Food, Facts, and Floor Plans

What are buyers really looking for online these days, and where are they searching for it? These stats may surprise you.

There are a whole lot of things to look at on the internet these days. Recently, Statista put the number of active blogs at somewhere around 28.3 million. That's not even counting the 30+ trillion websites currently indexed by Google. Of those, I'd wager that a hefty percentage are devoted to food. When Twitter and Instagram first became a thing, everyone used to joke that "no one wants to see what you had for breakfast." At last count, I follow 28 Instagrammers who only post pictures of food. So I'd argue that there are a lot of people who do, actually, want to see what's for breakfast. In fact, Brandwatch named food as one of the biggest online search trends of 2017.

But that was 2017. And food is so two years ago. These days, I'll admit it. I am all about real estate porn.

It's true. Like almost every other adult I know, I am more than a little addicted to looking at other people's houses. Given the opportunity, I could easily burn a couple of hours dreaming about that NYC loft, a stone cottage, or that mid-mod houseboat, a la Sleepless in Seattle. I know I am not alone in this obsession, because look:

A quick search will find you hundreds of similar messages. And those websites mentioned are just a few of the sites that offer a visual buffet of gorgeous kitchens, bedrooms, and gift wrapping rooms. Gift wrapping rooms, y'all. Can you imagine?

While I do love me a good real estate website, I also spend a considerable amount of time on that other amazing invention: Pinterest. Boasting over 175 million monthly users, Pinterest is as popular with millennials as Instagram, according to Omnicore. Not to mention, over 5 percent of all referral traffic to websites comes from Pinterest. That's an insane stat. Not just for wedding planning or recipes, Pinterest also has a plethora of real estate related content.

Best of all, there are floor plans.

Floor plans are the holy grail of real estate porn. Not only can you drool over the photos, you can actually go so far as to mentally move in your furniture. Or, in my case, mentally ditch all your old furniture and buy new.

I am not alone in my love of floor plans. Rightmove released a study in 2013 that suggests that real estate buyers consider floor plans as not just a nice extra, but essential. One in five said they would ignore a property without a floor plan. They also rated floor plans as more important than photos and the description of the property. On the flip side, when sellers consider hiring a real estate agent, Rightmove found that 42 percent wouldn't hire an agent that didn't offer a floor plan.

And before you say, "Yeah, but that is the UK and maybe they are funny over there. After all, they like cricket!" check this out. In the NAR 2017 Home Buyer & Seller Generational Trends Report, floor plans were ranked third in terms of buyer requests, ranking higher than virtual tours, sold properties and even agent contact info. And, adding a floor plan to a real estate listing can increase click-throughs from buyers by 52 percent. That's twice as many eyeballs, folks.

The problem is that most real estate agents aren't placing the value on floor plans that they should. Common excuses for not offering floor plans include cost, hassle, and liability issues. The reality is that floor plans are not difficult to get and they aren't as expensive as you might think.

In this day and age, it's not just about getting your customer's attention. It's about keeping it. Each and every second of attention spent on your marketing matters, whether you are using social media or a search portal. Want to drive more traffic to your listings? Go the extra mile and give us real estate porn stalkers what we want: floor plans. (And more gift wrapping rooms.)

To view the original article, visit the iGuide blog.