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The Formula for Success in Luxury Real Estate

by Chicago Agent

Really Selling Luxury

Such details support one of Moore-Moore’s biggest points – effective marketing is at least 95 percent of a luxury agent’s success, and such marketing should always reinforce the individuality of the property.

“The luxury consumer isn’t buying shelter. They’re not buying eight bedrooms and 12 baths. They’re buying a lifestyle,” Moore-Moore says. “Every house has a story, and it’s the agent’s job to tell that story in a compelling way. And one of the very first questions an agent should ask himself or herself is, ‘what does this property have, what can this property say, that competing homes don’t have or can’t say?’ And that’s usually a clue for beginning to zero-in on what it is about that house that is unique … and what story you should be telling.”

Moore-Moore’s institute offers rigorous courses to teach those lessons to agents, many of whom attain their real estate licenses without ever learning the basics of effective real estate marketing. For Moze, Emmert and Sage, though, such storytelling techniques are woven into their professional routines and are clear contributors to their success.

Emmert, for instance, utilizes a multifaceted marketing apparatus for her business and properties. In addition to the custom advertisements she runs in “The View,” which is Coldwell Banker’s special advertising section of the Chicago Tribune, Previews International, a Coldwell Banker publication for luxury real estate, and Forest & Bluff and Chicago magazines, Emmert also uses Coldwell Banker’s “Gold Package,” a marketing system that includes brochures, postcards, a unique domain name and other features that she uses to contact clients and fellow agents with prospective buyers. Emmert also devotes a substantial amount of time to her personal website, which features robust sections on not just her extensive experience and success (found in the form of client testimonials and recent sales), but also the variety and beauty of Lake Forest and the real estate market on a whole. Whatever her website is featuring, whether it be information on Lake Forest schools or erudite YouTube videos with tips for buyers, sellers and homeowners, Emmert says she wants it to communicate her experience, enthusiasm and commitment for her clients.

Moze defines the narrative of her properties with a detailed two-step process. First, she meets with her clients and conducts an in-depth interview centered around what the clients are looking for in the home buying and home selling process. Are they relocating? Are they looking for a property in the same architectural vein as their current residence? And what are their expectations for pricing? Those questions and more are answered in that first step, and then, inspired with a complete understanding of her client’s expectations, Moze sets out with her marketing plan, a process in itself that involves several tiers of execution.

Before she became a Realtor, Moze worked as an interior designer, and she uses her training in design to personally oversee the staging of her properties, working closely with her clients to help bring out the unique flow of the property and enhance its richest, most admirable qualities. It’s not always easy; Moze has encountered some properties with different carpeting and independent design schemes in each of its rooms.

After the home is properly prepared, Moze hires a professional photographer to portray the house to her specifications, and she also has additional content compiled for a virtual tour of the home. The visuals complement Moze’s online listings, but she also utilizes the property’s photography in detailed brochures that are designed in-house at Brush Hill. And as with every other facet of her home-selling strategy, Moze is particular with her brochures, meticulously inspecting each and every layout while handling all of the writing duties herself, which include descriptions of the property and captions for the accompanying photos.

Moze explained that in today’s real estate economy, buyers and sellers can no longer go with the market. Instead, they need to be ahead of the market, and she credits her uniquely creative credentials for her ability to remain in the vanguard.

“Having an interior design background has been very beneficial to me, especially in the luxury market,” Moze says. “It really helped me with my buyers because I can help them see beyond the purple wall. It also helps with my sellers because I can help them prepare their home so it’ll be market ready.”

Sage is equally exacting in the handling of her properties, and, also like Moze, her approach is infused with the artistic sensibilities of a past career. A graphic design and fine arts major in college, Sage worked as a graphic designer for six years before entering the world of sales, and now as an agent, her eye for design heavily influences her sales strategy. From hiring a photographer to document her properties to writing all of her own copy for her in-house brochures, Sage focuses intently on establishing a clean, welcome atmosphere for her properties. She is particularly conscientious of the home’s staging, removing all signs of clutter, positioning every pillow at just the right angle and, crass as it may sound, ensuring that every toilet seat is down. Additionally, Sage is careful to remove any traces of the current homeowner – especially family photographs – when drafting the look of her properties. Such details alienate prospective buyers, complicating their visions of how the property would look with them as the homeowners; the narrative spell is broken.

So powerful is that narrative, in fact, that it can overcome even the most debilitating of disadvantages. For example, Moore-Moore said in 2007, the Atlanta region was enveloped in one of its worst droughts in decades, and few areas were more affected than Lake Lanier, where water levels were dropping a fifth of a foot per day near the closing months of the year (ultimately, water levels at the lake would fall by more than 12 feet below averages). Moore-Moore was approached by a member of her institute who was attempting to sell a residence off the lake – essentially a lakefront property without the lake. Desperate for ideas, she contacted Moore-Moore for some advice.

“Most agents would say, ‘Well, you just got to get the price down,’” Moore-Moore says. “No! What you have to do is target it in a way that is going to make it appealing to … enough buyer prospects – and you really just need one – to get it sold.”

To accomplish that, Moore-Moore recommended that the agent embrace the drought in her marketing. So instead of simply naming the street address as the headline in the home’s marketing materials, Moore-Moore suggested, “Buy before the rain returns: the price of this lakefront beauty will rise with the water,” and other copy that tied-in with the drought and emphasized both its temporary nature and the inevitable rise in the home’s value.

“It’s all in how you market,” Moore-Moore says.

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Comments

  • Renate Meyer says:

    Very true…..Finding the unique aspect of the property is important and needs to be emphasized. Finding the unique aspect of the buyer is just as important.

  • Mark says:

    We’re following the luxury property market in the US with interest – it’s an interesting comparison to the luxury property market here in Australia. We find building brands around each of our properties – and highlighting their unique attributes – to be very important as well

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