Contra Costa, California Real Estate

The marketing utilized to sell luxury homes is a fascinating comparison of "old" and "new" real estate strategies, leading to the question "Does past luxury home sales experience equal current results?"

In the past, selling luxury homes depended on WHO you know. 

Prior to the onset of the internet as the #1 real estate search tool, it was important to have a Realtor that was personally well-connected in the luxury market.  The breadth of their social sphere had a fairly direct correlation to the number of potential buyers for a luxury home.

In today's market, selling luxury homes depends on WHAT you know.

The internet has broadened the base of potential buyers from a Realtor's local sphere to the world.  In order to effectively reach the worldwide audience searching for luxury homes for sale, a Realtor must know Search Engine Optimization, effective use of long-tail keywords for Google searches, how to place visual tours with a professional voice-over in YouTube, the real estate sites dedicated to luxury properties that have multiple languages and/or currencies.......the list goes on, but you get the idea.

As a luxury home seller, should you care?

In the heyday of luxury home selling when rates were low (still are) and jumbo financing was easy, there were an average of 181 luxury homes for sale in the prices ranging from $1.5m to $3m in Contra Costa county, California with an average of 37 homes sold per month.  In other words, 20.4% of the luxury inventory for sale actually sold every month. 

For the most recent 12 months ending March, 2010, the sold figures get ugly.  There were an average of 166 luxury homes for sale with an average of only 11 homes sold per month.  Ouch! Only 6.6% of the luxury inventory for sale actually sold.

Since luxury home sellers are battling for a significantly decreased pool of buyers, my curious mind wondered, "Is everything possible being done to market these properties to a world audience?" I researched the Expired and Canceled luxury listings for a 6 month period and the results shocked me. 

Of the expired and canceled luxury listings, 8% didn't have the 9 pictures allowed on MLS (Seriously? You can't find 9 good pictures of a luxury home?) and 24.4% didn't have a visual tour. 

Combine the two and 32.2% of the expired and canceled luxury listings (i.e. unsold) didn't have the bare minimum to get the highest "click through" rate on Realtor.com, much less the additional marketing necessary to succesfully reach international luxury home buyers.