They might not be glamorous, but rundown homes are quickly becoming the hottest commodity in real estate.
On the back of huge demand and public interest, these dilapidated and oftentimes uninhabitable properties are fast turning into PR gold for agents, with walkthrough videos getting millions of views and the homes ending in bidding wars on auction day.
On Sydney’s Upper North Shore, a rat-infested Turramurra home sold for $730,000 over the price guide in a hotly contested auction, after attracting a huge amount of interest.
Selling agent Jeremiah Ebeid, of Belle Property Pymble, says it generated an “eye-gawking” amount of attention.
“The amount of leads we’re getting through is just unbelievable,” Jeremiah says.
“The house, from my perspective, was inhabitable.
“It was rat-infested in the ceiling and so much damage to the floors.”
He notes the property attracted 25 bidders on auction day, with the hottest action he’s ever seen.
Auctioneer, Clarence White, handled the sale of the Turramurra home on July 13, and says he will often leverage his media contacts to help get more attention on certain homes going to auction.
“Oftentimes getting that media attention isn’t scientific,” Clarence says.
“It’s a little bit of effort and a little bit of luck.”
He says he regularly speaks to the media about upcoming properties that are getting a lot of attention.
“We communicate with journalists every week just to let them know what’s coming up,” he says.
“But we’re also proactive in some instances when we know we’ve got a hot auction coming up.”
Clarence notes rundown homes often get huge interest as buyers are drawn to the opportunity.
“It’s the mindset from buyers that this is going to be sold at whatever price it arrives at and people seeing value and seeing an entry point into that suburb,” he says.
“We knew it was attractively guided and it was going to sell so it engages people.”
Richard Matthews Sales Executive and Auctioneer, Matthew Blackmore, saw over one million views on Instagram in a video that highlighted a rundown property at 21 The Parade, Enfield.
The home itself was so bad that it was a “land value property”, and Matthew notes the home attracted interest immediately.
“We had a lot of interest as soon as we put the signboard out and prior to putting it online,” he says.
The campaign really took off when he created a video in conjunction with buyers agent Jason Ballo.
“There was over a million views on it and I think there was something like 1000 comments from people and people tagging people in it,” he recalls.
“There’s a lot of people coming to the home open just because they saw it online.”
“It has certainly helped us with our campaign.”
Matthew says buyers were drawn to the property because of the size of the block.
“There’s not many like it in Enfield at 570sq m,” he says.
“A lot of blocks are around the 350sq m mark and The Parade is probably classified as the best street in the suburb.”
Over in Dulwich Hill a neglected terrace with an interior that included tree branches, splintering plaster and loose bricks sold for $1.56 million, with the property needing more than $1 million in repairs to be liveable.
Adrian William agent Joseph Lombardo, who is selling the Dulwich Hill home, says “fixer-uppers” are incredibly popular with buyers.
“We’ve been getting a lot of interest on these properties,” he says.
“With the property, the inquiries are coming from lots of different buyer types.
“It used to be properties like this would only attract builders and developers, but we’re getting interest from families, even though building costs have become very high.”
Joseph says there was a lot of media attention, which was driven by the state of the property.
“I know for a fact that there have been quite a few good results in the inner city and outer city suburbs with dilapidated, unrenovated homes selling well,” he said.
“But in our office, to get a property in this condition, is really quite rare.”
He says being open about the state of the property during the marketing campaign helped generate more attention.
“You can’t hide anything in these ones,” he said.
“You know, what you’re getting.”
Meanwhile, in Perth, O’Neil Real Estate agent Ash Swarts wore a gas mask in an Instagram video as he did a walk-through of a rundown home being sold in one of Perth’s outer suburbs.
The home at 34 Dawson Street, Armadale, looked OK from the outside, but inside there was a fully functional grow room, a bubble wrap ceiling and something broken in just about every room.
O’Neil Real Estate agent Ash says his goal was to bring more attention to the property.
“We’re not selling fancy real estate in our neck of the woods and more interest means more buyers and higher sales prices,” Mr Swarts said.
“It’s all about exposure and we’ve taken that comedic slant on things and it’s paying dividends and people love it.”
This isn’t the first time he’s used clever marketing, with a recent marketing campaign also talking about another property’s “drug paraphernalia” also getting a lot of attention.
He also took the comedic approach to the listing, by outlining “the good bits” about the property along with the “hard bits”.
Ash says using the media for publicity is a very effective way to market unique and rundown properties.
His video featured in a number of mainstream publications and helped the property gain a lot of attention across the country.
“You get an article like that, everyone’s contacting you,” he says.
“Everyone wants to put the camera in your face and that ultimately helps us, and that builds our brand.”
He says using video is becoming more and more effective for agents.
“We understand how the media engine works,” he notes.
Ash says that while the property has proven very popular, it was also important to convey the value in the property, not just the unusual details.
He says it’s also crucial to have the vendor’s permission for every element of a marketing campaign.
Jeremiah says if you’ve got a unique property, it’s worth talking to the media.
“It always depends on the sale, but if it’s an interesting one, it’s always worth reaching out and just letting them know about it,” he says.
Matthew says one of the keys to getting rundown properties to go viral is to be totally honest about what you’re selling.
“It is what it is,” he says.
He stresses being transparent is important and having a bit of fun with the property can also make it more interesting to potential buyers and even other sellers.
“A lot of homeowners have called me and said, ‘If that property is worth that in that condition, what is mine worth’?”
