In today’s ever competitive real estate market, with unrealistically priced homes and rising home inventories, it takes a competitive edge to get homes sold. Is your Association doing everything it can to market your community as a more than desirable place in which to live? I believe that community associations should be doing everything they can to market their neighborhoods to the general public in order to make them stand out from other associations.
Marketing your association on an ongoing basis does not have to cost a lot of money, but it does take time and some consistent effort by a group of interested homeowners. That is why I am suggesting that the association form a Community Marketing Committee.
If you were selling a business you would make necessary preparations to enhance the value well ahead of putting your business on the market for sale. I am suggesting the same type of approach by your association to “sell your community” well ahead of the actual time. How is this done? Here are some suggestions to help your group.
1. Have an association website. It does not have to be elaborate or expensive. But it should be approached from a marketing point-of-view, in that all pages should be designed and any information contained should be for the “Prospective Buyer” of your community. (If there is a website for Unit Owners, have this area restricted and not accessible for anyone other than owners). You will need someone who can be the website administer and keep the site up to date.
In your community website, have information of your community, history of the community, amenities, common area information, social activities, location information, maintenance information, and owner demographics. In addition, detail neighborhood amenities such as schools, shopping, cultural attractions, transportation, medical, natural attractions, such as the ocean, lakes etc. restaurants, parks, government etc. Anything that makes your community stand out from other associations.
You may also want to have a section for “Homes for Sale” with brief descriptions of the listings and contact information whether it is for sale by owner or with a broker.
2. Consider having a blog for interesting events and community happenings. This should be linked to your website. Always solicit readers to subscribe to this blog, as they may be interested in your community or may know of someone who is.
3. In both the blog and the website, keep your demographics in mind and whenever possible have owners who are “typical owners” featured in your blog, newsletter, and website. These “typical owners” are what your “Target Market” will be looking at in terms of “Do I identify with and want to live with those people”? If there are several groups, such as retirees, empty nesters etc. market to those groups.
4. Any socials events, community projects and any positive information should be disseminated to the press. There are several free Public Relations (PR) sites that can distribute your press releases. This is free PR that will be sent out to the internet and will link back to your website and blog, thus increasing traffic to your website.
5. Consider social networking sites to promote your community such as Facebook and Twitter. They are free and easy to administer and are a great way to keep your community name out in the public eye. Any special events should be advertised and promoted on these sites. We are seeing this happen more and more.
6. Plan to have community events that are open to the public, such as a Parade of Homes, Broker Parties, and Community Open Houses. If you have the facilities, consider having outside events hosted there in order to expose locals to your community. There will be people who can influence and direct buyers to your community.
What you are trying to achieve is to create a market presence and an identity for your community. You eventually want people to say “If I didn’t live here, I wish I lived in ABC Homeowners Association! Make sure that the everyone who lives there is on the same page with this. From your front entrance on in (that is your front door) through to your common areas, facilities, amenities, your maintenance people and all of your other vendors and subcontractors should be aware of the marketing plan and made a part of this too.
The Board of Directors, owners and support personnel should all be part of the effort to market your community. What makes your community unique? Marketing that uniqueness to the public on a consistent basis and you should be able to get through this difficult time in the real estate market better than most community associations.
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