UNIQUE PROPERTIES, UNIQUE CHALLENGES
Conn. specialty house sales take targeted marketing, agents say
A stone-faced castle rests on its grassy silo, windows overlooking a moat. A wood-fence lined driveway leads up to what is essentially two houses — one more traditional, the other a barn. A chandelier lights an open-floor-concept kitchen and living room in a former church.
Each property is one of the collage of several specialty houses for sale across Connecticut. In a market that’s been red-hot for months, these properties are much less swayed by market trends and typically take more time to sell, real estate agents said.
John Pizzi, an agent with Compass, said a castle recently listed for sale in Woodstock is the most unique property he’s ever worked on. The castle, listed for
$35 million, was completed in 2010; the owner built it because his daughters loved to dress up and pretend to be princesses.
“It’s so unique and the buying pool is so narrow … overall it’s not competing with anything else,” he said.
Competition fuels the hot housing market — as demand rises above the levels of supply, potential buyers get into bidding wars, driving sale prices up.
Selling homes of this type often comes down to targeted marketing toward audiences based on their personalities and income, agents said.
“I think it’s just hoping and thinking that there is a princess out there looking for a castle,” said Kellie Martone, a real estate agent who worked with sellers on a 7,000-square-foot castle in Bridgewater.
The castle, listed for $4.5 million, was on the market beginning in fall 2020, and the sellers decided to take it off earlier this year, Martone added. It has three
bedrooms and four bathrooms.
Martone, an agent with William Pitt-Julie B. Fee Sotheby’s International Realty, said her agency tracks where buyers click on listing links, and target marketing toward those areas with high numbers of clicks. She’s sold a few specialty and high-end properties and said it typically takes longer than traditional homes.
“It’s really just a matter of consistent marketing and advertising and at some point it will click with somebody. It’s just, timing is everything in real estate,” she said.
Other Connecticut agents described similar techniques when selling specialty homes.
Oksana Charla, who represents the sellers of a converted church in Hartland, said her marketing efforts included a leaf peeping tour, reaching out to agents in a farther geographic radius than she typically would have and use of an email service that provides details about people’s interests.
“Within the ZIP code, we can narrow it down like people who are into antiques, into hiking or skiing or whatever and then we get the emails and use that in our marketing,” said Charla, who works for Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices.
The former church, which has an open-floor concept, is listed for $240,000 and is 1,732 square feet. It’s a two-bedroom, one-bathroom home.
John Downs, another Berkshire Hathaway agent, said for the property he’s working to sell, he’s also reaching out to agents in a wider geographic area than he typically would. He’s casting a “wide net of advertising.”
The five-bedroom, five-bathroom house and barn in the Windham County town of Brooklyn is listed for $2.95 million. The barn makes the property unique; it’s finished and could be used for wine tastings, events, or a residence, among other uses, Downs said.
It’s been on the market for more than 120 days, he said.
Many buyers interested in the homes have been international, some looking for second homes. Buyers also commonly come from New York City and Boston, agents said.
When Pizzi listed the Woodstock castle, he spent the first several days fielding media requests from across the United States as well as several publications in the UK, Spain and France, among other countries, he said.
William Raveis agent Anthony Ardin, whose clients recently closed on a European-inspired mansion in Greenwich, said the eventual buyers were looking for a second home. They had one in Litchfield County and wanted to move to a spot more convenient to their New York City primary residence.
The house, which sold for a little less than $10 million, featured a painted ceiling, Venetian plaster and gold leaf detail. It was on the market for about 10 months.
Ardin said the biggest challenge he faced was finding brokers who had an open mind to showing their clients the house. It’s decorated in a ’90s style and the interior was specific to the original owners’ taste rather than more minimalist modern trends, he said.
“A lot of people say they can look past the decor. And a lot of people actually can’t,” Ardin said. “… A lot of realtors would come in and frown and grimace.”
The key for selling that home was targeted marketing similar to the process other agents described — Ardin sought out potential buyers who were interested in architecture, he said.
The targeted marketing represents next steps for the Woodstock Castle, Pizzi said. He’ll also have to be careful to vet potential buyers because so many people have reached out who weren’t interested in buying the castle, just in taking a tour, he said.
The marketing team at Compass will soon start making more social media posts about the property, he added.
“It’s one of those things where one lead goes to another, goes to another and eventually it ends up in somebody’s attention,” Pizzi said.