Estate of Mind — The Art of Selling Luxury Real Estate

Building Your Personal Brand Will Help You Grow Your Business:

Do you consistently work on strengthening your personal brand as a luxury real estate professional? It’s important to remember that your personal branding is different from the branding associated with your brokerage. While the two may in fact be very similar, they aren’t exactly the same, and they don’t have the same impact on how your potential clients may perceive you.

Your personal branding as a luxury real estate professional is what potential clients are going to associate with you. It’s the thing that’s going to help encourage them to partner with you — and potentially refer future business your way. In order to more effectively grow your luxury real estate business, you need to make sure that your personal branding accurately reflects the type of service clients can expect to receive, and always align your website messaging with your personal branding to create a more consistent, well-rounded experience for them.

Finding Your Niche in Luxury Real Estate:

In order to set yourself apart from the competition, it’s important that you highlight the aspects of your brand that make you different from your competitors. Similarly, finding your niche in luxury real estate can also help you stand out more to potential clients. By establishing yourself as the authority in a particular type of property, you’re not only segmenting yourself as the first choice among a group of niche buyers and sellers, but you're also building out your luxury real estate brand in a more unique way that will potentially yield better results in the future.

Before you establish your niche though, it’s important to determine the set of guiding principles that you want to adhere to throughout your tenure as a luxury real estate professional. For instance, if you are determined to always respond to client correspondence the same day, make sure that you commit to doing so all the time, with every client. This guiding principle will in turn help shape your brand as a luxury real estate professional, which will ultimately help you more effectively establish a foothold in a specific luxury real estate niche.

Topics and Questions You’ll Uncover During this Episode:

• How a well-curated brand image can help set you apart from competitors
• What should be included in a luxury real estate website?
• Why establishing a niche in luxury real estate can be an effective growth strategy
• Building a personal brand image around authenticity
• How branding and reputation should impact your marketing efforts

Resources Mentioned within Episode:

• Official Website - Luxury Presence
• Official Website - Malte Kramer
• Connect with Malte Kramer on LinkedIn
• The Institute for Luxury Home Marketing

Always Take Advantage of the Resources Around You:

To help you advance your career in luxury real estate, it’s imperative that you never stop learning and adapting to market conditions. When it comes to business planning and marketing strategy, particularly in an industry like real estate where market conditions are always shifting, being able to quickly pivot is the key to continued success. Recognizing that change is a good thing is important, particularly for luxury real estate professionals.

One thing that most successful luxury real estate professionals have in common? Planning and goal setting. Coming up with smart, measurable, achievable goals is the first step in fully utilizing the resources around you. If you employ backwards planning principles, and start with your goals and work your way backwards in order to determine the most effective way to reach those goals, then you can more easily determine the resources that you’re going to need in order to get where you need to be. Whether that involves specific professional development and training, attending in-person events both in and outside of your target market, or simply listening to podcasts or reading books, utilizing the resources around you to help you achieve your goals is the best way to stay on track and make advancements in your real estate career.

Topics and Questions You’ll Uncover During this Episode:

• Adapting to changes in your real estate market
• The importance of planning and goal setting as a real estate professional
• How often you should reassess business and marketing plans
• Why is attending industry events outside of your target market important?
• The importance of utilizing the resources around you

Resources Mentioned within Episode:

• Official Website - Jamie Huggins
• Connect with Jamie Huggins on LinkedIn
• Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action
• REAL Marketing
• The Institute for Luxury Home Marketing

Continually Growing Your Luxury Database:

The key to a healthy luxury database is constantly building up your referral network. Whether your referrals are coming from past clients, your digital web properties (such as your YouTube channel), or from other real estate professionals in your network, it’s important to look for referrals from a variety of places.

And the key to maintaining your database? Reciprocating referrals. Remember, if you’re unwilling to refer business to others, there isn’t much incentive for them to refer business to you either.

