Episode:	E137
Show Title:	How to Navigate the Digital Landscape for Property Success
Cast:	Aaron Horne, John McGregor, Patrick Berry, & Tara Christianson
Show Length:	23 minutes 09 seconds

Have you always wondered how real estate in Australia differs from America?

This week, the Property Pod team is joined by Tara Christianson, a superstar real estate professional and a Digital Strategist of REA Group who has already experienced the best of both worlds, real estate-wise.

Tune in as we take a glimpse of real estate across the ditch, the dos and dont’s, some digital marketing tips and tricks, a bunch of ‘words of wisdom’, and basically, a little bit of everything and anything real estate.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Tara
You know, you have to come from an abundance mentality that there’s going to be a buyer for every house. That there’s going to be an agent for every seller. Yep. Right. And that’s just how it comes. And so you will find your you’re going to find your people.

[intro]

Aaron
That’s right, crew. We are joined by a superstar of real estate today, Tara Christianson of the REA Group. She’s a digital strategist. Tara, thank you so much for coming in.

Tara
Thank you. Well.

John
You’re not a–the digital strategist as well.

Aaron
Yes, the top dog.

Tara
Off say very low on the food chain.

Aaron
Now, I thank you so much for coming and giving us your time. And everyone in the office is really excited to have you around and then kind of pick your brain with things. But we thought, yeah, let’s get you in the studio before they get a chance to tie you out. They’ll have heaps of questions, but yeah, perhaps organised you to come in and give us some tips and tips for our listeners.

Pat
Yeah, yeah. I’m really excited. We actually met Spike in Demand in Las Vegas just before COVID 2019. It would have been, I reckon. Sure. Well, I haven’t been to one since, so I’m going to go with that. So, yeah, I’ve been blessed to obviously chat with you in the past and have some really cool ideas, but for people that don’t know who you are, how about a bit of a background of, you know, how you got into the industry, how you ended up here, all of that type of awesome?

Tara
Well, I won’t give you my full background because it’s quite long, but I have a Texan accent because I lived in West Texas for four years. So I say things like y’all and all y’all and that’ll come out. I was born in Wisconsin. I have a law degree and I started in real estate in 2006 in the United States.

Tara
And so my momma brought me in as mamas are wont to do. And I was a full-time real estate agent from 2006 to 2012. I was licenced in Washington DC in Virginia, and I did that for six years. And then I moved into being the technology and training director of Century 21 Redwood Realty and they started with about three offices.

Tara
And they when I left them, they had 13 offices. Yeah, well, 600 people. And now I think they’re actually even bigger. They’re fantastic.

Pat
Unreal. That blows me my mind when you think about real estate agencies in Australia versus America. Just the sheer volume of people that work from them. Yeah. Like 600 employees at one firm is just madness.

Tara
Yeah, well, the thing is, we’re not employees, though.

Pat
We’re subcontractors.

Tara
Yeah, so it’s. It’s even more it’s like, you know, take your wet cats and then, like, you know, multiply them by a lot in all different directions and then try to hurt them. That’s pretty much what real estate is like sometimes from a principal perspective.

Aaron
So, so like, that’s amazing. All like kind of the stuff you’ve done in the States and how do you find yourself here in our little island of Tasmania? In Australia and you’re on the other side of the world. It was a boy. Oh, it’s a lot of story. Oh, I love this. Yeah. Tell us more about that.

Tara
He’s 19 years older than me, so.

Pat
Oh, boy, that does stick with boy.

Tara
He’s at heart. He probably is, you know.

Aaron
Absolutely. We all.

Tara
I guess. Yeah. Yeah. So no he’s the one. Yeah, he’s, he’s Queensland born and bred and he ain’t moving so yeah it was.

John
Like a choice. Yeah.

Tara
Good choice. And so I came over but it’s great because he’s in the same, he’s in real estate. We both love digital trends and digital marketing, so we have lots to talk about all the time. Yeah. And so he basically introduced me to people all over Australia and New Zealand and you know, I did gigs with him and then I did gigs by myself and talking to Arias and doing things like this, meeting with agencies and yeah, official.

Tara
And it was awesome because I get to learn the differences between real estate and United States versus real estate here. And, and.

Pat
And there’s so many differences, you wouldn’t think there is, but it’s just mind blowing. Like when we were in Oman, in Vegas, we actually went out for lunch and there was a few Australians and a few Americans at the table. And just the conversation over the course of the lunch as to how we do it here versus how they do in America.

