Honesty a winning marketing tactic
An Auckland real estate agent has made a point of brutal honesty to help sell a run-down listing. The Daytona Rd, West Auckland, property, advertised by City Sales, is described as a ‘‘group home gone bad’’ and that this ‘‘neglected, run-down ragamuffin needs urgent care’’.
While most agents tend to talk up a property and its selling points, this listing only goes as far as saying parking is one of its few attributes.
When asked why City Sales had taken that approach, marketing manager Scott Dunn said: ‘‘I don’t know if you’ve seen the pictures, but to be honest it’s just the Godhonest truth. It’s awful.
‘‘The seller wants to get out and we thought honesty is the best policy. I think if you did that in this case you’d disappoint a lot of people and probably not end up getting it sold. You’d just end up with a lot of frustrated people.’’
Curiously, this approach is working well for the company. The public seems to respond positively to the attentioncatching pitch and the honesty.
‘‘This is probably the most popular property we have advertised this year... but a lot of people are just keen to look at it because it’s so dreadful and others may just want to knock it down.
‘‘With bigger corporates and franchises, things have to go through a lot of people to get approved. We’re independent. If it shocks people, that’s fine, if it upsets people, that’s fine. We’re quite bold and we are trying to get it sold.’’
With properties of this sort, it was the land that held the value and this property was likely to do well, he said. ‘‘It’s anyone’s guess with an auction at this point but our buyer feedback has started around the $450,000 mark,’’ said Dunn.
Nigel Jeffries, head of Trade Me Property, said: ‘‘This is definitely some creative marketing and we think it’s great the agents are trying something a little different to capture Kiwis’ attention. We haven’t seen a property listing with such a brutally honest description in a while and we think the honesty is brilliant.’’
It’s a tried-and-true method for family-run City Sales.
‘‘We once ran an ad for a rundown property in Remuera with the headline ‘Bring the Bulldozer’ and we had a similar response,’’ said Dunn.