REACHING BUYERS

When real estate sales are slow, smart marketing is particularly important. Here are three great ideas that would work anywhere:
• Offer tours of the office: Jack Persin, president of Ryan Hill Realty in Naperville, Ill., tours elementary school children through his offices, and shows them how homes are bought and sold. The tour introduces his business to parents and teachers as well as children.
• Do well by doing good: Chicago brokerage Baird & Warner sponsored a winter coat drive at all its offices and also invited the public to drop off coats at open houses. It collected hundreds of coats for needy people.
• Make showing houses an art: Associates at Sudler Sothebys International Realty, which sells homes in Chicago’s most upscale neighborhoods, offered local artists free space to display their work on the walls of empty homes for sale. They advertised the open houses as holiday shopping events. The four-hour “art shows” attracted more than 200 people, who received a shopping bag at the door for any purchases. The bags also contained a flyer about the homes, as well as a brochure detailing other homes for sale.

Source: Chicago Tribune, Mary Ellen Podmolik (11/21/2008)
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