a double bedroom.
The two main bedroom pics are dreadful. I know this will actually be a fantastic room and they’ve totally killed it with these two pictures. Look at the trees in the view. It needs flash and a good quality photographer to get this image. I’d predict it would be quite stunning. No idea with the image of the pine looking doors with no handles……
Shower room looks tiny. If you don’t have a wide angled lens, you absolute minimum is to clear just about everything off the sides so as what you do get in the image looks really clean and tidy. Do the best you can with what’s there.
The balcony picture shows a rail, some trees and a road. Would you want to sit there and enjoy a cup of tea? I’ve no idea if it’s even big enough or not.
The last image shows a decent place to park that’s not crowded to get in and out of. Probably the best image in the set of details.
The floorplan is really good and the description is okay, if a little bland. I’d definitely take out the key feature “Garden: None”.
Other than the floorplan, the whole advertising needs re-doing. I’d really like to have the chance to put together a set of details to show how this flat could really look.
Is a poor set of details going to cost the sellers money? Almost certainly.
