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Our top 5 learnings from FocalAgent and PropertyBox’s most recent report: 10 listing tips to win more instructions

Posted on by Rosie Douglas

This week, FocalAgent, the creators of PropertyBox, published their most recent report:

10 listing tips to win more instructions

If you haven’t had a chance to read it yet, here’s the link you need.

listing tips to win more instructions

The report outlines step-by-step everything you need to do to craft property listings that secure instructions to help you dominate market share.

We don’t have time to cover all the topics discussed in the report, so instead, we’re sharing our 5 top takeaways:

  1. The importance of best-in-class property photography can’t be underestimated.
  2. Presenting unique property marketing examples during market appraisals is crucial for standing out and building trust with potential vendors and landlords.
  3. Property videos work wonders for extending your reach on social media, allowing you to engage with potential landlords, sellers, house hunters and tenants.
  4. Your vendor’s photographs are considered personal data under GDPR and need protection accordingly. 
  5. Watermarking your property photos, floor plans, and videos keeps your brand front and centre on property portals, increasing the likelihood of potential vendors and landlords noting your agency and associating it with first-rate property marketing.   

Below, we’ll explore each of these takeaways in more detail:

1. The positive impact of best-in-class property photography

If there was any doubt about the influence high-quality property photos have on the effectiveness of property listings, these stats set the record straight. They prove just how vital first-rate photos are for securing instructions:

  • Property Academy’s latest ‘Home Moving Trends, Landlord and Renter Survey’ found the top reason sellers picked their agent was that they ‘felt confident in their ability to market [their] property’ (this included property photos).  
  • In the same survey, 75% of sellers rate ‘quality of images’ as important when visiting an estate agent’s website. 
  • As many as 80% would click on a property listing because the first image was enticing.  
  • Almost 60% would skip properties with an unappealing initial image.

Thankfully, AI-fuelled property marketing platforms like PropertyBox make enhancing images taken on your smartphone or camera a breeze.   

It’s not uncommon for estate agents to view AI as sub-standard or somehow scary. However, in the case of PropertyBox, we’re not an off-the-shelf solution. Instead, we have years of professional property photography knowledge that we’ve funnelled into producing our AI enhancements.  

Below, we’ve listed just a few of the many ways your images could benefit from AI property photo enhancements:  

  1. Instant object removal  
  2. Automated privacy blurring  
  3. HD upscaling  
  4. Blue sky replacement  
  5. Vertical adjustments  
  6. Boosted shadows  
  7. Colour enhancements  

…and more!

2. Present unique property marketing examples during market appraisals

There are plenty of ways to elevate your property marketing to stand out from the rest. Our most recent report lists the following methods:

  • Dusk shots
  • Drone photography
  • Elevated pole photography

Below, we’ll explore each in turn:

Dusk shots

One of the main benefits of dusk shots is introducing a point of differentiation between you and your competitors. In your prospect’s living room, you can show examples of dusk shots you’ve listed. This works wonders for instilling confidence in the vendor because it demonstrates you know how to make properties stand out online when people are scrolling at pace on portals. 

Best of all, when you use an AI dusk shot feature post-production (like the one PropertyBox offers), you can make the image look like it was taken at golden hour within a matter of minutes. 

Drone photography

The remarkable thing about drone photography is that it can capture a property’s unique vantage point from 120 metres high, making it an excellent choice for shooting panoramic views and unveiling hidden gems that traditional photography can’t achieve.  

A single dramatic shot of your client’s property can be the driving force that attracts the right attention to your listing. In fact, property listings with drone photography enjoy a 54% increase in engagement compared to listings using traditional property photography alone. 

So, if your budget allows, why not consider drone photography – especially for luxury properties? Clients selling first-rate properties expect the best, and there’s no denying that drone photography will capture your client’s property in all its glory, which is likely why properties with aerial photos sell 68% faster than those using just standard images. 

Elevated pole photography

If drone photography isn’t viable for your agency or the area, elevated pole photography is worth a second glance.  

