Where are the viewers?

 Five sure-fire ways to increase footfall and sell your home this spring.

If you’ve ever been picked last for a school team, ‘missed’ out of the family WhatsApp chat, or have waited interminable hours in an online queue to book tickets for a once-in-a-lifetime gig, only to keep getting booted back to the home page to start again, then you’ll have some idea of the frustrations of trying to sell your home when you aren’t getting viewings.

With industry experts reporting a busy start to 2024, if viewings have either dried up, or were non-existent to begin with, you’re right to be concerned.

Once you’ve made that all important decision to put your house on the market, it’s easy to become despondent when all you want to do is move on and your home isn’t selling.

But don’t despair, in this month’s blog we are offering our five quick tips to help you transform those Rightmove scrollers into living breathing, viewers.

Tip 1: Talk to your agent

There is a direct link between the number of views generated by your home online and the number of viewings booked.

Ask to see your Rightmove Property Performance Report. Some estate agents send these weekly as a matter of course. But seeing the report, understanding the report and knowing how to act BASED on the report are not necessarily the same thing.

The key information to glean from the report is as follows:

• Property views

The first item to look at is the number of daily views your home is attracting. Quite simply, the higher this number, the greater the likelihood of viewings.

Why do people click on a property online to view it? Because they like the look of it, of course! If your daily views are registering low, it could be that your marketing is not sharp enough. We’ll address how you can improve your home’s marketing in a moment.

• Similar properties

Another key indicator to look out for is how many clicks your home is getting online compared to other similar homes to yours. Attracting a buyer, and therefore a viewer, you need to stand out above your competitors. If your home is below the curve, you need to consider why.

Likewise, it’s important to know how your home is performing compared to the branch average. If your home is below the branch average, ask your agent why, and what they are doing to market other homes that could be done for yours.

Tip 2: Exploit the power of social media

Online marketing tools are still the key to capturing viewers, but ‘online’ is not limited to property portals like Rightmove and On the Market.

Have you ever considered the power of social media? Create a page for your home on Facebook, link it to Instagram and merge powerful visuals with slick hashtags to create a succinct snapshot of your incredible home and watch the shares and likes rack up.

TikTok is a fantastic way to offer potential viewers a tantalising snapshot of your home’s finest features and is a great way of reaching a market you may never have known even existed.

Tip 3: Upgrade your images with phenomenal photography

Gone are the days where estate agents can get away with snapping photos on an iPhone and uploading them to Rightmove and expect this to win you a sale.

Professional property photography is now par for the course for any serious estate agency. If your estate agent is not using a professional photographer, it may be worth seeking out one who is.

If you’re struggling for viewings, take a good look at the photos being used. Are they good enough?

Your opening photo has to be a premium shot of your home looking at its finest. We love to use a spellbinding twilight shot for our leading image . Are your images up to date in terms of the season? Do they cast your home in a shady or sunny light?

Even simply changing the order of the photographs on the property portal could have a positive impact on winning you viewings.

Tip 4: Revisit your property description

‘Briefly comprising’, ‘beautifully appointed’, ‘benefitting from’… sound familiar? Unless you’re playing a game of estate agent lingo bingo, these ‘Zzzz’ phrases are condemned to the sin bin, as they are unlikely to win you viewings when it comes to describing your home.

These tired generalisations have been overused to the point they have lost all meaning. To make your home stand out from the crowd on property portals such as Rightmove, the language you use to describe it needs to paint a real, living, breathing, technicolour portrait of the lifestyle your home offers.

Tip 5: Invest in your floorplan

After photography, floorplans are one of the most effective visual aids to helping a potential viewer visualise your home.

At a glance, they can get a general overview of the layout of the home and whether or not it might work for their needs, both encouraging them to book a viewing - if the answer is ‘yes – it does work’ - and saving you time on fruitless viewings if your home’s layout is not appropriate to their needs.

While many agents now include floorplans as part of their standard marketing, a good, user-friendly floorplan should allow potential viewers to see the room sizes, creating an emotional connection as they try to work out where their furniture might be able to go and if there is space in the principal suite for their king-size bed.

If your home has been on the market for some time and if you’re looking to increase your number of viewings, then please give us a call on 01733 893520 or drop us an email at [email protected] . We’d love to help you get more footfall through the door and get you moving.