Pat
It’s just crazy. It’s so interesting. Yeah.

Tara
I mean, we, you know, we have our agents can do dual agencies. So they represent buyers, they represent sellers. And so that’s part of it. Auctions aren’t a big thing for us. So except for really high end properties or, you know, properties basically that have gone that are that don’t cost a lot of money. That I guess is the best way of.

Tara
Yeah, sure. It’s being sold on the courthouse steps. Yeah.

Pat
Yeah, yeah.

Tara
And you know, so those things I had to wrap my head around vendors like talking about sellers as vendors in America vendors are our so like, yeah, I’m like, you know, blah, blah, blah vendors and people like that. Why would they do that? And I’m like, Right, okay. Learning. Yeah. So all of those things have just been and of course laws, all the different laws and everything y’all can market so much better though.

Aaron
Okay. Yeah. So that’s a really interesting because trying to follow digital trends like this might be a way of getting us onto some of the stuff you do. But for myself, doing all the marketing stuff through here is offline, going through your tiktoks or your Instagram reels and all these things and trying to find, you know, real estate tips or real estate marketing.

Aaron
And like all the things I come across is really daggy and boring and I’m just like, Oh man, like how we’re doing it so much better. Like, why is it?

Pat
Yeah, I know you got it. My guess is probably going back to the independent contractor versus agency aspect.

Tara
Potentially it’s less that and it’s more about something called fair housing.

Pat
Okay. Okay.

Tara
So the fair housing laws and things like that, which is, you know, don’t discriminate. Yep. And that can get very broad in some places. And so you have to be very careful about the ways that you talk about properties. Okay. About yourself. We can talk about crime rates. You don’t say safe neighbourhood can’t say things like that. Right?

Tara
You can say here’s a website that you might want to look that neighbourhood up on. Yeah. Or schools. You can’t say that’s a great school or not a good school because that actually can get into.

Aaron
This like a legal area of like maybe being sued.

Tara
Or massive. Okay, massive. It’s called steering. And so what that means is that I can steer you away from a neighbourhood. Yeah, well, but sometimes that’s usually low lower income neighbourhood. Yeah, sometimes. And so then, you know, if you’re trying to, if you can, you find that you’re keeping a certain demographic in or out of a certain place.

Tara
And there is a lot of, you know, as you know, racial tension and things that are happening over there. And so that’s part of that, to try to mitigate a little bit of that.

Aaron
Yeah. Okay. So and this is across the whole spectrum. I didn’t think this is where our conversation with my but this is super interesting so yeah across the whole country or is it just different sections national act.

Tara
Yeah. And then certain states can get actually more specific. So even like Washington, D.C., it extends to sexuality as well. So and so that can be, you know too, especially for LGBTQ, just that kind of demographic and making sure that you’re not discriminating, that.

Pat
Must make it incredibly hard to market property for sale and promote.

Tara
You’re like, Hey, he’s got a roof.

John
So it’s. It’s straight up like facts. No, no descriptive. No, um, you know, gender oriented masculinity, feminine sort of words and just almost anything that you go selling this this sizzle is a is almost walking on eggshells.

Tara
Absolutely. You really the first. Yeah, you really have to think about it. So like, I still actually work for an email marketing company over in the States. And one of the things that I have to do, because our writers, for the most part, aren’t real estate background, is to make sure that they’re not including certain things.

Aaron
Yeah, well.

Tara
That could come back to bite them in a legal fashion.

Pat
So we have a content creator that works for us here for one for he’s based in the Philippines and his descriptive text is so descriptive, but we would be taking 80% of his words out. So every day I would actually implement that.

John
God, I remember when I was when I was renovating my house, when we ripped up the kitchen on the floor and they said, had no real estate gone from the fifties, it’s great because it just, you know, the way obviously that sold it was very, very different at the time because they just got straight to the point for one of them had just said owner’s desperate must sell the brilliant.

John
It’s like, oh, guess I’ll buy that. And there was no other word, actually, just straps in a gentlemen’s lounge. So like it was full on, you know, the gender roles, the scripted, like that’s pretty cool.

Tara
It was outpour.

Aaron
Finally John is listing one just next week or the week after with Paul and he’s yep. That’s so far off.

John
That is exactly right. So I suppose to be careful of how we describe that this is a fitness poll. This poll.

Tara
You never know.