It costs less than drone photography, and although a pole doesn’t reach the sky heights of a drone, you can still capture shots from 6m+ above ground level, making it superb for capturing winning exterior shots.  

3. Extend your reach on social media using video

Video offers an immersive experience, transporting prospects directly to the heart of the property. Not only that, but videos often increase your social media reach in the local area, engaging with potential landlords, sellers, house hunters and tenants who aren’t yet on the market.  

These stats speak volumes about the power of video:  

  • 50% of all content viewed across Meta’s platforms (predominantly Facebook and Instagram) is video, so embracing video is essential for getting your agency in front of as many prospects as possible. 
  • 92% of mobile video viewers ‘share’ videos
  • 73% of sellers are likelier to list their property with an agent who uses video  
  • Property listings with video generate 403% more inquiries. 

To hit the ground running with property videos, you can use an AI property video generator (like the one PropertyBox is about to launch). 

This is an excellent alternative to professional videography if you’re working on a budget or don’t have time to schedule a professional.  

Such a tool takes your static property images and transforms them into engaging reels, perfect for sharing on social media. Just drag and drop photos onto your video timeline and add captions (if you wish), taking inspiration from PropertyBox’s prompts. Then, wait a few minutes for the videos to render before sharing them on your agency’s website, social media, Rightmove, Zoopla, or property portal of your choice. 

4. Ensuring your property marketing meets GDPR standards is absolutely crucial!

Did you know your vendor’s photographs are considered personal data under GDPR?  

Protecting your customers’ data is of the utmost importance. That’s why agents spend their precious time manually blurring out sensitive data in their property photos – for example, people’s faces in personal photographs and vehicle number plates.   

However, not only is such a system laborious, but it’s also prone to human error. It stands to reason that if you manually edit hundreds of property photos each month, things will inevitably fall through the cracks.   

Similarly, some agencies use non-property-specific editing suites for these tasks. It can sometimes take between 6 and 10 minutes to blur a single registration plate.   

Fortunately, there’s a quicker, more accurate solution:

An AI property photo enhancer like PropertyBox automatically blurs faces, personal photographs, and car number plates. 

By automating these kinds of tasks, you can use the time you’ve saved to make your listings really sing. For example, removing unwanted objects from your property photos, adding a dusk sky, writing more compelling property descriptions, etc.

5. Sidestep property portal branding restrictions with watermarking

As an estate agent, you’ll know how frustrating it is that your agency’s brand gets little to no recognition on popular property portals – especially when prospects view listings via mobile.  

Considering that almost half of property searches are done on a mobile, that’s a huge opportunity to market your agency’s brand lost! 

This is where adding a watermark to your property visuals becomes an asset.  

This ensures your branding remains front and centre of the listing, increasing the chances of prospects remembering your agency.  

Want to learn more?

Although we hope you found these insights helpful, this blog post only scratches the surface of the advice given in our full report:

10 listing tips to win more instructions

For a deeper dive into crafting property listings that increase market share, download our free report and put everything you learn into action! 

Do estate agents really need to spend time editing property photos?

Posted on by Rosie Douglas

Are you familiar with the following scenarios?

  1. You can’t afford professional property photography for every listing your agency publishes. 
  2. The property listing is time-sensitive, and you don’t have time to wait for an appointment with a professional photographer.

If you’re a seasoned agent, you’re probably familiar with both situations and might have wondered the following question: 

Should agents ever attempt to edit their own property photos?

It stands to reason that professional photographers charge a premium for a good reason – editing high-quality property photos is a time-consuming and tricky business. 

In fact, when you use professional marketing services, like a FocalAgent marketing pack, agents are almost 40% more likely to complete a sale and, on average, achieve a 1.63% higher selling price. These statistics are based on data collected and verified by TwentyCi throughout 2022, including 2,331,408 properties. 

So, where does that leave you?

Continue reading as we explore that very question. 

How important are property photos?

We’ll cut to the chase. High-quality property photos are imperative. 

That’s not just our opinion. 

Rather, recent research published on Estate Agency Today reveals that when participants were questioned about what they found most influential in forming opinions about a property advertised online, property photos were deemed the most influential (almost 40%)!

