Marketing your property

The launch is when your home reaches the most buyers at once. Every active buyer with a saved search hears about it the day it goes live, so the photos, the floorplan, the copy and the price all need to be right on day one. Plan the launch around the buyers most likely to want this home.

The portals: where the buyers actually are

In Australia, property marketing means realestate.com.au first, Domain second, everything else a distant third. Almost every active buyer has saved searches on at least one portal, so your real marketing decision is which listing tier to buy.

Both portals sell tiered visibility. On realestate.com.au, the top tiers (the “Premiere”-style products) put your listing larger, higher in search results and with more photos, and refresh its position; standard listings sit lower and sink as new stock arrives. Domain’s tiers work the same way. Pricing is dynamic and suburb-based: a top-tier listing can cost $1,000 to $2,000 in a cheaper regional market and $3,000 to $5,000 or more in expensive metro suburbs.

Is the top tier worth it? In a competitive suburb with dozens of active listings, usually yes: visibility decays fast and the premium is small against the price of going stale. In a tightly held suburb where anything listed gets seen, a mid-tier on the main portal plus a standard Domain listing often performs identically. What’s rarely worth it: print advertising (except in some regional markets and the prestige bracket, where it still functions), and branded extras that promote the agency more than the address.

The assets that do the selling

• Photography. The hero shot decides whether a buyer taps your listing at all. Pay for a professional, shoot at the property’s best hour, and lead with the strongest image, which is usually the facade or the main living space, not the bathroom. Eight to twelve excellent photos beat twenty-five mediocre ones.
• Floorplan. Arguably the highest-value $250 in the whole campaign. Buyers consistently rank floorplans among the first things they look for, and serious buyers filter out listings without one. Treat it as essential.
• Copy. Specifics sell: north-facing rear, 600 metres to the station, rewired 2023, 580 square metres. Adjective soup (“stunning”, “boasting”, “oozing charm”) is white noise buyers learned to skim years ago. Mention the school catchment by name if it matters; it often matters more than the kitchen.
• Video and drone. Worth it for properties where land, position or flow is the story (acreage, waterfront, view corridors, big blocks). For a standard suburban house, a good photo set and floorplan do the job, and the video budget is better spent on the portal tier.

Open homes versus private inspections

Open homes are efficient: every interested buyer through in 30 minutes, and a busy open shows each buyer that others are interested too (“who were all those people?”). Private inspections suit tenanted properties, prestige homes and security-conscious sellers, and they give the agent longer with each genuine buyer. Most good campaigns run both: scheduled Saturday opens plus midweek privates for the serious. One practical note: ask your agent for written feedback after every open, including the count of groups through and any contract requests. The pattern across the first three opens is your clearest early read on how the sale is going.

The first-two-weeks rule

A new listing gets its biggest audience in its first two weeks, because every buyer with a saved search is notified the day it goes live. These are also your most ready buyers: the ones who’ve inspected twenty homes, missed out twice, and know exactly what your property is worth. If your price is right, they act fast.

Miss that window with an ambitious price and the listing starts to age in public. Buyers can see days on market and price cuts, and both make them more cautious. The longer it sits, the more every enquiry begins with “what’s wrong with it?” and every offer arrives discounted accordingly.

The practical consequence is clear: launch at the price you’d accept, not the price you’d love. An ambitious figure isn’t a free option; it uses up your most valuable fortnight. If you and your agent disagree on price, resolve it before launch, not via a public reduction in week four. And if the first two weeks bring solid traffic but no offers, that’s usually the market’s answer rather than bad luck. Reprice decisively in week three rather than trimming 1 per cent a month until spring.