John
Moving from a as a sales agent as in the States then compared to you’d say that obviously Australia would do it quite differently. What do you how do you mean like is that in terms of the way that we the websites and the resources that are used or. Um.

Tara
Yeah and so websites you don’t have a multiple list system. So that’s something that, you know, we’re used to having lots of information out there already, you know, similar to Portal obviously from a real estate dotcom to the you but you know they have Zillow over there very similar but the thing is what feeds that is the multiple list system and that is individual to each state and provides a lot of information for people that a lot of people a lot of agents have access to.

Tara
Right. And so I had to get used to people not having a lot of access necessarily to information that’s going on a neighbourhood unless it’s sold or unless they’ve driven around and look for those, you know, the signs and everything else like that are gone on realestate.com.au do you or similar and then also the VPA so we don’t have vendor paid advertising.

Tara
Marketing usually comes out of our own pockets. That’s why commissions are higher in the United States a lot of times is because we’re actually paying for marketing upfront.

Pat
So when you’re picking to take a listing to market, you’ve got to feel pretty confident that it’s saleable.

Tara
Yeah, absolutely. But the other thing is that makes you actually, I think, at least in my opinion, this is only my opinion is that I think it makes you more experimental sometimes in your marketing because you need it to stand out. But you’re also trying to distinguish yourself from all of those other real estate agents out there. Right.

Tara
And so you really have to you’re trying new things and you’re not afraid to try new things. But the thing is, it’s okay because it’s your money. It’s not someone else’s money. Yeah, right. And you don’t have to wait for your broker necessarily or principal to approve something. You do it yourself and then figure out, you know, a lot of times.

Tara
So franchises definitely, you know, invest, obviously, and and independence and everybody. But a lot of times it’s actually sometimes it’s the individual agents who are driving that instead of waiting for that top down to happen.

Aaron
Yeah, it definitely.

John
Would be interesting to see then as well what’s I mean I suppose locals are familiar with what the average commission is here, but what does a commission structure in the states look like?

Tara
It’s it’s you have a buyers agencies, buyers agent side and then a seller agent side, except the seller pays for both sides. Yes. Right. Yeah.

Pat
So it’s like double stacking. Yeah.

Tara
So which can which I know is controversial. I get into heated discussions with my partner about this all the time about. And it’s actually being investigated right now. Okay. This is actually the whole commission structure right now is actually an investigation in the United States at the moment. So who knows? It could change. But at the moment, right now, seller or part of your listing contract, let’s say for a number and that’s another thing you’re not allowed to talk about is commissions like so will say an average between 5% and 7%.

Tara
That’s up to, you know, on on your listing agreement. And so you’d actually agree to that upfront. You’re going to pay this and then you actually detail, okay, that’s going to be 3% to me, you know, 3.5 to barter or vice versa. And and then it goes from there. And the thing is, what people forget, though, is also, you know, a third of that goes to taxes.

Pat
Yeah. Yeah.

Tara
Then another third usually goes back to recoup your marketing costs on the property and then you get whatever’s left over that. So, you know, people go, oh, you make so much money. And I’m like, you know.

John
I’m always going to look at the net. Always look at the net. Yeah. Yeah.

Pat
So obviously being quite lucky in the fact that you’ve experienced Australia Market and the American marketplace, what are some of these, you know, different trends and unique marketing options that people are starting to suggest to their clients to potentially do. Or, you know, what is it that a someone listening to our show should be thinking about if they were planning to sell their home, what is an element that they should add to their marketing?

Tara
Well, if they haven’t embraced video, then, you know, and I mean in all aspects, longer form video as well as short form video. So the longer form video to really showcase the property, you know, and finding new ways to showcase that. But then also the, the shorter form ones to really grab people’s attention in those different spaces online because obviously short form video is where it’s at at the moment on all platforms.

Tara
Definitely so. So I’m seeing people really, you know, just really kind of embracing that wholeheartedly in different ways, using it as sneak peeks or, you know, there’s a an agent in the States who one of the great things she does is that she actually is a stager as well as an agent. Yep.

Pat
Yeah.

Tara
So what she does is she actually does like short clips of her staging different pieces of the home posted online half the time she actually sells it before she lists it because people are watching and go, Oh, now I can finally see what that I’m supposed to be telling. You know, I want to know more about the property and you know, of course.

Aaron
Yeah, exactly.

