Our web-based marketing not only saves you money, but allows your prospects to quickly access your property.

It’s Creative …

Whilst most commercial and residential agencies rely on the minimal advertising space on offer by the major real estate portals, we have invested time and money into producing something that truly enables properties to sell themselves online … without the need for a buyer to even walk through the property.

Since 1999, we have progressively integrated the Internet into all the marketing campaigns, for the properties put to Auction for our clients, and those available for Lease.

Several interesting benefits have emerged from that decision:

1. Our clients’ advertising budgets have reduced from 1.5% to around 1%, of the expected sale price - by being able to adopt smaller ads and less expensive brochures;
2. Prospective purchasers can now quickly obtain all the details they need about each property - downloading the plans and other vital information, whenever they want it; and therefore
3. Prospective purchasers tend to "self-qualify" themselves - which means the usual number of time-wasting inspections have virtually been eliminated.

As you can appreciate, this meant we only needed a relatively small number of quality inspections to ensure a 100% clearance rate over the past five years.

The property that won the award is located at 653-659 Dandenong Road, Malvern - it is a good example of just how effectively our marketing campaigns work.

The property itself was nothing to write home about. It was a quasi-retail property, in a forgotten part of Dandenong Road.

The largest of the 3 tenancies within the property was vacant; the existing leases were achieving below-market rent and had years to run; and the property needed extensive repair work.

Having said that, there was some development potential, so the owner arranged for an architect to prepare some concept plans, which would comply with Council requirements.

An Innovative, Results-Driven Strategy

Most agents simply choose to place their properties onto the Internet in a rather generic form, using portal sites like … property.com.au … realestate.com.au … or … propertylook.com.au.

As such, a real problem can arise: Every buyer actually looking for those properties needs to go through a lengthy search process, on one or more of the above websites.

What’s even worse, is that in the process of doing so, these buyers may well discover several other properties they prefer instead!

Therefore, we create a series of dedicated Web pages for each property on our site; and promote that specific URL in media ads, the brochure and board.  That means, prospective buyers can then laser-in on the property - to view and download much more information about it anytime of day or night.

Prospective buyers can now interact far more easily; and request specific reports (or obtain copies of the Contract and Vendor’s Statements) by emailing us 24 hours a day.

By using dedicated Web pages, we can provide a much more-detailed description about the property, its location and benefits.  Plus: include large numbers of photographs of the exterior, and the internal layout; along with any other helpful information.

The pages that Gardner+Lang included for their award winning property included:

• an enlargeable photo of the exterior;
• floor plans of the existing structure;
• the current tenancy details;
• enlargeable, coloured copies of the Architect’s Concept Plans to:
  • better use the 2-storey building on Dandenong Road and
  • build three, north-facing, 2-storey townhouses (above secure parking for 10 cars) in the courtyard at the rear;
• a letter from a reputable Builder providing an indicative cost to enlarge the showroom and build the rear townhouses;
• a letter from a leading Town Planner confirming the concept plans accord with Council’s requirements; and
• a ‘slide show’ of photos, depicting the attraction of the surrounding area and the convenience of the railway station.

And the Highest Bidder was …

Someone who did not actually inspect the property before Auction day.  Early in the campaign, he had simply downloaded all the plans and information he needed from the Website; walked around the outside of the property; and wandered through it on the day.

The Result for the Vendor …

The property sold for $880,000, which was $30,000 above the authority price.  Marketing costs totalled just over $9,000, which was some $3,000 to $4,000 less than the industry average.

Instead of attracting a large percentage of time wasters, our creative marketing attracted 40 good quality leads - which led to 8 qualified inspections.  All but one of the key prospects had inspected the property before auction.

What’s more, actual time spent on marketing the property was about half - because we could spend all our time with qualified prospects.  Plus, the process significantly reduced the amount (and cost) of paper work and marketing material required.