Could surprise sales success revive the property roadshow?

About this time last year, a developer client of mine told me a story of how we a media firm persuaded him to spend more than £20,000 on a series of property roadshows. He spent the best part of two weeks sat in empty hotels around the UK with his wife watching his life savings disappear. In that time, only one person turned up and they were lost!

Although I won’t mention names, this is a true story; or at least it’s true in the painful memory of my client. He is not alone. The property roadshow has been much derided in our industry. Even Darragh MacAnthony failed to make it work, losing thousands just before MRI became a furniture specialist with a keen interest in libel law.

However, it seems there are developers who are now beginning to make the format profitable. The Resort Group, a UK-based developer constructing a 5 star resort on the island of Sal in Cape Verde, has just increased the number of dates on their roadshow tour from 18 to 32 after averaging 2 sales per event last year.

Low marketing costs

According to marketing manager Adam Ellis, the reason so many of property roadshows have failed in the past is because of the high marketing costs associated with attracting buyers to the events. “We keep our costs down by recruiting buyers through our agent networks and offering specific sessions for agents but also time later in the day for brokers to bring their clients along. This is where most of the sales take place”.

Two birds with one stone

Although Ellis admits that the majority of sales come from existing agents, the roadshows are also used to recruit new agent partners. “The hundred or so active agents in our network contribute most of the sales but we have also had quite a bit of success recruiting new partners at the shows”.

Chicken and the egg

Although it is good to hear of sales success stories in the industry, the fact is that property roadshows will probably remain the domain of bigger developers with existing networks of active agents. It’s a chicken and the egg problem for most: To make the economics stack up you need an active network of agents which in turn can help you recruit a bigger sales force. But without this head start you risk sitting in an empty hotel room watching your money run down the drain.

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