Tara
The fresh deal. Right. They don’t want to have to wait. And so a lot of times she’s actually selling it before she even gets there. So, you know, people don’t think about that. We think, oh, no, we’ve got to wait until everything’s perfect and everything’s, you know, magic. But the thing is, a lot of times you just have to show people the potential and really get them interested in that property in different ways.

Tara
And that’s some of the ways of doing it.

Pat
Yeah.

John
I guess with with her too. Is it. Rather than trying to present a picture perfect part of the process, she’s just like, well, come with us for that journey, you know, because they’re the property of already for sale, but it doesn’t have to look like the, you know, the painting on the wall.

Tara
No. And the thing is, you know, absolutely. You know, there’s the what we call the Crate and Barrel effect or the I guess it’s a wheelbarrow over here effect, you know, where everything is supposed to look, you know, just absolutely turnkey. Perfect. Right. And we had that for a long time. But I think Covid’s really helped us with that whole, you know, impression of perfection.

Tara
Yeah, that nothing has to be perfect all the time. And the thing is, people do want to see behind the scenes. People do want to see the journey. They don’t want to just see a magic. Here it is like because that gives them ideas as well. And so if you are maybe a potential seller sitting on the fence going, No, no, no, I’ve got to wait until my house.

Tara
Is this you’re showing them? Look, we can actually get through this process a lot faster and probably for a lot less money than you might have expected. And by the way, there’s buyers out there.

Pat
Interesting.

Tara
Who will actually invest in it.

Pat
Yeah, that’s really cool. Way to potentially look at marketing a property for sale is to not just, you know, wait until it’s show ready. Yeah I can think of straight away we quite often make clients and you know, the house needs some renovation work done to it or you know, they can’t go to market because there’s too much stuff in the house and they have to de-clutter, maybe even talking to potential clients about a before and after experience to promote the property and and walk through all the different things that gets the house ready along the way.

John
Yeah, I love those little details too. Like we’ve got drove past one of our listings at the moment at the front of it’s a big skip in you know. Is that removing the rubbish if that’s what you’re like on a different scale, if you’re just bringing your audience with you along that journey, it’s like it’s coming up, you know, it’s coming out here.

John
We all will agree that there’s a skip in. You know, usually we find that if you’re, you know, doing rubbish removal that can take care of, it’s probably going to cost somewhere between 500 to 1500 bucks. Why sit there and do a bunch of tip runs when you can just get these guys to sort it out where it’s going to take half the time and I guess that’s sort of where you’re referring to.

Tara
Yeah, absolutely. Or have tradie walks, you know, through the house, you know, these are the little things that actually add up at the end of the day for a buyers impression or anything else. They’re going to look at that and say it’s 1200 dollars to, you know, fix that when all I know is it’s tightening of a screw or not.

Tara
You. Yeah.

John
Yeah, yeah.

Pat
So so a lot of the marketing that you’re starting to see is more experience type marketing. And it’s not just like spending big money on big ads anymore. It’s, it’s telling the story and and doing that journey with them.

Tara
And not being afraid. You know, if, if, if tick tock, you know, scares a lot of people. But the thing is, if that’s kind of where an audience is looking in your area, then maybe that’s something to explore or, you know, YouTube advertising. Sometimes people go, oh, well, I don’t know that much about that. Or, you know, the thing is, neither do most of the people who started.

Tara
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you don’t necessarily have to go all in like the first time, right? Just experiment. Yeah. And that’s the big thing around it is just you just experiment.

Pat
It’s such an interesting take.

John
We’ll look for your position now with digital strategist. What’s what’s experimentation look like for you?

Tara
It’s just for me. It’s just a bunch of research gathering, honestly. It’s just trying to figure out what makes sense now because anything that I’ve read look at like I have ten emails that are sitting in my inbox, they’re all from myself, right? They’ve all got links.

John
To stuff here, all.

Tara
Sorts of stuff.

Pat
I’m glad I’m not the ISIS myself.

Tara
And then my chrome browser on my work computer is also a nightmare. So like I had to put on an extension that suspends all of them so that like it doesn’t eat my like.

Aaron
Yeah, great thinking. Yeah.

Tara
Because I mean, but that’s what I do is I sit and then the next step is going, if I’m sitting there as a real estate professional and I’m busy, the market’s changing. I’ve got to think about what makes sense for me and my time, but also for my my, you know, my clients. And is this something that I’m going to be able to sell 100% to my clients or even 90% to my clients, or do I not understand it enough?