More interestingly, as many as 80% said they would click on a listing because the first image was enticing. 

But, almost 60% said they would skip properties with unappealing initial images. In other words, the house hunter wouldn’t even consider viewing the property or finding more information about it if they didn’t like the property’s feature image!

On top of that, 71% of prospective buyers who clicked through to the whole property listing said the first thing they looked at was the full range of property images available. Plus, almost 50% stated they wouldn’t peruse the rest of the listing if they didn’t like the property photos. 

How do you enhance your property photos with limited time and money?

The stats above are clear. 

Where property photos are concerned, putting your best foot forward is imperative. 

But what do you do if you lack the budget for a professional photographer and don’t have the time or skills to edit the photos yourself?

Fortunately, an AI-powered property marketing assistant like PropertyBox provides an easy, cost-effective solution. 

You can transform the property photos you’ve taken on your smartphone or camera into professional-looking content in a matter of seconds.

When we spoke to Samantha Aitken, Territory Owner for Yopa Glasgow South, to get her thoughts on the subject, she said that before PropertyBox, she would have to: ‘upload and edit each photo individually, so it could take a few hours’ – whereas, now ‘it literally takes a few minutes to edit photos.’

With that said, let’s see how PropertyBox’s property photo enhancements work:

How do PropertyBox’s photo enhancements work?

To give you a sense of how easy it is to enhance property photos using PropertyBox’s AI, below we’ve quickly outlined the process:

  1. As previously hinted, take photos of your client’s property using your smartphone or camera.
  2. With just a few clicks, upload the shots to your PropertyBox workspace. 
  3. PropertyBox transforms your images into better-quality visual content for publication on your agency’s website or property portals. 

Simple, right?

What should you look for in an AI property photo enhancer?

Here at PropertyBox, we thought long and hard about what makes a best-in-class AI-fuelled property photo enhancer and put these ingredients together to form the ultimate property marketing assistant. 

Firstly, we understand that the old cliche ‘time is money’ couldn’t be more accurate for estate agents. 

So, we aim to provide the highest quality property photo enhancements in the shortest amount of time. 

That’s why we automatically apply as many as 27 enhancements to your photos, including blue sky replacement, vertical correction, vertical adjustments, boost shadows, colour enhancement, customer privacy blurring, HD upscaling, and more. 

On top of that, you can also use our object removal editor to extract unwanted objects from your photos in seconds. Just use the ‘Erase Brush’ to highlight the object you wish to remove, click ‘Apply’, and watch it disappear!

You can even add your agency’s logo to property photos to strengthen brand recognition and protect assets from third-party use.

But, most importantly, if you’re not 100% satisfied with your photo enhancements, PropertyBox pays to manually enhance them at no extra cost (usually, these are returned in under an hour)! 

However, over 98% of our AI enhancements don’t require manual intervention, so rest assured that you’re in safe hands!

If any of that piqued your interest and you have more questions, please schedule a call with our helpful team – they’ll get back to you in 55 seconds or less!

If your floor plan software doesn’t offer these 3 things, it’s time to switch providers

Posted on by Callum Domigan

Several ingredients form the perfect property listing, and floor plans are one such component. 

In fact, as many as 78% of sellers rated floor plans as having a 7/10 (or higher) importance. On top of that, 1 in 5 property hunters would either “ignore the property advert completely” or “only re-visit it if nothing else caught their eye” if the listing didn’t include a floor plan.

The bottom line: Floor plans are essential for attracting potential viewers. 

Given how vital floor plans are for creating appealing property listings, you want to ensure your floor plan software offers everything you need to make the most out of this visual content type. 

To help with this, we’re revealing three things all floor plan software should offer its users (so, if your current provider doesn’t provide these features…maybe it’s time to swap to someone who does?) 

Interested? Great! Let’s get into the nitty-gritty of this blog post!

1. Watermarking and branding

There are several advantages to adding watermarks to your floor plans, including:

Strengthening your brand: When house hunters view property listings, they focus more on the residence itself rather than your agency. That’s why you and your agents need to scream about your brand at every opportunity – including within your floor plans! 

