Realtors now have a tool to effectively use the persuasive technique of “scarcity” in any market
By now most of you are familiar with Groupon. It’s a company that cuts a deal with a local advertiser, say a restaurant, to offer a sizable discount of 50% or more.
The catch is, consumers have ONE day to buy the deal.
Does this work? Well, Groupon had $750 million in sales last year and is the fastest company in US history to reach a billion in sales.
Still not convinced? How about that Google offered them $6 billion and the owners turned it down.
Real estate agents and brokers would be smart to use one of the powerful persuasive techniques behind Groupon’s success. It’s a principle called “the law of scarcity.”
In a frenzied sellers’ market, sure, Realtors are very familiar with the power of this concept.
“Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Potential Home Buyer, this house just came on the market at 10 a.m. this morning and there are already multiple offers. You better get your offer in now and don’t think about coming in low.”
But what about today, when there is a glut of homes for sale? Why not apply the same principle of scarcity, but in a different way?
Home Junction Inc. has a powerful tool that helps Realtors employ this technique in today’s market.
It’s our Neighborhood and Lifestyle Search Engine called SpatialMatch that is connected to an IDX platform that shows MLS listings combined with the lifestyle amenities surrounding it.
All easy to understand on a colorful map. Everything a home buyer needs to make a decision is right there in front of their eyes.
Say for example you have an early-stage prospect who is sort of fishing about for a 3 bedroom 3 bath home in your market.
Sure, you can show them a bunch of listings that meet that criteria. And keep emailing them month after month after month.
Preferences? You know they want a good middle school. Yes, you got that covered and have narrowed the selection down by a few dozen homes. But still, no bites.
With SpatialMatch, you can dig deeper. What does the prospect like to do in their spare time? Jog? Go to the library? Golf? What type of business are they in? Medical? What type of food do they like? Sushi, Mexican, Thai, perhaps?
Are they a gourmet coffee drinker? (Who isn’t?). Do they hate traffic or driving all over town for errands (Who wouldn’t?). Do they want to live 10 minutes from their job?
With SpatialMatch, you can find all of these amenities in our user-friendly application and using our distance slider, can establish a range on how far away each of these attractions are from selected properties.
All of as sudden, there aren’t a bunch of 3 bedroom, 3 bath homes that meets the prospect’s criteria.
Maybe there’s only two. One probably fits the criteria better than others. Whoops, it’s priced a little bit higher than the buyer wanted to spend.
“But it meets all of your needs….and you better grab it now, because this one single house that fits your lifestyle could be gone tomorrow.”
With Groupon, you can probably pass on that $10 discount on dinner at that local brew pub.
But a house, come on, how often does the perfect house surrounded by all of your lifestyle needs come on the market, Mr. and Mrs. Home Buyer?
And by using SpatialMatch’s lifestyle search and clear visual displays, an agent could show them that “it is not only the home of your dreams, it’s the neighborhood of your dreams as well. You’ve got to act now while it’s available.”
(And there’s your principle of scarcity in action….with the help of our powerful, map-based search tool containing a billion bits of hyper-local data embedded into their web site, ANY agent can create these hyper-customized, unique-property scenarios.)
