Viewing property online is definitely very common these days.
I was speaking to a group of Real Estate Negotiators from ERA Malaysia (click here to view their FB page) a few days ago. It was one of their training / learning sessions where they invite someone they think could help in increasing the knowledge of their agents. I hope I helped a little during my 2-hour session including Q&A with them. Lots of good questions were asked too. One important point I shared during the session is that there’s too many organisations (usually proptech companies) focusing on ‘proptech’ and ‘online.’
Shampoo via online
Let me share one major difference between online purchase for a shampoo and online purchase for a home. In an online purchase for a shampoo, we need to make sure we have a great video showing a model washing hair and then show how smooth and shining the hair looks after that. Right after, a link appears which shows first 100 people to buy would receive a small bottle of the shampoo free.
If the video was awesome, especially the model, then this model works. Just make sure it reaches the maximum number of people and enough of them would click and complete the transactions. You send them the shampoo and hopefully they will continue to buy again when they finished it.
Property online
The scene shows a drone shot of the entire neighbourhood. Impressive. It then shows the views within the interior of the home. Nice. Potential buyer could also use their mouse to move to places they wanted to see more. This is great. Then, after the video or the 360 view of the interior of the home, a link comes up and asked the potential buyer to quickly place their booking because the unit would soon be running out or that this offer is only for the first 10 buyers. RM500,000 home? A click of the mouse?
People matters, a lot.
That drone shone we talk about, it must share the things that matter and this meant the human knowledge is needed. It is not about ‘this development is connected by three expressways’ (seriously, are there any development not connected by expressways these days? I wish them luck). It is about ‘within 3 minutes, one could reach the expressway 1 and have access to location A, B and C.’ One of these locations may be the one which the potential property buyer loves to go… You get traction for your development.
We assume the interior video has someone introducing it. (If there’s none and it’s just a mute video, I wish this development the best of luck too because most videos do have introduction these days)
Who does the introduction matters
The interior video may have someone who’s not familiar with property investment and they do like this, ‘this is the living area and right next to the living area is the kitchen and at the end of the kitchen you have the wet kitchen.’ (Dear developer, this kind of info is already available in your brochure…’)
The interior video needs to have some human expertise and it may be something as follows: “Typical front door height is 7ft but this condo uses 8ft door because it gives impression of luxury.”
Or if it’s about floor tiles… “The standard floor tile these days may be 2ft x 2 ft but the quality and especially the thickness of the floor tile matters. For our customers delight, we are using…..”
Or if it’s about corridor. BAD one: The corridor has 12 units… (this is NOT the most important point). Perhaps this is way better as a knowledge to buyers too. “There are 12 units but there’s a huge difference here because the corridor has access to both wind and light. The developer did not maximise the numbers of units so that owners do not need to walk in a stuffy and dar corridors every time they go home.”
Will you buy a RM500,000 just because someone famous said so?
As someone who has been investing in properties, I am not buying a property just because the developer has gotten an attractive model or some famous personality to walk around and introduce to me things which I already know. I do not think any first-time property buyers should be buying any property simply because a famous personality say so. Buy when we understand how that property will fulfill our needs. This is why many questions have to be answered before we buy and this is an expensive decision yeah.
People matters more than tech even if tech is compulsory these days
Hope this explains why HUMAN will always matter more than the ‘tech,’ ‘tech,’ and ‘tech,’ which everyone seemed to be too preoccupied and has forgotten that there are differences in how we (the people) uses online (the tech) to sell to potential buyers (the people). There are developers who think just using online and I can sell (sorry… it does not work like this) and there are proptech companies who kept sharing how good their products are but has forgotten that content matters. All the best to everyone.
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