Adding your logo as a watermark to your floor plans increases the chances of buyers seeing your brand and taking note of your agency (especially if they want to view similar properties). In other words, this is a quick and simple way of boosting brand visibility and, consequently, brand recognition.  

This is especially handy when listing properties on portals like Rightmove, as they try to hide your brand as much as possible. As such, adding a watermark to floor plans is an excellent way to sidestep this issue.

Make your listings look more professional: Branded floor plans make property listings look more professional, which works wonders for generating trust with potential buyers. When an agency proudly plasters its name on its stock, it instils confidence in house hunters, which should translate into more enquiries. 

Safeguard your floor plans: If you’re a veteran estate agent, you’ll know that from time to time, you’ll lose instructions to competing agencies. Should this unfortunate scenario happen while your listing is still live, unscrupulous agents might try to steal your floor plans. So, adding a watermark can deter competitors from doing this, reducing the likelihood of them benefitting from the visual content you’ve spent time and money producing!

2. Tweak with an online editor

Unfortunately, most floor plan software providers don’t offer an online editor that lets you quickly tweak your floor plans. 

This is where access to an intuitive drag-and-drop editor that allows you to modify your floor plans after they’ve been created is worth its weight in gold. 

For example, if you notice a missing door or need to update measurements on your floor plan, you can make those modifications within seconds! This is much quicker, easier, and cheaper than commissioning a new floor plan re-draw from scratch.

3. Quick turnaround times

Last but not least, speedy turnaround times are imperative for publishing property listings as quickly as possible. After all, the sooner you post your listing, the quicker you’ll generate interest in the property. 

That’s why here at PropertyBox, we’re proud to say that, on average, we deliver our professional floor plan re-draws within 1 hour and 45 minutes.

Other floor plan re-draw services typically offer a 24-hour turnaround. We’re looking at you BoxBrownie, Photoplan Bookings, or, in some cases like Abdone, as long as 48-72 hours!

How can PropertyBox help?

If you’re wondering where you can find floor plan software that offers all the above (and more!), PropertyBox is your go-to. 

More specifically, you’ll benefit from the following features: 

  • You can choose between black-and-white or coloured floor plans
  • Watermarking and branding features
  • You can tweak floor plans using an intuitive drag-and-drop online editor
  • You can label rooms/specific areas

…all for just £5+VAT per floor plan!

If any of that piqued your interest and you would like more info about PropertyBox’s floor plan re-draws, schedule a callback today, and we’ll get back to you within 55 seconds or less!

3 musts for estate agents hoping for a quick property sale

Posted on by Callum Domigan

When it comes to property sales, the age-old saying is true: time is money. 

The quicker property sales complete, the less likely it is to fall through and the more money your agency makes.

This begs the question, how do you and your agents sell properties as quickly as possible for the best price?

Needless to say, turning around high-quality property listings in as short a time as you can is instrumental for quick property sales. 

So, we’re revealing three tips for speeding up listing creation (that won’t compromise quality). Let’s take a look:

1. Get your EPCs in order

Many of us overlook the power of EPCs. However, as many as 4 in 5 agents forecast a substantial surge in buyers looking for properties with an EPC rating of C or better. 

So, not only is a valid EPC a legal requirement whenever a residence is built, sold or rented. But, a decent EPC rating could be an invaluable marketing asset. 

The bottom line: You need a quick and reliable way of checking a property’s EPC validity and ordering a new certificate should you need one. 

Using software that empowers you to do this from the convenience of one place saves you and your agents tons of time and effort.

For example, PropertyBox enables agents to check their clients’ current and potential energy performance ratings. They can also order an EPC assessment at a guaranteed price of £50+VAT from their PropertyBox workspace. 

Then, within 24 hours of the EPC assessment, you can download your EPC certificate – or, if your vendor’s EPC is valid, download it straight away!

2. Write property descriptions in record time

Our industry experts say writing a decent-quality property description takes 20-30 minutes (on average). Of course, the more luxurious the home, the longer it takes agents to write accurate and compelling descriptions.

