Industry Insight: Property Market Trends 2021
As a team, we are really proud to have been working in the property sector for many years, supporting the marketing evolution of a long-standing industry.
Through our gathered insights, we wanted to explore some of what we’ve experienced in the past year and delve into the trends that we think will impact the property market in 2021 — and the all important ways that property developers can make the most of them.
A shift towards the investor market
As the buy-to-let and build-to-rent models continue to climb in popularity, businesses need to ensure that they are doing all they can to appeal to the growing investor market — a landscape that’s experienced quite a few changes over the past year.
‘Developers should be thinking about how they showcase and market their properties with this audience in mind’
The Stamp Duty relief announced by Rishi Sunak back in July 2020 has provided welcome financial savings, and despite the pandemic, overseas buyers continue to be drawn to the UK’s rental markets and the benefits of strong capital appreciation. An additional Stamp Duty in the form of a 3% higher rate for purchases of additional dwellings has come as a slight challenge to investors, as has the scrapping of the 10% ‘Wear and Tear allowance’. Still, many investors have been savvy about how they manage their investments — and developers should be thinking about how they showcase and market their properties with this audience in mind.
Changes in legislation will have an impact on homeowners
There were a few changes in legislation over the course of the past year that need to be taken into consideration when creating marketing campaigns for the property market.
As we mentioned above, the elimination of Stamp Duty tax had big implications for first time buyers; that legislation is still in place until 31 March 2021 and will see more people getting on the property ladder over the coming months.
The government’s Help to Buy scheme will also be changing in Spring 2021 — from April, only first-time buyers can benefit from this scheme. Regional price caps are also being applied, making it more complex to calculate.
Appealing to both target audiences
Invariably, property developers need to have a keen eye on both investors and homeowners, so, how do you successfully appeal to both?
When we began working with leading property developers Telford Homes in 2018, the first thing we did was really get to grips with their customer personas; their new website needed to engage both the investor (buy-to-let) market, as well as those who were buying a home for themselves. Investors are generally concerned about yields and a good return on their investment over time. First-time buyers or property owners looking to move are interested in the place they’ll be living in and its surroundings – the more emotive elements that inform the decision-making when it comes to purchasing a new home.
‘Investors are generally concerned about yields and a good return on their investment over time. First-time buyers or property owners looking to move are interested in the place they’ll be living in and its surroundings.’
With different needs for different customers, Telford Homes’s website had to be built around this dual purpose, which we launched successfully in May 2019. While the main website is more investor focussed, we designed and built the family of development specific microsites with homeowner requirements in mind, which really supports the business marketing strategy.
When it comes to messaging and design, product is key
Like any business, property developers need to invest in their brand, and online and off-line marketing communications to ensure it’s geared towards the right audience and is providing the best possible customer experience.
Placing the customer, and their needs, as the focus that informs the design and messaging is ultimately what will drive sales — this is true of all industries, but especially important when it comes to big purchases like property.
‘Property developers need to invest in their brand’
When we assessed Telford Homes’ existing website strategy, we identified that their user experience relied far too heavily on personifying each of their developments, which in turn made for a complicated user journey though the various microsites and loss of clear brand messaging. Our solution was to build a site that focussed on usability and what the customer needed. By delivering this in spades, it allowed the branding to do the work, and delivered a highly useful and engaging sales tool for the client.
Kerry Hill, Head of Marketing at Telford Homes commented ‘The team at Planet could not have done more to help us launch our brand new website - not only have they offered us an amazing level of support but our new website looks fantastic and we’ve had lots of great feedback on the design and streamlined customer experience’.
The ability to sell offsite
One of the biggest hurdles for the property market last year was having to sell homes under the many restrictions that saw most of what we do offline, going online. The pandemic has forced a lot of property developers to evaluate how they can sell homes remotely. We’ve been creating solutions for this problem long before 2020.
In 2015, we developed and built a bespoke app for residential property developers Barratt Homes that allowed their customers to get to know a new development through the comfort of their own smartphones and tablets, exploring a site and all it would have to offer before it was even built . For customers, not only was it liberating to be able to browse at their own leisure, it was also a much more pleasurable experience than trudging around a building site in wellies and a hard hat!
Property app’s such as ours enable a developers customers to really see beyond the building site and give them the ability to make better decisions offsite, really improving the sales funnel — so that by the time they get to the marketing suite they’re well informed and ready chat through next steps with their Sales Advisor.
‘Our property app enabled our clients customers to really see beyond the building site’
For many companies during 2020, innovation was driven from necessity. We believe that the challenges of last year have pushed the housing industry forward when it comes to marketing transformation. We look forward to continuing to drive some of this innovation through into 2021 and beyond.
If you’d like some help with your property brand or marketing, we’d be only to happy to have a chat. Email us or call on +44 (0)1488 688 560 and we can talk through your requirements.