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The importance of VPA in a booming market

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14 July 2015

The importance of VPA in a booming market

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A market like the current one, with properties generally selling fast for impressive prices, is great news for agents. It’s also a prime time for salespeople to slip into bad marketing habits that will make their jobs harder in the long term.

In a booming market, it’s not always necessary for an agent to do much in the way of marketing to secure a reasonable result. If anything, the fact that it is often so easy to sell gives agents an incentive to reduce marketing budgets. When a respectable result can be achieved with an average campaign, there’s no pressure to hustle for VPA.

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But this kind of thinking creates a false economy. Sure, a listing might sell for $20,000 over reserve with an underfunded marketing campaign – a good result – but with a strong VPA campaign backing it, it might have gone for $50,000 over reserve. Properties that achieve the best prices are typically those that benefit from a well-funded marketing push. The combination of a strong market and a decent VPA budget is what leads to record-breaking results.

The flipside of this situation is that, while the salesperson feels less pressure than ever to push hard for VPA, a booming market is precisely the time that vendors are most willing to spend big and take risks that will generate a top result for their property. When they see the properties around theirs selling for spectacular prices, they’re far more willing to do what it takes to get themselves a similar result. Agents who fail to embrace VPA in such a climate do their vendors a disservice.

Top agents have been drastically rethinking their marketing approach in 2015. We’ve seen clients:

  • Investing in elaborate, one-of-a-kind brochure designs
  • Dropping 1,000 Just Listed cards instead of 200
  • Embracing REA’s Premier Property listings as standard practice
  • Experimenting with new technologies, like backlit boards

Now is the time to instil strong, best-practice marketing habits in your sales team. This is also a crucial opportunity to condition your market and get them used to the idea of VPA as standard practice. Agents who are struggling to secure VPA now, when it’s an easier sell than ever, will be in for a nasty shock when the market slows down. It’s important for agents to build and maintain discipline around selling VPA, regardless of the current state of the market. 

How are you maintaining your commitment to VPA in the current market?

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