So, let’s say you list 15 properties a month. In this instance, you’ll spend around six and a half hours writing property descriptions a month on average! 

Just think of all the other things you could do with that precious time.

So, what’s the answer?

Instead of manually writing property descriptions, the most straightforward solution is to use an AI-fuelled and custom built assistant like PropertyBox to autogenerate descriptions within seconds. 

When we asked Mark Severino from Best Texas House Buyers, LLC for his tips on streamlining listing creation, he said: ‘Checklists are the number one tool that can be utilized to streamline efforts…Checklists can be used in conjunction with AI. You are able to fill out the checklist with the information for an individual property.. submit it…and ask it to write out a full listing!’

With that said, here’s how you can adopt such an approach with PropertyBox:

  1. Select your client’s property type and add details, including local area highlights – this can be done in just a few clicks!
  2. Then, within seconds, PropertyBox produces a custom property description, a key benefits list, and a summary.
  3. Copy and paste the text into your preferred property portals. Or tweak it first before it goes live – the choice is yours!

3. Ensure your listing is picture-perfect (even if they’re just smartphone snaps!)

A study found that property listings with just one photo take around 70 days (on average) to sell. In contrast, properties with 20 high-quality pictures typically complete in about a month.

The moral of the story? The more professional property photos you use, the quicker your property will sell. 

Many things contribute to the overall quality of a property photo. Some of which you can control, while others are out of your hands. This is why a robust post-production process is so important.

Below, we’ve listed just some of those factors:

  • The weather – did you take your property photos on a dreary day?
  • How cluttered is the property?
  • Do the images respect your vendor’s privacy? (number plates, personal photos, etc.)
  • Are the images HD quality?

Depending on your answers to the above questions, you might have lots of editing to do! 

So, how do you simplify this process? Historically, agents would spend hours using complicated photo editing software to achieve decent results. But, thankfully, that’s no longer the only solution.

You can now use AI property photo enhancement software like PropertyBox to brush up your visuals. 

Just take photos using your smartphone or camera and upload the shots to your PropertyBox workspace. We automatically put images through 27 photo enhancements to increase the quality of your photos. 

You can also use our magic wand to remove small objects from your photos. Just highlight the object you wish to remove (for instance, a flower pot full of dead plants). Then click ‘Finish’ and watch the object disappear!

Best of all, these property photo enhancement tools achieve results within seconds!

Are you ready to start making quick property sales?

That brings us to the end of our tips for streamlining listing creation for quick property sales.

To recap, the most productive way to turbocharge listing creation is to use an AI-fuelled property marketing assistant that can:

  • Instantly look up EPC validity
  • Allow you to order new EPCs
  • Autogenerate engaging property descriptions
  • Edit property photos within seconds to enhance their quality

If you want to know more about how PropertyBox could help you sell properties quicker, request a callback today!

How to remove objects from property photos (including those large inflatable Santas)

Posted on by Jarrah Lowe

Year after year, we’re seeing increasing numbers of house hunters browsing properties on Rightmove and Zoopla between Boxing Day and New Year’s Eve.


In fact, Rightmove reported that:


  • Visits were 54% higher last Boxing Day than the previous year. 
  • Rightmove received a staggering 51 million visits between Boxing Day and the first day of the working year.


The bottom line? Your agency needs to prepare for the Boxing Day boom!


But what do you do when your client’s homes are brimming with Christmas decorations, and you need to take property photos? 


Needless to say, Christmas trees, tinsel, and whatever other festive ornaments are up make it difficult for buyers to envision themselves living there. Plus, come the new year, the photos will need updating. Not only is taking photos twice a needless expense, but it also eats into your agent’s valuable time. 


So, what do you do?


Continue reading as we provide you with a quick, easy, and affordable solution:

The problem

Of course, when it comes to taking neutral property photos, asking clients to declutter their homes as much as possible (including Christmasy nick-nacks) is your first port of call. 


According to Samantha Odo, Real Estate Sales Representative & Montreal Division Manager at Precondo:


‘During the holiday season, homes are often decorated with personal and festive items. While these may bring joy to the homeowners, they can sometimes distract potential buyers when viewing property photos.’


