Netflix released a new real estate-themed show called 'Stay Here' in August 2018.
The show stars Genevieve Gorder, a designer, and Peter Lorimer, a real estate expert. According to the show description provided by Netflix, the show will:
"...show property owners how to turn their short-term rentals into moneymaking showstoppers."
Take a look at the official trailer:
As Peter Lorimer posted on Facebook:
In each episode Genevieve and Peter visit an Airbnb place that is struggling with attracting guests. Peter uses his real estate skills to work on the business and marketing of the business. In an interview with Inman.com, Peter said:
"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."
Genevieve Gorder, the show's designer, then assists with redecorating and staging the listings. Once that's been completed, they bring in David's photographer to create photos and videos of each property.
So what's the result? As we would expect, each property becomes more successful due to some smart marketing, beautiful photography, and great decor.
What can real estate agents and sellers learn from 'Stay Here'?
Although the properties featured are Airbnb rentals, the same principles apply when selling a home:
Firstly, homes need to be beautifully presented or in a way that they will attract the greatest amount of interest from potential buyers.
The reason the presentation of a home is so important is because most potential buyers are not great at visualizing the potential of a property. If what they see online or when visiting a home doesn't grab their attention they'll just move on to the next listing. So it's up to the homeowner and the listing agent to create what buyers are looking for in a particular home.
Secondly, homeowners need to see the sale of their home as an object that is being sold, rather than a home full of memories. This is exactly how Airbnb came to the forefront in 2009 when Joe Gebbia, the founder, noticed a problem with many of the early listings on the 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 was't a surprise that people weren't booking rooms because you couldn't even really see what it is that you were paying for."
The founders of Airbnb then made a decision to use higher quality photos for all of their listings. By doing so the number of bookings increased two to three times for listings in New York, and Airbnb's revenue in the city doubled within a month's time.
That type of thinking will also help home sellers today. As Peter Lorimer said 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 here at charmcityvirtualtours.com, you don't want to choose just any real estate photographer, because you don't want to be surprised by the images taken by a cheap photographer or one who doesn't specialize in real estate photography.