Tara
And then if I go, okay, if I don’t understand it enough, what do I need to learn so that I can actually then convey that? And then I try to simplify that for people so that anybody can really understand what that means. And then I try to find examples of that so that I can show you what that could look like as well.

Tara
Because I think a lot of times we’re more visual people and so we need to kind of understand like, how does that fit into my workflow or does that fit with what I’m doing? We get overwhelmed sometimes when we see so much marketing. Yeah, right. Because there’s so many ways to do it and there’s so many big personalities that are out there that sometimes take all of the limelight and all of the spotlight.

Tara
And we think, Well, if we can’t do it like them, then we can’t do it at all.

John
Yeah, yeah. Well, it must cost too much for us to even never do it.

Tara
Absolutely. Or I’m an introvert, right? Like, I know it’s hard to believe.

Aaron
I thought, okay. I was like, Yeah, I’ll put the laugh track.

Tara
And it’s and it’s funny because when you meet me it’s because like, well, this is fine, because this to me, this is an intimate group show having a discussion even when I’m presenting though like I just do it because that’s my job.

John
Yeah. Yeah.

Tara
Then I go back into my car or into my room and I sit, right. I can’t be that big personality that’s like always on a short time on camera because that’s not who I am. Yeah, right at the end of the day. And the thing is, you’re going to meet me and if I’m not the same person that you just saw online, you’re going to be like, whoa, real estate agents are real, are, you know, being shady again or.

John
Yeah, yeah, you know, aren’t.

Tara
Being real.

John
You’re just putting up a face. This is this is not a. You are.

Tara
Yes, exactly. And so I think if we can find that beautiful combination of who we are and maybe just exaggerate that a little bit because that’s.

Pat
A little bit.

Tara
Yeah, yeah. Just put a little more pizzazz. It’s a little more jazzy. And at the end of the day, I think then that’s really what what comes out. And the thing is, if you’re just one of those people who just wants to sit there and talk like this and that’s who you are, then maybe that’s who you are and there will.

Tara
But the thing is, you know, you have to come from an abundance mentality that there’s going to be a buyer for every house, that there’s going to be an agent for every seller. Yep. Right. And that’s just how it comes. And so you will find you’re you’re going to find your people.

John
Yeah. Well, one thing I take from that, though, is that even though you say introvert, it’s not like how you’re interacting with us now is too far removed from always, you know? And I suppose when you’re looking at designing your own marketing and who you are, in that sense, it’s like, don’t go 180, maybe 10%, 10% above your normal energy point.

John
Because I know sometimes you see agents where it became a very big trend in Australia to add a lot of humour into it. And I suppose the state was the same and you just went, you should just not be doing that. That is horrific. Oh.

Pat
You know, I thought about your 11.

John
It’s different. It’s not different at all. But you just see like that’s why he too far removed from who they would be on a day to day basis. But having that little bit of an extra energy, I suppose, I would assume is what you’re saying, is it that allows people disconnect a little bit better?

Tara
And the thing is, look, if those are the people that you want to attract, are the people who are attracted to that and will invest in you because of that. Because that’s really what they’re doing is they’re investing in you. When they hire you, then that’s fine. But just know that you probably are then, you know, letting go of another part of the population just isn’t attracted to that and vice versa.

Tara
Right? And so yeah, for me it’s just I bump things up just a little bit, right? And I figure what’s a little bit outside of my comfort zone.

Aaron
Rather than a long way out of the zone and just being like, I’m a fish in deep water floundering.

Tara
Precisely. So what’s my stretch point? And once I figure that stretch point out, then I’m like, okay, do I like it? No, look, I don’t like video like I don’t like doing video, but it’s so important.

John
Yeah, sure.

Tara
So important that I just do it. Do I watch it? No, I said to my partner to watch. Yes.

Pat
Yes. You will go out.

Tara
Exactly. And as soon as I hear my voice, I walk up to him.

Pat
I think I think that’s all of us back here.

Tara
And then I’m like, okay, give me constructive, constructive feedback. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s how I learn them.

Aaron
Excellent. Well, I look, I think we’ve taken up enough of your time there, but thank you so much for coming in and talking us through some of this. It’s I think we could go on a little deep dive tangents all over the place. But yeah, I know your time’s really valuable and we really appreciate you coming in and having a chat with us.

Tara
Oh, good. Any time.

Pat
Thank you very much.

Aaron
Thanks, Tara.

Tara
Thanks.

Aaron
Excellent. Bye.

[extro and disclaimer]