…But if the seller already has a giant Christmas tree up, there’s a good chance they’ll be less than willing to take it down.


So, what do you do?


Answer: Unfortunately, you have to take the photos anyway, leaving you in somewhat of a predicament. 


How do you remove unwanted Christmas trees, inflatable Santas, festive garlands (the list continues…) from your otherwise professional-looking property photos?


Complicated photo editing software like Photoshop and Indesign might spring to mind. However, as there’s less than a month until Boxing Day, you probably don’t have time to familiarise yourself with such complex programs. 


On the other end of the spectrum, there’s Microsoft Paint 3D. It’s free and very basic. DIY jobs using such software rarely produce decent-quality results. Its Magic Select tool usually requires you to painstakingly trace the object you wish to remove. So, unless you have an incredibly steady hand and lots of patience, this is a tedious process.

The solution

To stand a chance of listing all your properties before the big day, you need photo-enhancing software that’s simpler than Photoshop and quicker than Paint.


Enter, PropertyBox. 


PropertyBox users benefit from quick and easy object removal that makes their property photos look more professional. 


Here’s how it works for small objects (perfect for removing smaller Christmas decorations like wreaths, advent calendars, mini trees, etc.):


  1. If you haven’t already, subscribe to PropertyBox
  2. From your PropertyBox workspace, click ‘Create New Property’ and enter your client’s address
  3. Upload your property photos. Then, click ‘Remove Objects.’
  4. Using our intuitive editor, highlight the object you wish to erase.
  5. Finally, click ‘Finish’ and watch it disappear. 

From start to finish, the process takes a matter of minutes!

But what if you need to get rid of something larger – like those colossal inflatables we mentioned earlier?


In that case, tell PropertyBox which object(s) you wish to remove, and we’ll do it for you within 24 hours!


Easy, right?

Are you ready to erase tacky Christmas decorations from your property photos?


To help you enhance your property photos in time for Christmas, we’re offering a limited-time deal:


  1. 1 month’s free PropertyBox access when you use this promo code at checkout: FREEMONTHDEC  
  2. FREE large object removal from your property photos¹ 

Interested? Have questions? Contact us today at team@propertybox.io or request a call back in 55 seconds or less!


¹ Please note: Large object removal is free for up to 5 uses per month for new and existing customers between Monday, 4th – Sunday, 31st December.

Creating compelling property descriptions: our tips and tricks

Posted on by Callum Domigan

Often, estate agents focus on the visual aspects of their property listings, consequently overlooking the importance of well-crafted property descriptions. 

Whilst property photos and floorplans remain the most viewed part of a property listing, descriptions still play a valuable role in providing a comprehensive overview.

Interestingly, Property Academy’s Home Mover Survey found that:

  • 90% of buyers and 89% of renters said quality photos were “important” when searching for a property
  • Similarly, 95% of buyers and 87% of renters indicated floor plans were “important” for them.

…But, when it came to property descriptions, these numbers were even higher, with 91% of buyers and 94% of renters describing them as “important.”

So, to help your estate agency enhance its property descriptions, here are our top seven tips and tricks:

1. Create a checklist

Create a checklist before heading to the property. This should detail all the info you need to get while you’re there. 

This helps you feel more organised and boost your efficiency too. After all, the one thing you want to avoid is visiting the property more than once, as it slows down the overall sales process.

2. Use your local knowledge

As an agent, you will undoubtedly have extensive knowledge of the local area and the benefits of buying, selling or renting a property there. 

Use these insights to add relevant information to your descriptions, such as details about nearby schools, transport links, and other local highlights. 

Not only does this information demonstrate that you’re a trusted agent, but it also adds a personal touch to the description.

3. Tailor descriptions to your audience

When writing property descriptions, it’s crucial to consider your target audience. I.e., who are you trying to entice with this information?

This means establishing the type of person who might purchase/rent the property and catering the description so it resonates with them. 

For example, if your property is suitable for families, it would be crucial to mention how many bedrooms and bathrooms the property has. It would also be wise to highlight the closest schools and parks. 

