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Unusual and Creative Marketing Techniques

Got to hand to some folks for the creativity they are expending when trying to sell a home these days. Here are some of the more creative methods I have seen lately:

An Upside Down Auction - The owner is calling it the "Bothell Countdown". Each week the price on this home goes down in increments of $5-10K. As a potential buyer, you can sign up for email updates to keep track of price reductions and other updates.

Win A Home For $200 - All you have to do is write a 100 word or less essay about your dream of owning a beach home on the Oregon Coast, pay a $200 entry fee, and the home could be yours!

Buy One House, Get One Free - A developer in the San Diego area recently offered home buyers a free, 2,000 square foot home in Escondido if they purchased a home in the Royal View Estates development in the San Pasqual Valley of San Diego.

Jump On The Foreclosure Tour Bus - Spend the day on bus looking at Foreclosed properties. This tour operator currently covers five states. For a limited time they have reduced the cost of admission from $297 to $97. Looks like you can not only get a bargain on a home, but on ticket prices as well.

Go Green, Get A Prius - If you buy a green home in Encanterra (AZ), from Shea Homes, you get a free hybrid Toyota. Hurry, this offer only good thru June 15th!

Finally, my personal favorite...

Stake Your Life On Your Home - The buyer of this home will be the named beneficiary to a 10-year, $500,000 term life insurance policy. If the home owner dies in the next 10 years, the price of the home ($498,900) is covered. In case you are a betting person and wondering about odds, the owner is 69.

Then of course, there are the incentives. While this isn't anything new for, particularly for builders, home owners are now also testing this technique. An article ran in the Boston Globe a few months ago quoting an agent who has sellers giving away things like: four sixth-row tickets facing the Lakers bench, VIP parking, and use of the "Royal Room" private lounge; a Harley-Davidson; a year's pool service; and association dues for a year.

I wonder if any of these homeowners considered the crazy marketing idea of pricing their home right with accordance to market conditions? :)

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Posted by Sara Bonert {Real Estate Internet Marketing} on 06/05/2008 03:40 PM

Comments (98)

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98 Comments on Unusual and Creative Marketing Techniques

JUN

2008

We saw a lot of the same gimmicks in the late 80s when the bottom fell out of the market. the big one around here was the convertable in the driveway was "free" with the house. Unfortunatley there is no such thing as a free lunch! and the big issue that pops up is the value of the freebie, and what the effect is on the LTV when the buyers apply for their mortgage.

I saw an article on the one giving a life insurance policy - a bit morbid for me.

The $200 entry fee is one to consider. Does that bypass raffle laws and things and such? I'm off to google it.

Those are unusual indeed! I've heard of the tour bus for foreclosures, what a great idea! People are getting very creative in this market.

Interesting...I wonder if any of those creative ideas worked and actually helped sell the property?

Good point Robert! So do you have to list the convertible on the HUD?

Sarah - interesting and entertaining. I'm going to start offering free Root Canals with every funding. Naw, maybe I'll offer a free Tattoo instead? Yeah, that's the ticket! Ok, I'm off to eBay to find a Tattoo needle thingy. Does anyone know what kind of ink I need? I have plenty of copy machine toner sitting around.

Sounds like some creative folks... I have always thought price it right and the rest will happen!

I kinda hate gimmiks. Here is one...get people to forget what the home was worth two years ago...and tell them what it is worth today!

Lack of sleep, good coffee and late in the day thinking can come up with the best ideas! Good post and thorough!

Sara, I LOVE the life insurance plan. That is a very creative and out of the box idea nd I can see where it would have an appeal for a buyer. Very god!!!

I like the marketing ideas but I would be very interested in a step by step procedure in how each marketing technique would work in order be successful. The procedure must include dollar amounts. "Stake your Life on Your Home" = if the owner dies the buyer inherits the house but what happens if the husband of wife is left behind?

Those are some crazy gimmicks Sara. What ever happened to just "pricing the home right"?

I see how foreclosure bus might work, considering all those TV shows like "foreclosure secrets" and such. There could be many people willing to take a tour.

I love the beach house idea:) Thanks for the fun links!

Sara, great stuff WOW... We tried a 6 hour sale and dropped the price 80 grand. Lots of adds ran the flyers and a pitch at the MLS, e-mails the works. And we wrote tow offers, one for the 6hr sale house and another one a week later... Did not work the next time? Go figure...

J&R

The marketing techniques in your post are unusual indeed! Sign of the times I guess. I am begining to see few unusual techniques in my area (Naperville Real Estate) as well. Thanks for the post!

