Karen Eubank: Have We Become Complacent in The Luxury Real Estate Market?

When you write a weekly luxury real estate column for years, there is an expectation level — not just from me and what I want to spend time showcasing but especially from our readers and potential buyers — about what constitutes a newsworthy luxury property.

Let’s start the new year off right with a little introspection: With our hot market, are agents who market luxury real estate getting complacent? If so, what better time to resolve to make necessary changes than the start of the year?

Dropped Balls And Missed Calls

What I’m seeing is the ball getting dropped a lot lately. I think a certain degree of complacency has crept in — I get it. We’ve just come off of one of the headiest times in luxury real estate. There was a window of time over the past 18 months when you could put any outdated hot mess on the market and it would go to contract in a day.

News flash: We are past that, folks. WAY past it. And we have been for a while.

When I have to go out of our luxury real estate market to find something worthy of making our readers’ hearts skip a beat, there is a serious problem. And it always boils down to the same two essentials that are sadly lacking when many luxury properties go to market. Those essentials are staging and photography.

There’s another problem, though, and I think it’s fear. I’ve seen it more times than I can count.

I often ask Realtors, “Have you told them the wallpaper has to come down?” “Do they understand that red dining rooms went out of style in 1987?” “Do they understand it’s their responsibility to pay for staging?”

No matter how experienced, smart, and successful the agent, I often see that look of, “Crap, I KNOW, but I REALLY don’t want to tell them that!”

Realtors are nice.

There are times when they are way too nice, actually. Selling luxury real estate is not a cakewalk. It requires a network that rivals the Kardashians, the focus of a puppy with its first rawhide bone, and the social skills of a mother that does not adore the girl who has turned her son’s head. It’s a damn hard job, and that’s why you only see a handful of Realtors in Dallas at the top of the industry — it’s because they get it.

But once in a while, even the very best of the bunch can get overwhelmed and intimidated. It’s human nature.

Some of us are secretly awed by celebrity or influence. Sometimes, a seller wants a price point that will set a new high in the neighborhood or city and the Realtor knows it won’t happen but wants the listing. And then some Realtors simply should not take a listing if they don’t know what it will take to make it sell.

It takes a lot, and I’m here to help.

Everyone at CandysDirt.com is here to help, actually. That’s what we do. We advise, consult, and help you showcase your properties. BUT, we cannot do it if you don’t listen to our advice and hold up your end of the real estate bargain by having those hard conversations with your clients.

The bottom line in selling real estate is marketing. You create the dream, the lifestyle a client cannot walk away from. Your best marketing advantages are staging and photography. If you are not hiring an excellent stager and a great photographer, you should rethink being in the luxury market, or frankly, being a Realtor at all.

Sorry, not sorry.

Today’s expectation level in the luxury real estate market is beyond anything I’ve ever seen. You can blame Million Dollar Listing, Selling Sunset, and the myriad of reality TV series that showcase luxury properties, but face it, this is what people watch and what they expect.

Dallas is a major city. We have had a massive influx of buyers from both coasts, and if you think their expectation level is not Million Dollar Listing, think again.

No luxury buyer wants hassle.

We regularly hear, “The property we want does not exist yet in Dallas, so we’ll rent and wait on our home to be built.” “Wow, you have a lot of outdated homes here!” “Why is there a cow skull in every house you show us, and what is it with the love of red paint?”

No luxury buyer wants hassle. They want a live-in ready home. Not move-in ready, but live-in ready. That often means they want to buy the staging furniture, so be prepared with a price. We all know the supply chain has many interior designers turning down clients until 2023, so what are your multi-homeowners to do? They need a house that’s already furnished, so make your stager your best friend.

It’s an absolute no-brainer that you have to have excellent staging in luxury listings. That is Step One. Fortunately, Dallas Realtors are lucky to have some of the best stagers in the country at their fingertips.

Step Two is excellent photography. A home must look as good on a large screen computer as it does on your smartphone. If it’s out of focus, you’ve not only lost your client, you’ve lost any media outlet that would feature your property.

Let’s get more specific about photos.

It’s time to understand photographic marketing. You do not need to see every single can-light. Unless that ceiling offers something spectacular, you do not need to see it at all. You do not need crazy angles or to cram everything into one photo. And you do not have to use every photo MLS allows unless it offers that dream to a potential buyer.

No one cares about a photograph of secondary bathrooms. If the laundry room is hot pink with a chandelier, it’s a selling feature. Otherwise, we all know the house has one, so don’t bother shooting it. If your garage doesn’t have floor-to-ceiling GarageTek storage, an epoxy floor, and a car lift, pass on that photo. Concentrate on the “Wow!” factors and go for an editorial look. Lifestyle photos are an excellent bet.

And, you know what? Give your stagers and photographers credit. These folks make your job so much easier and they deserve to be named in your marketing.

What do I mean by that?

Why do we look at Houzz.com, Pinterest, and hoard old copies of Elle Decor and Interiors? Because editorial photography is where the magic happens. Look how those photos are shot. They create a mood, a dream, and desire.

You do not need one-third of any photograph to be of the ceiling. You do need to create a mood and show the character of a room, and the lighting has to be absolute perfection. Spring for the twilight photos, especially if there are some less-than-desirable aspects of the façade in daylight.

Spring for the essentials.

Staging and photography are the essentials in your luxury real estate marketing toolkit. Don’t be complacent, and for goodness sake, don’t be afraid to tell a client you have to spend money to make money. Always remember: You are the expert!