A nationwide survey of its Realtor members by HomeGain.com revealed the following:
- members say 73% of their home seller clients believe their homes are worth more than Realtors and homebuyers believe that they are worth.
- while homeowners may be aware of falling home prices around the country, many believe the slide doesn’t apply to their homes.
- homebuyers and Realtors are telling homeowners their homes are worth considerably less than homeowners think they are.
- a majority of HomeGain Realtor members believe home prices will continue to fall in the next six months and
- the Obama stimulus package will do little to change the direction of home values.
Good golly, Miss Molly.
See all the fancy pie charts here, including regional differences (apparently those of us in the Northeast are more optimistic on our home values). Also some interesting commentary there, such as “Sellers know that prices have fallen but that somehow doesn’t apply to them because they have “upgraded vinyl” or some such nonsense.
Sellsius Marketing Notes:
Show the Love, Build Your Brand
What I find interesting about the HomeGain survey is the company, rather than asking sellers and buyers, took the time and effort to ask its members what they think. When you involve your membership, you help build loyalty to your brand.
Besides, unlike homeowners or buyers, who only dip their toesies in the real estate pool every 7 years or so, the professional is knee deep in the muck and mire every day. Perhaps their perspective is as important as the occasional shopper.
Create Newsiness: Do a Survey or Poll and Issue a Press Release About It
Here’s another marketing tip. If you want to get mainstream and social media press, do a survey or poll and then issue a press release. There’s something strangely appealing about surveys. Newspapers love to write articles about them. And folks just love to point to them and say : “See, I told you we should wait to buy.” or “Gee, I didn’t realize how sucky things are.” Together with press releases, surveys have NEWSINESS (h/t to Colbert’s truthiness).
Hip to this surveynewsiness marketing technique, Zillow does surveys, as does Trulia– though Trulia’s first survey (The American Dream Nightmare) made me laugh (from a marketing perspective) because it said over 90% of homeowners & 70% non-homeowners have no intention of moving in the next year– seems to me to be a dumb question to ask and even dumber to proclaim in a press release if you expect real estate agents to fork over money to you for real estate ads and featured listings– “Come buy an ad on Trulia; just ignore the fact that the vast majority of people will not use you.” [Wisely, they didn't include this question in their latest survey -- I guess they want the ad money this time.]
And don’t worry if folks want to challenge your sampling accuracy. Just use this disclaimer: No estimates of theoretical sampling error can be calculated. (disclaimer courtesy of Trulia)
Technorati Tags: homegain, homeowner survey, realtors, obama
