Case Study: First-Hand Tips For Thriving In Real Estate After Covid-19
There’s much uncertainty regarding what real estate after COVID-19 will look like for buyers, sellers, agents, and brokerages. While a local market’s conditions and inventory will affect every area differently, there are some universal impacts that everyone will likely experience.
But as John F. Kennedy famously said, “When written in Chinese, the word “crisis” is composed of two characters. One represents danger, and the other represents opportunity.”
With the course of current events, that statement rings true now. It speaks to the tenacity needed to find the silver lining of challenging situations that can provide new pathways to success. To learn how such a person-to-person business as real estate can work within the pandemic’s restrictions to survive and thrive, keep reading.
TL;DR: How To Adapt Your Real Estate Business After COVID-19
To address changes to the real estate market after COVID-19, Allison Goldberg, Head of Marketing at The Related Group, offered the following tips:
- Constantly check your 3 P’s: Price, Product, and Personnel.
- Revisit, review, and refresh your company’s core values and re-implement them in how you serve your customers and manage your employees.
- Use technology such as 3D virtual tours, photos, videos, and teleconferencing to communicate across barriers.
- Showcase the procedures and protocols your business takes to keep your customers, employees, and community safe and comfortable.
- Always remember that marketing and sales go hand-in-hand.
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Pivoting In The Real Estate Market After COVID-19
Real estate is a face-to-face business, which is why the pandemic has made it challenging to conduct business as usual. Buying a home is a massive financial decision, and many people want the hands-on experience of physically inspecting potential properties alongside their real estate agent.
Allison Goldberg, Head of Marketing at The Related Group, knows this well and has learned how to communicate with her customers in a way that makes them feel taken care of and safe during such a big life decision. She also recognized the crises and the opportunities the pandemic created in the real estate business.
“COVID-19 has provided us with an opportunity to be innovative,” Goldberg said. “Events aren’t dead—they are just going to look different.”
In our #BizHackLive How We Adapted: A Real Estate Case Study with Allison Goldberg of The Related Group, Goldberg examines how The Related Group addressed opportunities amidst the chaos by quickly shifting its marketing and sales efforts while recommitting to its core values of quality and community. From this experience, she saw first-hand how innovative thinking and action can help agents and brokerages navigate COVID-19 and real estate.
At first, The Related Group experienced difficulties when offering new technology and tools to help buyers and agents navigate pandemic restrictions due to a lack of training and guidance. When the business recognized that it was not providing the quality customer service associated with its brand, leadership got back to basics.
As they returned to their core values, they realized the need to retrain the entire team. As a result, the whole organization learned new skills and techniques to provide top-notch virtual customer service and deliver the quality and care they promised.
Safety As An Essential Marketing Tool In Real Estate After COVID-19
In the world of real estate after COVID-19, letting your clients know that their safety is your number one priority is critical, Goldberg said. She emphasized communicating the safety protocols your team is taking and the safety of the properties.
For example, The Related Group demonstrated their genuine care by following and communicating these protocols:
- Wearing masks
- Temperature checks
- Hiring extra cleaning staff
- Having package runners in their buildings
- Not allowing delivery personnel in their buildings
It’s important to implement these protocols and share that your business takes the health of its clients, employees, and community seriously.
How to Create Connections While Building Communities
Jorge Perez, president, and CEO of The Related Group, focuses on redefining skylines while reshaping communities. His firm’s projects range from million-dollar condominium buildings to community event meeting halls. No matter the project, Perez and The Related Group promote connections. Specifically, Perez showcases public art created by local artists in every project of The Related Group to help build a sense of community. Each project also includes a coffee table book that displays all the art pieces in the building and the artists who created them to instill a sense of community pride.
The Related Group also hosts resident events to create a sense of community connection. Considering COVID-19 and real-estate based gatherings, those community events have gone virtual or have shifted to creative events such as balcony neighborhood parties.
Marketing and real estate are both about connecting to what clients care about. As times call for us to be more innovative, it’s important to look for the opportunity in the crisis to continue serving our customers, employees, and communities.