These details make it easier for potential customers to picture themselves living in their new home, which goes a long way to securing more relevant leads.

4. Highlight unique selling points

Always highlight the property’s unique selling points. For example, incentives such as “Help to Buy” and short contracts are often available to buyers and renters and should be mentioned in the property description. These sorts of positives could push the sale over the line.

5. Keep descriptions concise and clear

We all know prospective buyers or renters only skim-read property descriptions to pick out key information.

Focus on brevity and avoid excessive jargon or details that detract from the property’s key features.

Also, always use sentence case and avoid excessive capitals. Trying to highlight too many features can make it harder for the reader to engage with the listing.

6. Use keywords

Make sure you use common keywords searched for on property portals, like “open plan”, “garden”, or “south-facing” in your listings. This should help them appear in more searches.

7. Embrace generative AI

In 2023, AI is taking the world by storm, and the property industry is no exception. 

As you know, producing high-quality property descriptions for each listing is time-consuming, which is why more and more agents are utilising AI software to speed up this process. 

It’s important to remember that you’ll have the most success using generative AI for your property descriptions when you use accurate and effective prompts.

Property Academy’s Mover Survey shows there is plenty of potential for estate agents to differentiate themselves on high-quality property descriptions that provide quality information to prospective buyers or renters. More specifically, they found that only 31% of buyers rated the accuracy of property descriptions as “Excellent” and 43% as “Good”. 

By implementing our seven recommendations, agents can take their descriptions to the next level and generate greater interest in their properties.

Introducing auto-generated AI descriptions

If you’re interested in generative AI to fuel your property descriptions, PropertyBox uses cutting-edge AI technology to generate property descriptions in seconds, saving you hours of manual work. 

Subscribe to any Starter or Pro plan for free to experience our brand-new auto-generated AI descriptions. 

PS. You’ll also benefit from our game-changing AI property photo enhancements, and floorplan redraws too!

5 Quick Fixes to Improve your Estate Agency Website

Posted on by Callum Domigan

Almost 95% of house buyers do online research, and when you couple this stat with the fact that Google’s top 3 search results get more than 50% of clicks, one thing becomes crystal clear: your website is of the utmost importance.

A well-designed and optimised website is more than just an online portfolio; it’s a powerful platform to represent your brand, attract leads, establish credibility, and drive those all-important sales.

Samantha Aitken, Territory Owner at Yopa Glasgow South, says it best: ‘If you were looking for an estate agent and they had an awful website or bad photographs, how could you trust them to present your property for sale well when they can’t even present themselves.’

We couldn’t agree more! 

So, with that said, if you want to elevate your estate agency website, here are 5 quick fixes you could implement today:

1. Publish customer reviews

Customer reviews play a pivotal role in influencing buying decisions. In fact, research from Capterra reveals that 62% of consumers consult online reviews before buying, valuing customer reviews even more than the opinions of experts or their friends.

With customer reviews acting as powerful social proof, you should leverage them throughout your estate agency’s website, particularly on pages encouraging prospects to contact you.

By prominently displaying positive feedback and testimonials from satisfied vendors, you establish trust and credibility, reinforcing the value of your offering.

We recommend working with a customer review site specific to the property industry, such as ESTAS. ESTAS is exclusively dedicated to property-related customer reviews from genuine consumers providing feedback at the end of their transactions.

A quick tip: Plenty of platforms are available to help you launch automated email and/or text sequences asking clients to leave a review. Not only does this save you time, but once these workflows are up and running, you should enjoy a steady stream of customer feedback.

2. Loading speed

When it comes to user satisfaction and website performance, your site’s loading speed is vital. A study by Kissmetrics revealed that 47% of web users expect pages to load within 2 seconds, with 40% abandoning sites that take longer than 3 seconds to load.

These stats emphasise the importance of optimising your website for fast load times. It’s no exaggeration to suggest that a slow website could be why you’re receiving fewer enquiries than you’d like from your website. After all, when visitors encounter slow-loading pages, they’re more likely to become impatient and leave the site before completing any desired actions, such as submitting an enquiry form.

