If you’re looking for an interesting way to showcase your homes, introduce customers to your area, or turn a boring home hunting trip into an interesting one, why not give geocaching a try? Geocaching is a great way to get outside and make touring a community more fun. It can also be the door to new ideas on how to market your houses and draw the attention of people who are undecided about the purchase.
If you are an expert in hiding, you know what “geocaching” means. If not, here’s a brief overview: Geocaching started in 2000 when people realized that global positioning systems (GPS) could be used to identify locations where a cache was being hidden. This cache usually took the form of plastic or metal jars that contained tradable items and a log book. It has grown to almost 850,000 registered caches worldwide. For more information on geocaching, go to geocaching.com
You might think this is a little crazy – what does geocaching have to do with home sales? Niche marketing is the answer. The concept is not new; There are currently “Bike Realtors® that offer bike tours of homes for sale. There are real estate that offers weekly real estate walking tours.” So why not take advantage of one of the fastest growing outdoor sports to encourage people to buy?
If you have clients who are geocachers or who are inclined to the great outdoors, a geocache hunt can be a great way to spend an afternoon touring the city. Offering a “Geocache Tour” of your area is an unusual and fun way to get people interested in the neighborhoods they visit during the tour. Geocaching is becoming a very popular sport and many people looking for locations for their new home would be happy to know that there are a large number of caches in the area.
The geocaching principle can also be used for clients traveling by houses. As well as being a great way to take a break from house tours, your GPS can be used to chart the course of your home tours so your clients can review them later, along with photos. This can be a good way to give your clients some additional information to work with when making their decision.
If you can meet with other Realtors®, you could try planning a kind of “geographic home search” of open houses in the area. It may sound crazy, but turning home hunting into a game could be the impetus for someone to take the next step in buying their first home when they “fall in love” with a home that is on the road.
Today’s market requires some ingenuity to attract the attention and interest of potential buyers. Geocaching is growing so rapidly in popularity that it is certainly a viable way to showcase both your business and the homes you hope to sell.