Sara, the incentives seem to be losing its value as a marketing tool in my area. I don't see the new BMW etc being offered anymore. AJ

Now these are some creative marketing ideas. I have not seen incentives in our area lately.

Excellent Post...just what i was looking for to get fresh ideas!!! I think that "win a home for $200" might just work......i will see what Hawaii rules are for that....thanks again for that informative and fresh selling ideas....aloha

Sara.. The "Win a Home for $200" essay is a lot like the movie "The Spitfire Grill" from the 1990's. In the movie it was $100 and an essay. Yes, times have changed, but not concepts. I'm going to keep an eye on that one.. just out of curiousity.

I bought a raffle ticket from a band for $100 last year with a chance to win a new home by a builder, and they only sold so many tickets so the odds were good! I didn't win, but I have a few homes I would like to sell that way!

Pricing right is just an old fashioned technique that works! But these are very creative, and interesting post.

Wow... some of those are doosies... yikes, buy one get one free, now that is funny stuff.

Sara

Yes, you would have to disclose it... and we all know if it is on the HUD it can be a potential problem. gimmicks that sound good are often headaches later on... so be careful... Nothing like a god old fashioned sales concession to go towards closing, that can go much further. I guess you could get creative and have some one buy the car for a dollar and leave it off the HUD, providing you have a closing agent that will turn their head... butterflies till the end if you are involved!

Fun Post either way, people will try anything!!

Rob

Desperate times call for desperate measures. I do not see any that I would use. Any other suggestions?

Sara~ These are creative ideas/gimmicks.... the problem is you ARE really not getting anything for "free" Like they say, there is no such thing as a free lunch.... you are paying for it in some way or the other.... I guess it at least gets your attention.

Hi Sara,

Pretty fun and interesting stuff. I hear about raffles and lottos when it come to homes, yet I've also heard they're not legal in all states, but who knows for sure?

I did think the life insurance policy was pretty creative, but it creeped me out a the same time. I don't think I could do that one myself, I think I'd be looking over my shoulder all the time, lol.

So if you offer a free root canal, do you have to get the lenders approval?

Even more interesting with these ideas are what sellers are willing to do to prep their house for sale. I've had clients approach neighbors with free home painting to cover up "character-filled" color schemes, and have heard of free weekends on the shore to neighbors, only for them to return and find a tree trimmed back or a fence missing.

Hard times expose sharp teeth, long nails, and lots of gall and gumption. The definition of the last two escape me as I've only heard them used by cartoon 1870's miners, and my mother. Mom, the two are mutually exclusive.

Thanks for making me smile today, Sara.

I wonder if any of these homeowners considered the crazy marketing idea of pricing their home right with accordance to market conditions? :)

They can't do that, nobody would notice!

We have one that was "raffled." (It was a 1.5 million dollar custom built home.) The builder was going to use the proceeds to build another one. However the taxes on that house were a mortgage payment in themselves.

The responses are just as much fun as the suggestions.Good luck to us all.

Veronica

Unbelievable what people can come up with during a down market.

Wow, and I thought I thunk out of the box. lol! Great post

Most of the ideas are just ways to cover up having a bad price. There are a few builders offering cars around here, and even a homeowner or two. Makes it pretty obvious that the price is wrong...

Sara -

Glad to see folks "Breaking Out of the Box." Some of this stuff may work, some may not - but at least folks are trying something new!

Drop over anytime!

DEAN & DEAN'S TEAM CHICAGO

Those are some creative ideas for people really wanting to sell. You have to hand it to them.

Great ideas, especially the life insurance. Odds are probably 50/50 on that one! In my old market several agents are doing the "reduce $1,000" per day until sold idea.

And to think, a couple of years ago buyers were giving sellers all kinds of things to take their offers instead of the other 42 contrcts on the table!

Wow, that is amazing the lengths that people are going to in order to sell their homes!

Gimmicks, to me, are just that. However, Marketing creativity is always appealing to me. Nice display of some of the new ideas out there to market properties.

Very creative and this info. helps us all keep an open mind.

Sara...loved that last comment LOL Amazing thought...Much simpler than all the gimmicks. But maybe just too easy. :)

Sara -- you can add -- "snow blower" included in New Hampshire. Especially after the record setting snows of 2007 - this is one of the hottest commodities.

very unusual and yet interesting - thanks

Sara: I have one that is listed that is in perfect condition and is priced well below market prices but, the neighborhood is struggling right now. My Sellers decided to offer HOA dues for the first year PLUS a $200. gas card to thank them for taking the trip out to their neighborhood!!

Debe In Charlotte

Las Vegas went through so many gimmicks in 2006 and early 2007 (that did not work) and eventually just dropped the prices to get back on track.

