The beginnings of people and property
It all starts with people. Without people, there is no property. Since man began to walk, people have sought shelter. The shelter provided safety and comfort and kept them out of the elements. In the early days, these would have been rudimentary spaces that they would have found in the surrounding landscape in places such as caves and forests1. Although there was no formal ownership system, these were the early stages of property. And as man evolved, property evolved with them.
Today, they are not just places of shelter anymore, they are the places where we live our lives. Property takes many forms, they are places to live and raise a family, places of business, places to make things, places to entertain, places to learn, places to exercise, places to worship, places to rest, and so much more. So, to understand property and its uses you need to understand people.
Marketing property to people
The people who will live in the property get forgotten as the development progresses from the initial design stages. Particularly when it comes to the business end of the project of marketing and selling the development. If estate agents and marketing people aren’t involved in the initial design and concept stages of the project. The initial target audience, for whom the property was designed, can sometimes not be communicated effectively and therefore the people, i.e. the end users, can get lost in the process.
For the agents, it becomes about the fees and commission and for the developer the GDV. But this becomes counterproductive because if you don’t know who your target market is, then how do you know who you’re selling it to and how do you know you’re going to be able to find them and communicate with them? And this has a knock-on effect because if you’re not communicating with the right people, how do you know you’re achieving the maximum value for that property? The ideal target market is the people who are going to find the best use for that property, see the most value in it and therefore be willing to pay the highest price for it. So if you are not reaching these people, you are not achieving the maximum value for your property or your development.
It is therefore pivotal that the people marketing and selling your property understand your target market and know how to reach them and communicate with them. The way to do this is to make sure the people that you are bringing in to market and sell your property understand people. When they’re pitching you and they’re not asking you questions about who the target market is and who this property was designed for, they are probably not the right people. If their pitch is all about their services and what their fee would be, then it’s probably clear what is most important to them. If they are asking questions like this great, if they’ve done their research and are coming to you with information as to who they think would be the ideal target market for this property even better.
Once you find those people bring them in early and involve them in the initial concept stages of the project. This will ensure nothing gets lost in communication and your agents will understand exactly the target market for your property. Which will be important when it comes to the crunch time of marketing and selling the property. This will mean they can start thinking about the project early and have more time to formulate ideas and concepts of how best to market the property to the target market and agents can start thinking about who in their contact list would be an ideal match for your development. Which will benefit you especially if you want to try to sell some of the properties off-plan.
Conclusion
In closing, if you want to ensure that your property development is a success, make sure you never forget the people that you have designed it for. And make sure you understand and communicate exactly who those people are to everyone involved in the project.
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