Expanding Your Reach Via Digital Marketing:

Digital marketing plays an important role in any luxury real estate marketing strategy. Shayla explains that she devotes a lot of time to her carefully curated YouTube channel, posting videos that help show her personality, establish her as a local real estate authority, and even connect her to the community at large when she interviews local businesses, such as the humane society. In addition to YouTube, she also showcases content on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn, noting which videos and content pieces perform best, and adjusting her overall strategy accordingly.

When it comes to any digital marketing campaign, ensuring that your content is properly optimized — the way Shayla does — will not only help your content rank better within search results, but it will also increase your number of impressions, which could in turn lead to additional referrals. Shayla even uses her email signature to highlight relevant market updates, the MLS, and her YouTube videos, constantly mixing it up to provide her email recipients with new information they may find value in.

And where does Shayla learn about these helpful strategies she’s implementing in her marketing campaigns? Podcasts (like this one).

Topics and Questions You’ll Uncover During this Episode:

• How a digital marketing approach can play a critical role in building your referral network
• How to properly tend to luxury database in order to enjoy continual growth
• Why you don’t need to hire a professional videographer to shoot your YouTube content (and why you do need one when crafting content around client homes)
• Shayla’s approach to YouTube optimization and expanding her overall presence by expanding her digital presence

Resources Mentioned within Episode:

• Official Website - Shayla Twit
• Subscribe to the “Get Sarasota Real Estate Fit with Shayla Twit” YouTube Channel
• Contact Shayla Twit
• The Institute for Luxury Home Marketing

From navigating steep driveways to addressing ongoing construction concerns, Simms and Miller provide practical guidance on turning challenges into opportunities. They also dispel common misconceptions surrounding stucco homes and emphasize the importance of understanding market-specific preferences.

Join the hosts as they delve into the art of seeking feedback from colleagues, identifying buyer requirements, and providing thorough disclosures – essential elements for navigating the ever-changing real estate landscape. They also highlight the power of creativity in targeting the right audience and achieving successful outcomes in this competitive market.

Tune in to this insightful episode and gain valuable strategies for successfully selling even the most challenging luxury properties!

To jump to a specific topic, navigate to one of the following timestamps:

[08:00] Strategies for selling luxury condos in areas with urban development

[11:20] Challenges and solutions regarding exterior finishes, specifically stucco

[22:45] Understanding market-specific preferences and targeting the right audience

[26:50] Tailoring search and marketing strategies to match buyer requirements

[30:40] The power of creativity in overcoming obstacles and targeting the right audience

[35:00] Importance of disclosure and thorough research in real estate transactions

Topics You’ll Uncover During this Episode:

• Principle of sacrifice and addressing perceived negatives
• Overcoming challenges around unique features and external finishes
• Unique marketing approaches for challenging properties
• Strategies for selling luxury condos in urban development areas
• Addressing misconceptions and challenges surrounding stucco homes

Resources Mentioned Within Episode:

• The Institute for Luxury Home Marketing

Emerging Design Trends and the Changing Priorities of Affluent Homeowners:

Over the last few years, a stark minimalism characterized by bland color schemes seemed to dominate design trends throughout real estate. A lot of these design choices seemed to correlate with the pandemic and a more sterile approach to living. In 2023 though, that’s all about to change.

According to this year’s most popular design trends, warmer color palettes and textures are taking over. Accent walls are growing increasingly popular, especially those that incorporate patterns via high-end wallpaper. Also making its rounds in the luxury residential market? Luxury vinyl flooring that’s durable enough to stand up to high foot traffic and wear and tear.

Bringing inside elements outside is another trend that’s growing in popularity. With many homeowners wanting a more seamless transition from indoors to out, and ample natural light sources becoming increasingly important, biophilic design is becoming a more popular option. In 2023, design trends are set to be a lot more colorful, have much more personality, and focus on bridging the gap between the home’s interior and exterior living spaces.

Topics Discussed During this Episode:

• How design trends are shifting in a post-pandemic world
• Why color is being utilized in a much bolder way
• The return of textured wallpaper
• Where vinyl flooring is being incorporated in a luxury home
• How architecture and design are adapting to the most recent trends

Resources Mentioned During this Episode:

• REAL Marketing
• The Institute for Luxury Home Marketing