Sales strategies for selling HDB flat

Many people think that with the advance of the internet, you just need to take a couple of photos or videos, write a description, advertise on online listing platforms, or post on social media. Wait for prospective buyers to respond, and then you can sell an HDB flat at a targeted price. When this “post and wait” strategy works, there will be no difference between property agents, and you do not need skills to post advertisements online...
You need to do more.

Preparation of your flat for sale is a must. Before marketing your flat, consider home styling that helps boost its attractiveness.

To have a fast sale at the highest possible price, you need proper pricing strategies and sales strategies. There are 4 sales stages:

1. Awareness

2. Interest

3. Decision

4. Closing

Each stage requires a different approach.

1. Awareness

This is the moment at which you first catch the buyer's or their property agent’s attention. At this stage, most of the time, you are trying to woo prospective buyers or their property agents to view the flat.

Advertisements are an important source of information for buyers or their property agents, and therefore it is expected that property agents marketing your flat indulge in honest and ethical advertising.

Maximum exposure for your flat advertisement means more prospective buyers or their property agents view your flat advertisement, which translates to a higher chance of converting prospective buyers to viewers of the flat you are selling, but beware of the impact of advertising wear-out.

Exposure activities:
Newspaper classified
Online advertising platforms
Social media platforms
Video streaming platforms
Website
Property agent’s co-broking networks

Newspaper classified
Newspapers with falling readership rates may not be effective for exposure; advertisements only appear on the day that you advertise, so most property seekers will not search for advertisements in old newspapers. In the internet arena, it will be faster and more efficient for people to search for property listings online on any device, anytime, and anywhere.

Online advertising platforms
Many property agents choose to advertise their property listings on a few popular online listing platforms. These platforms are profit-driven, and on their property listing page (listing landing page), they show property seekers other advertisements and similar property listings. This creates unnecessary competition and distracts prospective buyers from concentrating on the property details that you advertised. The objective of the property listing page is to convert property seekers into viewers of the property you are selling, therefore diverting prospective buyers to an ad-free listing landing page, which increases the viewer's conversion rate.

Social media platforms
The right place for people to share their stories with friends who are connected on social media platforms. Your friends on social media may not be the buyers of the properties that you are selling. To reach out to more people on social media platforms, property agents need to manage a social media page, budget, and knowledge of social media marketing.
Social media advertising campaigns can be used by property agents to nurture leads and retarget to drive prospective clients back to their website, but property agents need knowledge of social media marketing, retargeting, and owning a personal website.

Video streaming platforms
We see a rise in the consumption of videos as bandwidth becomes more accessible and affordable. Videos can be very engaging with people searching for property and improve ranking on advertising platforms. Property agents create property videos to showcase the properties they undertake on the video streaming platforms.

Website
A website is another space to showcase your property listings. You can have a website filled with property listings and content, but before people discover your website, the search engines must locate it. This is never a simple task; your website needs to be Search Engine Optimised (SEO), and the property agent needs the knowledge to run Search Engine Marketing (SEM) campaigns.

Property agent’s co-broking networks
Property agents having their co-broking networks, which are accessible only by property agents, increases the chance of a fast sale at the highest possible price because prospective buyers who are served by their property agents are qualified, and the property agents already understand their needs and requirements.

Bear in mind that the awareness stage is not to convert people's enquiries about your property advertisement into an immediate sale; the objective of this stage is to convert people who view your property advertisement into viewers of the property that you are selling. Many factors determine the viewer’s conversion rate, for example, the quality of your property listing advertisement, the property agent’s skills and experiences that answer the enquiries, etc.

Therefore, maximum exposure on the right platforms with a high viewer conversion rate is the key to a quick sale at the highest possible price!

Tips:
Your property advertisement needs maximum exposure.
Your property advertisement needs to have a high viewer’s conversion rate.

2. Interest

When property buyers reach the interest stage, they do research, compare, and think over their options.

During the property showing process, most of the time buyers spend about 20 minutes in the property. To stimulate buyers' interest in being required to use their imagination, this will be their future home. There are some things that the property agents need to achieve within the short-showing process.

The showing process is the time for the property agent to emphasise the Unique Selling Points (USP) of the property. Home styling gives prospective buyers a nice impression of your home and helps them remember your property. More important is sending a message to prospective buyers that they are dealing with a serious seller.

It is always a mistake to defend the property or argue with the prospective buyers, as this can reinforce the buyers’ objection to the property. The property agent needs to have the ability to turn an objection into interest for the potential buyers. Do not be too forceful; let the objections convince themselves by providing facts and figures to the potential buyers.

The goal here is to make viewers fall in love with the property and help them make an informed decision.

The property agent can give out a paper flyer to viewers of the property to help them remember the uniqueness of the property.

Nowadays, going digital means creating a landing form, a dedicated ad-free web page that contains detailed information about the property you are selling, so that viewers of your property can review it again anytime, anywhere, on any device. Your landing form needs to focus only on your property and not any other properties for sale, and it should contain an online enquiry form or messaging feature so buyers can quickly and easily request more information.

3. Decision

The decision stage is when the buyer is ready to buy; he or she might shortlist two or three properties, hopefully including you.

At this stage, following up with the buyers is cautious. The property agent needs techniques to follow up with the buyers to make sure the buyers do not lose interest in the property and do not have the impression that the seller is not motivated.

You realised most buyers cannot make a quick decision to buy a property because there is an instinctive fear of making the wrong decision. Most of the time, the property agent needs to influence the buyer’s decision by finding out the actual needs of the buyers and analysing them by providing facts and figures to help buyers make a quick decision.

4. Closing

When a property agent lacks the ability to close the buyer, he or she has wasted the effort of the previous three stages of the sales strategy.

The property agent often looks for buying signals given voluntarily by the prospective buyers, then they will go into a minor close or trial close; all positive minor closes will lead to the final close.

These are some of the closing techniques used by property agents:

Offer to purchase close
Alternative price close
Balance sheet close
Leverage close
Split the difference close
Similar circumstance close

At this stage, the objective is to make your best offer and the best terms to make it so irresistible that the potential buyer cannot wait to give you the option fee.