For many 2009 has been a challenging year. As compared to 2008 it has been a lot brighter.
In the last 12 months there were a total of 67,197 residential sales as compared 60,981 in the period to October 2008 – a 10% increase. The good news is there is great scope to see sales rise even more in 2010 – based on a 10 year average of sales as a ratio to the number of houses across the country we should be seeing sales averaging 96,000 a year! – so there is upside growth in sales to come, hopefully we will see some of this in 2010.
(To get a fuller picture of these facts please read this analysis as presented on the Unconditional blog).
As far as activity online is concerned, this year has been nothing short of staggering. Over the past 12 months close to 50 million visitor sessions were undertaken across the 7 leading real estate websites (as monitored by Nielsen Online).
As the chart shows this growth has been unstoppable as each year more and more buyers turn to the web to search for property – so many in fact that total user numbers have doubled over the past 3 years.
For realestate.co.nz our rate of growth has been even faster, not only have we more than doubled since 2006 we are now seeing the number of individual visitor sessions per week up over 46% in a year; with now an average week seeing the website provide over 145,000 users with the most comprehensive real estate listings source of any website in NZ.
This is great news for the industry in general, especially when you remember that realestate.co.nz is your website – owned by the industry, your industry, protecting your long term interests.
That was last year now let’s think about the coming months. The first 3 months of the year are tradtionally the most active during which viewing and enquiry levels peak. The chart below clearly demonstrates this. The shaded area indicates the quiet Christmas break, with the top solid blue line showing the weekly traffic across all these websites to date. The dashed blue line then goes on to estimate the level of visitors traffic we can expect to see in January and February – potentially well over 1,100,000 visitors per week.
To take advantage of this anticipated peak in viewing and searching it is so important to use these next few weeks to prepare to get the most out of the next 3 months:
1. Get those listings right
It seems so simple but too often the basics get forgotten:
(a) Photos – get the best collection of the best images. Make sure the #1 photo (the first photo in the sequence) is the best representation of the property. Remember the more photos a listing has the more the number of visitors, it is a fact
(b) Address – showing an address generates a map which buyers love so they can get a perspective of where the property is and what the area around it is like – they want to use Google Street View or Zoodle – so be their friend and help them
(c) Description – provide rich information that enables a buyer to make an informed assesment on the property. Describe the key benefits of the property and the local community – be seen as an expert who is keen to share valuable insight into living in the area – an area or neighbourhood you know so well
2. Promote those listings
To have a listing on the web is just the starting point. You need to recognise that with more people search online nowadays than in print publications you need to look to focus vendor paid marketing online.
The “Featured Listings” on realestate.co.nz are used widely by so many agents who see the value of the $250 per 2 week investment in promoting their client’s listings and see the results in the greater exposure and increase in viewing numbers.
Get in quick to grab your chosen suburb for the summer perod – we often sell out as there are only ever 3 properties featured in each suburb at any one time.
3. Get out and promote yourself
Recognising that buyers searching online for new homes are more than likely to be thinking of selling their home means that advertising your services on realestate.co.nz is so logical.
The Featured Agent adverts which allow you to promote yourself as one of just 3 agents per suburb is so effective. We still have spots available from now until the end of March and from just $15 per month, there is no better way to solicit enquiries from the massive audience on the site.
To buy a personal profile advert for your chosen suburb all you need to do is login to our Agent Pro website at www.agentpro.co.nz (don’t forget this link is at the bottom of every page on the website) – sign up if you have not already done so, then choose your desired suburb, check that the month you want is available and then buy online with a valid credit card.