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Storytelling has become a key part of any agent’s marketing, engaging buyers and sparking excitement by showcasing a property’s history and character, according to a REB top agent.
According to Place Estate Agents Ascot director, Drew Davies, agents should develop their storytelling skills, draw on the key characteristics of a property to enhance their marketing strategies and sell a dream to prospective buyers.
Davies said storytelling had become a pivotal part of the sales process, helping create an exciting campaign that generated enthusiasm for a property and attracted more buyers.
“Everyone loves the story behind the home. If you look at some of the most successful marketing campaigns, they are the properties that come with a story,” he said.
To compile a narrative that draws buyers in, Davies said agents can leverage properties’ histories, unique qualities, lifestyle potential, and even brainstorm with the vendors.
“That may be the design, the creation of the home or the history and past of the home, or it can be something that's happened in that home previously or with a previous owner,” he said.
He recalled one memorable property he sold a few years ago, which was widely known as the “skate bowl house” and attracted enormous publicity for the living room's eight-foot-deep concrete skating bowl.
Davis said that his marketing strategy used the unique feature to appeal to prospective buyers who had grown up skateboarding or bicycle motocross (BMX) riding and wanted to relive their youthful days.
“[They were] immediately drawn to it because of their own memories and history, and certainly the buyers that I had through that home,” he said.
“There were an endless amount of grown adults who were skateboarders, or still skateboarders, trying very hard to convince their wives to buy that house, because that story elicited an emotion in those buyers, which drew them back to a great time in their life.”
Davis said another way to use storytelling to boost prospective buyers’ interest in a home was to focus on the potential lifestyle they could enjoy.
“Essentially, you are selling the dream; everyone's moving from their current residence into a new one for a reason.”
He said agents can use a property’s surroundings to paint the picture of an idyllic lifestyle for buyers.
He encouraged agents to look at the areas and share the local cafe precincts, proximity to a riverside walk or the convenience of nearby arterial roads and freeways to major cities.
“These are all hugely important reasons because that buyer has told themself a story as to why they want to purchase a new home,” he said.
“There's obviously a push factor that's already in place, but the stronger you can make that pull factor, the better.”
Further, Davis said agents can leverage a home’s history and unique charm, which is generally easier with older homes than with newer ones.
“That's the beauty of older Queensland homes – a lot of these homes with character and history come when the home itself has such a history, it comes preloaded with a lot of stories that you can rely on,” he said.
“Otherwise, it can become a little bit more difficult with everyday newer build home, unless you're dealing with a high-end architect and that seller or that owner has really put your identity on that home.”
To find the best story, Davis said it was important for agents to research the home's past and identify details that may be important to future buyers.
Additionally, Davis said that while property listings could attract active buyers, the best avenue for storytelling was social media, where agents had the flexibility to craft narratives.
“It allows the agent to not only be themself and show some personality and character, but to really dig deep into what that story may be, which is typically a hard thing to get across in an ad, which is just on an online portal,” he said.
He added that imagery can play an essential role in creating a narrative for a property, but the impact of the photos depends on the home itself, with some requiring extra explanation.
“With that skate bowl house that I had, my front cover shot was the photo of an eight-foot concrete skateboard bowl, which was quite obviously in the middle of someone's living room – that created the story in itself,” he said.
“Whereas other properties, you can't explain the history of a home just by a photograph,” he concluded.
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