The Australian property market has experienced lows, highs and periods of uncertainty.
Competition is growing and it’s up to agents to look for new opportunities that will see their businesses ride through whatever changes the property sector may face in the coming years.
Property development is one area where agents see opportunity to grow their business potential, however without the right market data and insight to pique a developer’s interest, it’s difficult to build trust and really highlight the agency’s expertise and credentials.
There are various property education schools and courses available that open up the doors to ‘mum and dad’ developers trying to source suitable properties to develop.
Developers are on the hunt for savvy agents that not only help source property, but can then go on to list the final properties.
This is an ideal opportunity for agents, and the key to winning the final property listings is by building a solid and trusting relationship.
Patience is key in these situations, as they can deliver very lucrative and long-term results.
Keeping potential developer clients up to date with market conditions, and new property availability is the first building block in creating solid connections.
However, differentiating your agency’s leadership and industry knowledge against the others is what will give you the unique advantage.
How do you do this? With reliable, authenticated, and up-to-date data.
There are a multitude of data offerings currently on the market, but to specifically tailor your marketing to property developers you need to do more with data.
Fine detailed listings of properties are useful for high level client conversations.
Creating a system within your workflow that identifies and allows a consistent prospecting model, will help to identify new opportunities and also make your work day more productive as you hone in on the right properties suited for specific developers.
Whether you’re dealing with the mum and dad or professional developer, connecting them with blocks that are suitable for their specific style of development will gain agents trust, positive word of mouth and long-term clients.
Identifying the ‘right’ block comes down to position, size, frontage and number of lots on one title.
Most data platforms will provide these research tools, some have very unique derived data that allow you to filter on very specific data points.
This can mean the difference between, identifying a unique property and being able to target ideal development blocks.
For those in the know, here are some inside tips on how to find the right potential block for development.
- Set your filter to land size and set an ideal land size range, then add the tenure filter or sale date range back to only capture properties purchased say seven-15 years or more ago.
This narrows your list to properties less likely to be over capitalised and may include a large portion of potential downsizers. - Now view these properties on your map to highlight the best positions, and always layer your zoning so you get a great visual.
Frontage search is another important factor when looking for suitable blocks which can be achieved through ‘mapping’ tools (only available through some data suppliers). - Finally, depending on your data platform, leverage ‘splitter blocks’ tools. These are properties with multiple lots on the one title. Interestingly, 26 per cent of all properties are on multiple lots.
The advantage of these properties is that they can be easily subdivided without the DA and approval time and expenses that would normally come from attempting to subdivide a standard block.
Set your search filter for ‘plan lots’, for example two to five lots, which will list all properties on the same title with multiple lots.
Once again, from the list, you should be able to tag and display on a map view so you get that visualisation to determine position and zoning.
Now that we have identified these properties, your prospecting skills, targeting and introducing these properties to potential developers on a consistent basis helps list more valuable properties, and builds relationships with customers that provide repeat business.
With anything to do with marketing and prospecting it is important to understand the terms and conditions that relate to privacy and data use. If you’re not sure, speak to your data supplier. National Property Data uses derived data and approved contact details to help with these compliance obligations.