Unfortunately for all of the above, we've already seen it and we know what happens shortly afterwards.

$297 to $97 for a Foreclosure Bus Tour? Who pays for that? By the time the bus even gets scheduled in Las Vegas, the good foreclosures already have 5 bids on it. Why would anybody pay to go see the ones that nobody wants to buy?

Crazy...

And yes.. your last statement sums it all up.

Great list Sara! These incentives are designed to attract publicity and get the word out. I wonder if it is working......

Very creative ideas....I like the one with the life insurance policy. I think the odds are better on this than going to Vegas!

JUN

2008

Some creative ideas. I have heard of the foreclosure bus but didn't realize there was a fee.

Great ideas, thanks for sharing. I love the buy one get one free. Makes sense to me.

Tj Stroben

Great ideas, thanks for sharing. I love the buy one get one free. Makes sense to me.

Tj Stroben

I think that some of these offers are more to create a marketing buzz than to achieve sales. Shea did the free Prius for a very limited time.

So funny this was staring me in the face this morning when I logged onto active rain. We were just talking about all of these gimmicks in our sales meeting this week. I really like the buy one get one free deal......I have a short sale listing that has an adjoining four acres included in the listings. So how about....buy this 3/2/2 on 4 acres and get the adjoining four acres FREE!!!! You might look at that listing wouldn't you.

We were also discussing the essay contest....is that breaking any rules or does the rules only apply to licensed real estate professionals. We appointed a point person to research that in our office.

Creativity and pricing are a must in this market! Thanks for the post! (ok, before I posted this I tried to spell check it and something is wrong......so pardon any spelling errors!)

Where do the people come up with theses ideas! Thanks for the list! But I think once the house is priced right then you are good to go and won't need any of these gimmicks.

Sarah, well those are some I have never heard of. I've always wondered though if people really buy a home to get a car or anything extract. Agreed we need to think outside the box and those are some creative ways of marketing.

I saw the promotion about the buy 1 get 1 free and thought it was very unique. We're seeing some really creative promotional ideas.

The creative ideas are great. But I think the final sentence summed it up. If you price rigth from the beginning gimmicks are not necessary.

Hmmm..Price now there is a thought...here we have seen Big Screen TV's, timeshares, etc, For whatever reason, sellers are more willing to spend money on "incentives" than drop prices...or then again, maybe the agents are paying for incentives.

Talk about creative! Thanks for an interesting post.

A large builder in our area is offering a Guarantee that any one of his homes will appraise for at least what you buy it for in 5 years or he will pay you the difference. I'll be he got an insurance company to underwrite a policy for this. I thought this was a fantastic way to get those buyers off the fence who are afraid to buy because they think the value is going down.

ugh!! Grr!!! Good Grief....LOL!!!

I've heard of the tour bus for foreclosures, but can you imagine how humiliating that is to the foreclosed-upon? These tour buses have "X company foreclosure tour bus" written on the sides. What if they accidentally pulled into the wrong address? Yikes!

I like the term life package, makes you wonder if in a few years the owner kick and you are looked at as being the cause.

Very creative. But you are right, perhaps the trick would be to just simply price the homes right for the market and then there would be no need for these unusual things.

We go through cycles of the creative and they usually leave everyone wondering or asking if the seller will ever actually have to provide the incentive. I have suggested in the past of providing a bonus incentive for reducing the competition and each time the property sold so quickly. For sure it was priced right but now and again, so are others. The creative marketing can work but should have a limited application for an intended goal.

Most don't get it right and then the whole effort can be lost in the shuffle. But I will admit, I had not heard of the Life package before and it was an interesting and unique incentive. Not sure it would lure me but the idea was certainly creative.

"What you think about, you talk about and what you talk about, you bring about. " all the best and a wonderful post.

I especially like writing an essay to win a house. As many excellent writer as there are on ActiveRain,

one of our number may be the lucky new home owner!

"Buy one get one free" cracks me up... As if it were candy bars that were being sold! With the sad economy right now, similar gimicks are happening in other industries as well. I see more and more auto sales commercials that are giving away "free gas for a year" or other gas incentives when you buy their car.

We saw a lot of these gimmicks in the late '80's and although it may bring attention to the property, its still the same old story-- get ahead of the declining curve and price it right for the market and property condition and it will sell!!

John in Massachusetts

RE/MAX www.MetrowestareaHomes.com

Starting this weekend one of our sellers is giving one of the new " Smart " cars to the buyer. !

