Three bedrooms, two car spots and 140 characters: Houses with their own Twitter accounts
The vendor of 8 Yarra Bank Court in Abbotsford has signed the house up to a Twitter account in an attempt to harness social media to sell the property.
Every day or so the house tweets another sweet comment about how things are going in the area and what a joy it is to live there. A recent tweet was "Spectacular view of the moon rise from the bedroom balcony at Yarra Bank CRT tonight", and another read "So wet cold and miserable outside. So warm and toasty from inside with the central heating on. Perfect day at YBC."
After joining Twitter 21 days ago the account already has 272 followers.
The campaign is part of a growing social media trend in Australia, recently started by Northcote resident Kurt Opray. He reckons his house sold for $135,000 above his reserve price after signing the house up to Twitter and YouTube and starting a blog. It all generated publicity on old media, via print and television coverage.
Opray has since started a business offering the same service to vendors. Other houses he has currently signed up for Twitter and blogs include a three-bedroom house in Beaumaris, a four-bedroom house in Sandhurst Golf Club and a three-bedroom house in Mildura.
He generally charges around $4,000 for each campaign, with a large focus on reaching an audience interested in buying property. In an interview with Alan Kohler for Qantas in-flight radio, he said his aim was use twitter to entice people to the area. He suggests to make it very conversational giving people a feel for what it's like living in the house.
"The fellow who ended up buying the house said he did spend some time looking through the blog the day before the auction, which is fabulous."
"You have to understand how to get the right followers [on Twitter]."
"There's ways to use Twitter to find people who have an interest in something you're purveying."
He advocates the use of social media on top of an agent's usual marketing campaign.
Since the media storm surrounding his sale it seems more and more vendors are running custom Twitter accounts, and it seems the trend may sometimes assist – South Morang's 10 Mirrabucca Street sold late last month after just three weeks on the market.
Houses with Twitter accounts
95 Todd Ave Yeppoon, Queensland @95ToddAve 140 followers
29 Pacific Boulevard Beaumaris, Victoria, @BeaumarisHouse 0 followers
22 Quarterdeck Road, Sandhurst, Victoria @sandhursthouse 17 followers
32 Cale Street Como, WA, @ComoHouse4Sale 67 followers
56 Rose Avenue Glen Waverly, Victoria, @GlennyHouse 126 followers
5/67 Canadian Bay Road, Mount Eliza, Victoria @MountElizaUnit 286 followers
31 Nara Road Mitcham, Victoria, @31NaraRoad 171 followers
10 Landon Place, Sheffield, Tasmania @TasHouse4Sale 10 followers
19 Karnu Drive,Ninderry, Sunshine Coast, Queensland @NinderryHouse 80 followers
15 Clearview Pde, Hazelbrook, NSW, @Hazelbrook4Sale 86 followers