The other day, I had a conversation with one of our Property Developer clients. He told me he was having no problem at all in attracting interest in his new build properties at the moment. This wasn’t the first discussion I’ve had that has brought this news up. New builds are selling.
I’ll admit, the first time I heard that I was surprised, what with the COVID-19 pandemic casting doubt over a lot of peoples financial situations. I’ve had a good think however, and my other conversations on this topic have confirmed to me that new homes selling rapidly as we ease out of lockdown makes complete sense. Here’s why…
Mindset changes
The pre-COVID mindset is a thing of the past in my opinion. The change of lifestyle that we have all been forced to make has changed work and home situations.
Leaving the cities
COVID has made living in a city less appealing to a lot of people. Spending lockdown stuck in a small apartment with no outdoor space creates the desire to have a house with a garden and open space, maybe close to a common land and parks for walks.
Cities can also be daunting for vulnerable people during the pandemic. They are naturally coronavirus hotspots. If you are elderly or classed as an at risk individual then you may be looking to move out.
Due to COVID-19, there are a lot of people wanting to leave crowded cities on the lookout for homes in the countryside – where most of the new build projects are. I think there will be a higher number of people moving further afield than usual because of this.
Workplace changes
For a lot of businesses, remote work is proving to be viable. Some are making it a permanent switch to remote work. Therefore, I don’t think it’s unrealistic to suggest that remote working will stick around long after the coronavirus is gone for a lot of people. At Servon, we’ve been working this way for over 3 years now, saving money by not renting offices. In addition to this, meeting platforms like Skype and Zoom means company communications haven’t been negatively impacted. It saves a commute as well.
Working remotely has meant people are not as restricted by location, so they can live in their ideal environment and not have their work hindered. Remote working means that people can actually move to the countryside now even if they have a traditional city job.
New builds have more room than a stuffy, inner-city dwelling, and with great infrastructure designed to work in the current technological world. This means new build homes can easily accommodate remote working with good phone signal and excellent wifi connectivity. They tick all the boxes.
Stamp Duty changes
Last month, the Government removed Stamp Duty Land Tax for the first £500,000 of a property’s value. This runs until 31 March 2021. Without this added tax, people will be more inclined to move before this reform expires, so the market will undoubtedly be more buoyant.
Great time to market
Due to a pent up demand thanks to COVID halting the housing market for a few months, now is the perfect time to go all out with marketing efforts.
Analytics show that the real estate sector is showing major signs of recovery. According to Property Reporter, Zoopla has seen “off-the-scale” levels of pent-up demand for property. Their data suggests that average asking prices for property for the first week in June were 6% higher than they were in June 2019, while the demand for new property was 54% higher than it was at the start of March.
In addition, Zoopla sales have risen 137% since the property market reopened at the start of June.
Low PPC advertising costs
Pay per click (PPC) marketing online is at a really low price at the minute, guaranteeing you more bang for your buck.
The reason being is that Google and Facebook advertising have had much lower click through rates during the pandemic. The amount of people clicking will only increase from here on out and as a property developer, you should take advantage of this before the prices per click return to pre-COVID levels. As the amount of clicks goes up, so does the price to advertise.
While real estate advertising conversion rates are lower, there is demand out there and so will start to increase. I don’t think that there’s enough medium to small scale estate agents and property developers taking advantage of this bounce back of demand.
Next actions
So there’s currently a pent up demand because of a change of mindset and an affordable means of tapping into said demand. If you want to get ahead and take a proactive marketing stance you should implement some of these marketing techniques.
Google ads
Research is needed to figure out the right keywords that you should aim to target. If you know who your audience is though this shouldn’t be too hard. Ads on Google searches are as simple as they come but are so effective due to the sheer amount of people that will see your ad. Appear higher on a search by outbidding your competitors and by having an advert that is relevant to the keywords you decide on.
Read this blog post on House Builders Marketing and Advertising, specifically looking at Google ads and how you can save money and get leads.
Facebook advertising
Another great platform to advertise on and ramp up traffic to your new build website is to Facebook advertising. With over 2 billion active monthly users, it is a platform too large to ignore. Similarly to PPC advertising on Google, you have to know your audience or risk wasting money on showing your ads to the wrong people.
Facebook ads come in lots of formats and you can make them really stand out and rake in the clicks if you’re clever with who you show your ads to.
>Check out our recent post on Facebook advertising for Property Developers on how to drive traffic to new build developments.
Use landing pages
You’re going to want to create some landing pages for potential buyers to see as they click on your adverts. There’s no point in having an ad that leads to your homepage. It needs to be a tailor made page for your ad to grab the attention of your ideal customer. You have to keep it simple and carefully think about what goes onto a landing page so that there isn’t any irrelevant information getting in the way.
In a COVID-19 world you would probably want to brag about any open space your development has. You could mention that the wifi connection is super fast for remote working. I also recommend using Property Developer CGI animations on any landing pages. They are eye-catching and let the audience imagine themselves in your new build.
To turn visitors into leads, the most important aspect of a landing page is a clear and obvious call to action, ideally this would be either a viewing, if possible, or at least some form of callback so that you can start a conversation.
Having a relevant landing page is very important for SEM (Search Engine Marketing) rankings on Google also so they go hand-in-hand with PPC advertising.
Conclusion
During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been monitoring the housing market closely. We do this because we work closely with house developers, property managers and estate & letting agents and have been for over 20 years. Our experience in this field helps us spot market trends and means we can come up with advice and ideas to keep our clients thriving, even in unpredictable times such as these.
Setting up PPC advertising campaigns and creating landing pages specifically to maximise lead generation at this moment in time is the best way to reboot as the market starts to recover. Make sure you take advantage and sort your new homes marketing out.
If you want to discuss what I have talked about in this blog, or would like some help setting up or managing your PPC advertising campaigns and landing pages then schedule a call with us. We concentrate on getting you leads and to do that we have to get to know you first to figure out the best way to help you bring in more of your ideal customers.
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