How to brand your agency to get into high value homes

So you want to get into high value homes? Or at least, homes at higher value than you currently list?

You’re not alone. It’s probably the most frequent question we get asked by independent agents. And it’s undoubtedly one of the most important.

Because once you know WHO your client is and HOW you will service them, the day-to-day challenges of running and growing an agency become so much simpler.

Firstly, what is a high value home to you?

It’s not only geographic but also subjective. In our agency, AshdownJones, it means about the top 20% of the market, in terms of value. We use council tax bands to get specific on exactly which homes we want to attract. 

Here are our approximate council tax band values:

If you’re in London, add a zero….

Well, maybe not that much, but you’ll be considerably higher than our figures. 

If you’re in a cheaper area, for example, an urban area with lots of sub-£100k terraces, your bands may be lower.

Do your research, using this website: https://www.gov.uk/council-tax-bands

Three key principles of branding to attract high value homes

Once you know which council tax bands you want to target, there are three key principles to bear in mind:

1. It’s almost impossible to stretch a brand. You can’t be the go-to agent for terraces and also for large barn conversions. Pick your market and focus on it relentlessly.
   
   
2. If your service isn’t substantially different from that of your competitors, (be honest with yourself here), all that’s going to stand out is your marketing – both your agency marketing, and your property marketing.
   
   
3. Marketing is so much more effective if you and your clients all know the kinds of homes you specialise in selling. Effectiveness means that marketing to those clients will be far cheaper than trying to throw marketing mud at a wall and see if it sticks. 

Creating a brand strategy to attract and convert high value homes

Here we’ve laid out four options to help you decide on a strategy to get into high value homes, and looked at the consequences of each. It’s a biased list, we confess, because we’ve only really found a couple of these to be successful, with the hundreds of agents we’ve worked with. We’ll let you work out which ones….

OPTION 1 – The Brand Stretch Strategy

Stretching your existing brand to attract high value homeowners through your current brand, perhaps with an increased service offering, and keeping your existing low- to mid-range properties.

Pros: you keep your existing brand awareness and bread-and-butter revenue.

Cons: it’s almost impossible to stretch a brand.

Been there, done that: Purplebricks. Whilst you might consider PB a low-value brand, currently they are listing two homes at £4 million and above. On the other hand, they are listing dozens of properties at up to £50,000. However, they do have deeper pockets than any of us. Brand stretching is incredibly expensive. 

OPTION 2: The Start-from-Scratch Strategy

Ditch your current brand and start again from ground zero.

Pros: you have a clean slate, with no brand ‘baggage’.

Cons: could be considered a waste of your previous brand work and brand equity. You’re also starting from zero in an area of the market where you are unknown and unproven.

Been there, done that: One Stop Property Solutions is becoming Shrigley Rose (not yet launched), a beautifully upmarket brand that high value homeowners will love.

OPTION 3: The Reach Strategy

Move your brand more upmarket by reaching towards the high value homes, and deliberately moving away from the low- and perhaps the mid-range properties too.

Pros: you get to keep your brand awareness and equity.

Cons: it’s very hard to lose your brand baggage and get your local audience to start seeing you in a different way.

Been there, done that: Stowhill Estates, Oxfordshire. Already a beautiful brand, Lucy and Michael’s marketing just wasn’t getting them into the homes they most wanted to list. Now having worked on their marketing strategy with Firewave for three years, they are very proud of their portfolio, at an average listing value of £1 million, with an average fee that beats ours – bravo, guys!

OPTION 4: The Add-a-Brand Strategy

Create an additional brand to complement your current brand, so that you create differentiation to justify your claims you can sell high value homes.

Pros: you keep your bread-and-butter revenue and at the same time gain a new prestigious brand.

Cons: you’ll have to work hard to convince your audience you are capable of successfully selling high value homes. Some of your staff may not be appropriate for your high value brand. Shared premises can be confusing to clients.

Been there, done that: Enfields and Enfields Luxe, Pontefract. Owners Chris and Andrew are great clients and have really pushed their new Luxe brand in Pontefract to list some gorgeous homes. A great case study of how to add a luxury brand.

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If you’re determined to get into the high-value homes market in your area, but you’re not sure where to start, we can help! You may have heard of our now infamous ‘NOM’ letter, (‘not on market’) which has earned us £350,000+ in listed fees and another £500,000 ‘not yet ready to sell’ fees. PLUS this one letter has given our Firewave members around £12 million in potential fees, and counting.

Would you like to discover what we could do for you and your agency?

Good news! You can…..

Because we’d love to invite you to one of our non-client events. We run just a handful per year, from our inspirational ‘Behind the Scenes at AshdownJones’ days, to our ideas-packed ‘Marketing Mastermind’ days, and also our get-stuck-in ‘Implementation’ days. And of course, our topic-specific free webinars. Nothing beats in-person though! With us on hand to answer any questions and help you find the answers to your challenges, you’ll come away from any of our events feeling motivated and buzzing with ideas!

To check out which of our events might be a good fit for you, just go to our Events page and save your spot. We can’t wait to meet you!