Digital Marketing & Real Estate

Real estate is not thought of as a digital industry, and consequently, there is not much literature on the web on this topic.  I did, however, find an agency article that provides high level thoughts on the industry, entitled “How Digital Marketing Will Transform Real Estate Industry In 2021” (linked below).

Real estate is a physical asset.  Similar to other industries—recall the example in class of researching a car before purchasing at a lot—real estate customers are utilizing the internet to understand a building’s offerings (floorplan, amenities, etc) before visiting it and ultimately making the decision to rent or purchase.  In the New York City market, Streeteasy is known as the aggregator of this information and rental brokers such as Douglas Elliman are the customer’s go-to contact people about a unit.  However, new construction rental buildings (like the one I work on) must find ways to differentiate themselves from other class A buildings in the neighborhood to have a competitive edge.

I reviewed the article to see what differentiators digital marketing could provide my company. The article mentions Chatbots, Influencers, Augmented Reality, and Blockchain as tools that will be in the future of real estate marketing – all items that are not widely utilized in the NYC leasing process today.  In new construction, the owner hires a leasing brokerage team and the team receives a leasing commission for every unit’s first lease, regardless of how hard they work to lease the unit.  Many of these tools can supplement the brokers’ work or in the long run, disrupt the current compensation structure to the broker, providing savings to the owner.  For example, if a leasing broker is giving a tour – they cannot answer phone calls.  A Chatbot can supplement feedback to renters.  Influencers for real estate only exist through famous sales brokers’ Instagrams – but there is likely a use case for rental that hasn’t been discovered as well as other mediums not currently in use like TikTok.  AR has multiple use applications but the one that is just picking up in the market is allowing someone to view an empty unit as a furnished model unit.  This will be a very valuable tool to owners if the price is right.  Lastly, the article discusses Blockchain, which it says can make tracking customer data more accurate – further research on my end is needed to understand how.

Article: “How Digital Marketing Will Transform Real Estate Industry In 2021” - https://digitalagencynetwork.com/how-digital-marketing-will-transform-real-estate-industry/