We have just had success in selling our home and had to use a bit of initiative and some ambush marketing to combat a bit of a rouge agent.
Here is how it all came about:
We live in a townhouse, the rear house in a block of three. Our neighbour at the top of the drive had tried unsuccessfully to sell his house earlier in the year so when we put ours on the market (sale by auction) I did the decent thing and let him know prior to the signs going up. He said he was going to go to auction as well but would wait until we had finished our campaign.
Two days later a sign went up next to ours promoting their home for sale as well. No knock on the door, no phone call saying his agent had advised him not to wait, nothing. Not only that but his agent had set the open home times before ours. That is his prerogative of course but in effect it meant that if people wanted to view both properties they would have to go through the top house then come back a few hours later to come through ours. The natural thing for many people to assume would be that both homes would be similar so many wouldn't have bothered to come back to see our home.
What was really dissapointing was that we found out the other agent was also making disparaging comments about our home which shows just how unethical the guy was.
So, the ambush marketing plan was hatched. While the other open home was on we put our open home sign out in front of our home and I nonchalantly pretended to work in the garden on the driveway. As the prospective buyers left the first open home I told them that although our agent wasn't due for a couple of hours for the official open home, they were more than welcome to have a wander through to save a trip back later in the afternoon. Anna was inside taking their details for the agent and did such a fantastic job wowing them one of them actually said to me on the way back up the drive that she should get into realestate as she was better than most the agents he had dealt with in the last few months while he had been looking for a home.
The result? We ended up having 26 groups come through our home over the second weekend of our campaign capitalising on both advertised open homes. Had three offers in the following 4 days leading to the auction being brought forward.
The eventual buyer originally came to view the top house and stated they wouldn't have bothered coming back to view ours after seeing the other home as they were so disappointed in its condition.
Needless to say our agent gave us a healthy discount and everyone was very happy with the result (other than the agent for the other property).
Comments