While an apple a day may keep the doctor away, Nelson Mandela Bay realtors are hoping a tweet a day will keep bad business at bay.
The clamour to hook house buyers and sellers by engaging them on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook follows a cutthroat market stemming from the devastating market crash in 2008.
It has forced Eastern Cape realtors to become innovative in their approach to business, according to Jaco Rademeyer, owner of Jaco Rademeyer estates.
Rademeyer said he was constantly racking his brain in an attempt to be one step ahead with marketing his business. His efforts have paid off, such as his tongue-in-cheek “Movember” campaign which saw his photo on bin advertisements get a mock stick-on moustache during cancer awareness month one November.
Rademeyer’s latest effort has seen him team up with IT guru Bradley Millar of futureTECH and well-known local photographer Debbie Louw to devise a “new experience for house hunters”.
The team have come up with an innovative way of digitally mapping out sellers’ homes, and then uploading the floor plan to the web to allow viewers to tour their favourite homes online. Until now obtaining the floor plans from the municipality have been the bane of sellers’ lives, taking several months to trace.
Another innovation by the team is the “video tour” which replaces the distorted and cumbersome “virtual 3D tour”, and sees Louw edit video footage of show homes and upload it to YouTube.
Aside from launching a new website and the video tours, Rademeyer has also focused on growing a strong presence on social networks Facebook and Twitter and developing an electronic newsletter.
He is also about to “go national” after teaming up with the developers of a new Apple and Android software application – similar to the well liked Flipboard – which is set to be unveiled in Cape Town early next month.
“With the new Consumer Act, we need to be on our toes about giving as much information as possible to potential buyers, which is also why we have started doing floor plans of the properties. This is not just a little sketch, but a proper plan of each room, with the exact dimensions and indicating square metres,” said Rademeyer.
“This helps the potential buyer to make an informed decision even before physically viewing the property.” The move was part of his plan to grow the business.
“This is part of my business plan to expand Jaco Rademeyer Estates. In this market you have to be one step ahead, which is why I’m working with a specialised team. The days of agents taking their own photographs and just uploading them online are over,” Rademeyer said.
Alan Straton
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