Around the middle of August 2018 Netflix will be releasing their new real estate-themed TV show, 'Stay Here'.
According to the Netflix description of the show, which stars designer Genevieve Gorder and real estate expert Peter Lorimer, Stay Here will:
"... show property owners how to turn their short-term rentals into moneymaking showstoppers."
Take a look:
As Peter Lorimer wrote on Facebook:
In each episode the two hosts will visit a different Airbnb place that is struggling to attract any guests, and Peter Lorimer will use his real estate skills to work on the business and marketing side of the property. As Lorimer mentioned in an interview with Inman.com:
“The most consistent problem I found was that these owners of these properties saw them not as a business.
I showed them how to take the space and treat it like a business, and I made each one of the owners the [general manager] of a very small hotel, and I taught them how to think like that.”
Designer Genevieve Gorder will then help with the redecorating of the listings, and when that's complete they bring in Lorimer's photographer, who has previously photographed homes for Architectural Digest, and they would create stunning photos and videos of each property.
The result? As we might expect each property becomes massively more successful, thanks to some smart marketing, gorgeous photography, and amazing decor.
What can real estate agents and sellers learn from 'Stay Here'?
I know that each of the homes featured are Airbnb rentals, but the exact same principles apply in the sale of a home:
Firstly, homes need to be beautifully presented, or at least presented in such a way that they attract the highest possible amount of interest from potential buyers.
The reason why this makes a difference is because most buyers are not that great at visualizing the potential within a property. If what they see of a home, either online or when visiting in person, does not immediately make their jaws drop in wonder then they'll move on to the next place. So it's up to the homeowner and the selling agent to create that wonder, that lifestyle, that buyers want in a home of that type.
Secondly, homeowners need to see the sale of their home as a thing that needs to be sold, not a home full of memories. A lot of owners understandably struggle with this, but it's what they need to do in order to present the home in the best possible light. As Peter Lorimer mentioned in the interview with Inman, a lot of owners didn't see their home as a business. That needs to change.
Finally, spectacular photography and video will attract more visitors. This is how Airbnb really clicked into gear in 2009, when founder Joe Gebbia noticed a clear problem with many of the early listings on their Airbnb website:
“We noticed a pattern. There's some similarity between all these 40 listings. The similarity is that the photos sucked. The photos were not great photos. People were using their camera phones or using their images from classified sites. It actually wasn't a surprise that people weren't booking rooms because you couldn't even really see what it is that you were paying for.”
So the founders of Airbnb decided that higher quality photos were needed for all of their listings. This use of quality photography led to two to three times as many bookings on New York listings, and within a month Airbnb’s revenue in the city had doubled.
That same thinking is going to help home sellers today as well. As Peter Lorimer himself put it in one of his videos for real estate agents:
“You absolutely must, must, MUST have professional photographs taken in a house …”
- Peter Lorimer
And as we've mentioned elsewhere here at BestRealEstatePhotographers.com, you can't just choose any real estate photographer, because you don't want to be the agent that is surprised by the images created by a cheap photographer:
