In fact, the freehold lifestyle residential village and caravan park at 229 Ocean Drive, Lakewood, didn’t just catch the eye of a buyer in Western Australia, they travelled across the country to inspect the 4.15 acre property and bought it.
For the Stone Port Macquarie directors, the $4 million sale price was an excellent result for a property that a year earlier had failed to sell when listed with another agent.
“We had close to 60 email enquiries,” Nathan notes.
“We had an offer of $2 million to start with and they went up to $3 million.
“Then we had a few other buyers that would pay $3 million but they weren’t high enough to sell the property before the EOI (closed).
“Then we met the guy from WA who was willing to go up to $4 million.”
The property the buyer secured featured 86 powered sites, shaded camping grounds and 10 ensuite cabins, along with a park swimming pool, laundromat and camp kitchen, all overlooking Queens Lake.
A fresh approach to marketing
To secure the buyer, Nathan and David had to ensure their marketing campaign looked fresh and different to the one the other agency had run earlier.
Nathan notes that the EOI campaign helped ensure the market came forward with price, while the Stone marketing team assessed the previous campaign to ensure they had different hero photos, drone photography and professionally written copy.
“We also put all of our listings on the portals with top marketing packages,” David says.
“Whether it’s a beachfront property, a small unit or a caravan park, like this property, every property we list has a top marketing campaign.”
They also listed the property on commercial real estate portals and backed the property with Stone Digital.
Stone Digital extends and increases audience engagement through a comprehensive strategy that includes social, display ads and native ads to ensure potential buyers and sellers are found whenever and wherever they are online.
The platform is powered by view.resi’s off-portal performance product called Acquire, which can be customised to any agency’s brand to keep its presence at the forefront of its marketing efforts.
Social media finds a buyer
And Nathan says it is this social media push that secured them the buyer from Western Australia.
“A guy that works at one of the other caravan parks in our area saw it on Facebook and sent it to their friend in WA who owns a couple of parks over there,” Nathan explains.
“He reached out, came out to have a look at it and ended up buying it and getting his friend involved as an equity partner and running the park for them here.”
David and Nathan say since opening the Stone Port Macquarie office seven months ago, every property they’ve listed has had Stone Digital attached to it and it certainly helps get more eyes on each listing.
“The amount of people that say they’ve seen it online and they’ve seen it on their socials is incredible,” Nathan says.
“Digital market and social media marketing is a must today. You have to meet people, including buyers, where they are.”
Not only has Stone Digital helped Nathan and David find buyers for listed properties it has also helped them meet more buyers they haven’t previously connected with.
Sometimes that results in an immediate sale, and sometimes the relationship is more long term.
“A lot of the time you will get a click through from Stone Digital and it will be a buyer telling us what they’re looking for,” Nathan says.
“They may not be suitable for the property that they’ve just seen through Stone Digital , but they send through their requirements and that can help with other sales.
“We put them into our system and show them other properties that are suitable for them.
“Stone Digital has definitely helped us meet new buyers.”
Building a brand
Before opening Stone Port Macquarie, Nathan and David worked for another brand as lead agents but, after opening their own agency, they were keen to build market share as quickly as possible.
David notes that Stone Digital has also helped build their personal and brand profile.
“It’s been great for brand awareness,” he said.
“We use it with every property so everyone in our local area is seeing the Stone brand pop up all the time on social media.”
Nathan says when they first opened the office the idea was that it would be a team of three, including operations manager Courtney Sheldon.
But that quickly changed when people started reaching out to them asking to join the team.
“We thought it was just going to be the three of us, but now we have a property manager and two other sales agents,” he says.
“We’ve also had a junior join that we’re training up.”
They also have plans to move into commercial real estate as well.
“There’s a lot of clients we talk to on the commercial side that are disappointed with what’s on offer here, so we plan on getting into that space and offering residential sales service on the commercial side of things,” Nathan said.
“We just want to keep growing.”
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