We’ve all seen the impeccable marketing campaigns for high-end luxury homes. You know those homes, the ones that have professional photos and videos, virtual walkthroughs, and a variety of other marketing tools to sell a lifestyle.

That last bit is key, buyers on the affluent end of the market. Potential buyers in this market are not just looking for a new home. They are looking for a new lifestyle.

The marketing needs to show them how their family will use the home and how the home will shape their lifestyle. Will the home draw in their immediate and extended family for large gatherings?

Or is the home a show palace to show off at gatherings for friends and professional acquaintances.

What Should a Real Estate Agent Spend on Photography and Marketing?

Experts suggest that agents sped 1% of the sale of a property on its marketing. This is about a third of your commission. While this could be a nice large budget for those selling large listings, it can be tough for those selling homes in lower price brackets.

For luxury homes, videos are the norm. They offer sweeping views to the surrounding area of rich forests or sprawling beaches. The video will take you inside and walk you through each impeccably staged room.

Then there is the floor plan that can help buyers visualize the home and understand the unique layout.

All of this sounds wonderful, right? On a million dollar listing, you’d have no problem spending the money and putting in this kind of effort. But what about listing the average home? Shouldn’t they have the best marketing possible too?

The trick is the commission on these homes is smaller, and so is your marketing budget. The sign of a smart and successful real estate agent is their ability to create an effective marketing campaign while staying on budget.

“A good rule of thumb for real estate practitioners is that marketing budgets should equal about 10 percent of their commission income …”

In other words, if your commission on a home is 3%, then that would equal a marketing budget that is .3% of the home’s sale price.

This sounds achievable, so let’s look at a few different examples of homes.

Marketing a $700,000 Property:

First, let’s determine the budget for a $700,000 property. So .3% of the sale price means you have a $2100 budget for marketing.

This is a decent amount of money and you should be able to create a marketing campaign that includes:

• Flyers
• Floorplan
• Video Tour of the home
• 20 professional quality photos

After all of this, you should still have money left over to put towards an online campaign. This lets you pay for Google or Facebook ads to increase the exposure of the home.

Marketing for a $200,000 Property:

Using our formula, your marketing budget for a $200,000 home is $600. While this can be tight, it’s still plenty to get something accomplished.

You could get professional high-quality real estate photos done by a professional photographer. Or you could create a short video of the home with this budget.

While you may not have the saturation and large campaign of the high-end homes, You can still create an effective marketing campaign with these two solid basics.

Share your video and images on social media. Or have some affordable fliers printed up? You can also create a page on your website to feature the property and really sell it.

Marketing Campaign for an $85,000 Property:

Ok this is where things get tough. Home in this range typically have images that are taken by the homeowner or real estate agent. This means that they are not the best quality, the lighting is off, and the staging is less than desirable.

So what do you do? You have a budget of $255 and that isn’t a lot.

Most agents won’t bother to get professional photos of homes in this range. But that is exactly why you should. Since all of the other listings in this range have amateur photos, your listing will stand out with it’s perfectly lit and framed professional real estate photos.

All you need to do is work with the right photographer who understands the challenges that come with photographing homes at this end of the market.

Let’s also not forget what we’ve discussed in previous blogs, professional photos can result in a higher closing price. With homes this low, every little bit counts.

Create a Real Estate Marketing Campaign for Your Listing

So what kind of budget are you working with for your homes? No matter where you are on the price scale, we can help you create professional looking photos.

Having professional photos will help your listings stand out in the sea of average. They also can be used across all platforms so this one single investment can do double and triple duty.

This makes getting professionals photos done well worth it no matter what end of the home value you scale your listings fall on.

Contact us today and let’s create compelling images of your homes. We’ll have buyers dreaming of their new lifestyle in no time.