There was an incentive given from a Local Seller - in the Chicago Suburbs

A Free Plasma TV to The Buyer & A Free Plasma TV to the Buyer's Agent or the equivalent of $1250.00 in Best Buy Gift Certificate for each.

It helped to sell the home - and it will be closing later this month.

Does the buy-one-get-one-free offer have "of equal or lesser value" fine print I wonder?

I had a seller offer "handyman" services to the buyer for one year. This was outside of the Home Warranty that was provided and the seller himself was the handyman.

Hmm. I have some ideas. Anyone in OC, CA who might want to discuss working on something creative don't hesitate to message me. I'll be thinking it through on my own this weekend.

Dan
www.OCimageservices.com

I need ideas on Staging costs.

Good ideas. 75 comments on the blog. - Nice.

Made me chuckle! I saw a ranch advertised this week with a little different take. It said price would INCREASE $100,000 per month until SOLD!!! How's that for incentive? Somebody's got ......nerve.

Sara, these are great. Love the gamble on the life insurane policy and Eileen's comment above is another good one. I agree with you though, pricing it right would be best. Entertaining post!

Hi Sara - Really like the idea that Shea Homes is using with the Prius, as I just finished the EcoBroker certification. Thanks for sharing some unique and innovative ideas with us!

JUN

2008

Hi Sara,

Great post.

Obviously pricing the home right makes sense. Sometimes a property may need a little push, and if something creative gives it an edge, then so be it.

To much, I have seen most of these before. The bus trip is wild, do you get lunch? Then it would be a buyers open? Caravan?

Hats off to thinkers. Creative ways are what will make the difference. I am going to suggest a few of these out. After all, we are in the selling business. As long as integrity is not compromised it is great!

JUN

2008

I always scoff at this sort of gimmick BUT I am finding sellers are increasingly looking to Realtors to come up with these sorts of ideas. Always makes me feel a little like Crazy Eddie!

These are a bit over the top, but fun to read!

JUN

2008

Those are definitely some interesting things! Thanks for sharing Sara!

Thank you Sara! Fun, but is it legal? I guess it depends on the state.

JUN

2008

As long as you dont break the law...you gotta do what it takes to sell...I like the life insurance idea...I may steal that

JUN

2008

Just yesterday I saw a listing where the seller was willing to pay one year of association fees. They seem a little too creative for me.

JUN

2008

Unfortunately in today's fast paced world advertising is everywhere and consumers are assulted with something like 50,000 ads per day?? (don't remember the exact figure) Plus there are new agents emerging everyday to try their hand at the Real Estate game... how do you break the barrier consumers put up to not go insane? marketing gimmicks! The bigger and better ones get attention. Consumers these days don't care much about experience anymore or even well written advertising the only things that get attention are freebees and sex... While I personally dislike gimmicks, they are everywhere today, why not real estate too? This is the wave of the nex-gen generation, get used to it now before it's too late!

JUN

2008

Interesting ideas. We concidered the prius idea but dropped it. Appraisers don't like this kind of stuff.

Sara,

The life insurance one kinda sppoks me. Guess I watched too many scary movies. I could just see some deranged, greedy person buying the house.

My luck, if I was the buyer, the seller would keel over within hours of closing and die in a very suspicious manner.

JUN

2008

Thanks all for leaving comments and espicially to those who left ideas or examples of other gimmicks that have heard of in their markets.

Recently came across two more unique ones:

1) Incentives are not just for home owners or real estate professionals anymore, townships are getting in on the action too. "To help the local economy, for a limited time the Village of Manhattan is offering an economic stimulus rebate to all buyers who purchase a new home in Manhattan. A rebate of $3,500 for a new townhome or duplex and $5,000 for a new single-family home will be received at closing."

2) San Diego real estate company Wellsford Realty is offering an unusual incentive for gay couples in California or those who might venture to California to take advantage of the recently passed same-sex marriage law: If you buy a home (primary or vacation home) in the San Diego area through Wellsford Realty, you will get your wedding reception or honeymoon paid for by the realty company.

JUN

2008

Great posts it seems they want to almost give the houses away right now

AUG

2008

How many people showed up for the tour bus deal? How did you advertise that? Sounds interesting. My husband just created a new site www.NwaFiresale.com which has been very popular and I think this tour bus looking at the foreclosures is a fabulous idea! thanks.

These are some unusual gimmicks. I guess they must be working or else we would not be hearing about them....

OCT

2008

Great ideas! Love Sara's economic stimulus idea! I'm going to try that only from a single seller point of view...i.e "In an effort to support the community of Salem, the Smith's will be offering an economic stimulis rebate of $5,000 to the buyer at close of escrow."