Securing the best possible price for his vendors is a must-do for Luke Banitsiotis in every sale, but even he was pleasantly surprised about the outcome for 8 Langtree Court, Blackburn.
While the Melbourne market has largely tapered off price-wise since the heady heights of the COVID-19 boom, the elegantly renovated period home attracted six registered bidders at auction, with four parties fighting it out for the four-bedroom property.
Luke, a partner at Woodards Blackburn and an award-winning auctioneer, says the property sold under the hammer for $2.431 million on November 9.
“Even if we sold the property at the peak of the Covid frenzy I think it might have only attracted a little bit more than what the vendors achieved,” he says.
“Maybe a bit closer to $2.5 million, but that’s only 2 per cent to 3 per cent more.”
A picture-perfect home
Luke puts the incredible price down to a combination of factors, including the vendor’s immaculate renovation, the shortage of turnkey homes on the market and a targeted marketing campaign that was able to attract numerous qualified buyers, including some that initially weren’t considering buying in Blackburn.
The revamped 1950s weatherboard home featured four bedrooms, two bathrooms and an elegant blend of original charm, with decorative ceilings and cornicing, alongside contemporary upgrades like chic floorboards, a gourmet kitchen and a north-facing lounge flowing out to an expansive deck overlooking the solar-heated, saltwater pool.
“It was a turnkey, single-level family home with high quality finishes, a great floor plan and it was on 860-odd square metres of land,” Luke says.
“It was one of those homes where there was nothing left to do, simply move in and enjoy it.
“There’s just not enough of these homes on the market at the moment.
“If you want to buy something and do the work yourself then there are heaps of options. But, as soon as we put something like this on the market, which photographs well, is beautifully presented and in a good location, we get a lot of interest and it drives up the price.”
Marketing that hits the mark
Luke says the strong, targeted marketing campaign also helped drive buyers to the property in a typical four-week auction campaign.
He notes that for this immaculately designed and presented home, they opted for a more editorial style photography shoot, like that which would run in a magazine, which lasted about three hours.
“The photographer really took their time, moved things around and made sure each room had a hero shot,” Luke says.
“My favourite (room) is the bathroom with the freestanding bathtub set against the full height glass window looking out across the greenery.
“The backyard was lovely too, with multiple entertaining areas.”
Finding the right buyers
Luke says the ideal buyers for the property were local families or people looking to upsize and secure a larger home and more land, at a good price.
But he notes that downsizers from areas such as Warrandyte, Donvale and Park Orchards were also keen on the home.
In addition to the high-end photography, the marketing campaign also included advertising on Australian portals, including view.com.au, and platforms such as Little Red Book and WeChat to target the Chinese market in Melbourne’s eastern corridor.
Luke says it was social media marketing on platforms including Facebook and Instagram, through Woodard’s Amplify platform, that really helped achieve the best price for his vendors.
Amplify, which extends and increases audience engagement through social, display ads and native ads, to find buyers and sellers whenever and wherever they are online, found one of the key bidders that raised their hand at the auction.
“Amplify helped produce the direct under-bidder,” Luke says.
“They weren’t actually looking (for a home) in Blackburn, they were looking in Surrey Hills and Mont Albert, but they were served the content on Langtree Court through Amplify.
“Even though they didn’t buy it, they were actively bidding and we probably would have sold the property for maybe $50,000 to $60,000 short of where the price ended up (if they weren’t there).
“It was a great result for the vendors.”
Turning browsers into buyers
Luke notes that digital and social media advertising has the power to seek out both active and passive buyers and quickly turn them into warm, and even hot, leads.
Woodard’s Amplify social media platform is powered by view.resi’s off-portal performance product called Acquire, which has been customised to ensure the Woodards brand remains at the front of its marketing efforts.
“Langtree Court has been the best example of it (Amplify) so far,” Luke says.
“It’s really great at pulling in those passive buyers.
“For homes like Langtree it can often cause people to start making life decisions really quickly, even if they might have been looking for six to 12 months and threw the towel in because it was too hard.
“Amplify still puts the property in front of them because they’ve still got data on their computer saying ‘we’re looking for houses in/near Blackburn’.
“It’s really powerful in terms of pulling people in that might not be sitting on the portals and that might be just casual browsers.”
The human touch in a digital age
Luke says while digital and social media marketing is great for securing leads on buyers and sellers, he still believes in follow-up calls, rather than texts or emails, to progress people along the property journey.“We still believe in doing our callbacks one-by-one,” he explains.
“The information you can pull out is important. It is more time consuming but we still find gold and think it’s the best way to figure out someone’s level of interest, which is the most important thing.”