To assess and enhance your website’s loading speed, we recommend Google’s Page Speed Insights. This tool makes it easy to test your website’s performance and identify areas for improvement. You’ll also obtain actionable and personalised insights to share with your website agency or development team.

3. Mobile-friendliness

As many as 74% of home buyers research properties using their mobile or tablet. With so many using portable devices to fuel their house hunt, it’s imperative your website is mobile-friendly.

This means ensuring your site boasts a responsive design that seamlessly adapts to different screen sizes. This is essential for providing the optimum user experience across all devices.

Suppose you’re using a popular website builder like Wix or Squarespace to fuel your estate agency’s website. In that case, you might find that your website template is already responsive. However, if you need more clarification, we recommend contacting your web developer/the customer service team of your chosen website builder to double-check.

Furthermore, a mobile-friendly website is more likely to rank higher in search engines, which should translate to more eyes on your website! Google recommends mobile optimising your website as part of its broader push to prioritise sites offering a better user experience.

4. Offer a ‘lure’

A lure, also known as a lead magnet, is a valuable incentive you can offer potential customers in exchange for their contact information (or to encourage them to take a specific action).

A lure aims to attract, engage, and nurture leads while positioning yourself as an authority in your industry. All of this goes a long way to increase the likelihood of a conversion.

Offering a downloadable resource is an excellent lead magnet example—for instance, an eBook, guide, or checklist. Whatever downloadable you decide to give away, it should be relevant, informative, and address common pain points or questions sellers have.

For example, you could create a property selling guide outlining the different sales steps, staging tips, and negotiation strategies.

This kind of gated content not only enables you to capture more leads but also helps to establish you as an expert, which is fantastic for building trust and credibility with those interested in selling property.

5. Provide a live call-back service

Offering a live call-back service on your website empowers you to capitalise on the immediate interest of website visitors and increase the likelihood of securing their business. In fact, according to LiveCall, implementing their call-back service can convert 30% to 120% more web visitors into leads.

By promptly responding to call-back requests, you demonstrate to potential vendors that you value their time and are dedicated to addressing their needs. An immediate response sets a positive impression and allows you to engage in positive one-to-one communication.

This personalised interaction permits you to gain a more concrete understanding of their specific requirements and provide tailored advice, including addressing any particular concerns they have. It’s also a chance to build rapport, establish trust, and showcase your expertise, ultimately increasing the likelihood of securing the prospect’s business.

If you want to integrate a live call-back feature into your site, we recommend Convolo or livecall.io. This software makes it easy for prospective clients to request a call-back with your estate agency’s sales team and for your agents to respond promptly.

Now’s the time to elevate your estate agency’s website

With the UK estate agency market expected to grow by over 3% this year, competition is on the up, so distinguishing yourself with a first-rate website has never been so important.

With that said, we hope having read this blog post, you’re now filled with ideas for improving your estate agency’s site.

To recap, here are a few quick and easy website fixes:

Publish customer reviews, optimise load speed, prioritise mobile-friendliness, offer a valuable lead magnet, and provide a live call-back service. By implementing these changes, you take a massive step toward maximising your online presence and, subsequently, growing your agency.

For more ways to upgrade your property marketing game, try PropertyBox for free! We provide AI-fuelled photo enhancements, floor plan re-draws, automated property descriptions, and much more. Alternatively, if you have any questions, you can request a callback from our friendly customer support team (you’ll hear from us in under 55 seconds!) – speak soon!

Transforming property marketing: PropertyBox’s faster app, enhanced AI accuracy, and powerful object removal tool

Posted on by Callum Domigan

PropertyBox is a cutting-edge property marketing assistant. It harnesses advanced technology to offer users instant improvements to their property photos, expertly redrawn floor plans, seamless removal of unwanted objects, and privacy blurring to safeguard customer information.

We love hearing our customer’s feedback

PropertyBox understands the value of customer feedback and prioritises actively listening and responding to our client’s needs. By taking our customers’ feedback onboard, we have significantly improved our platform. PropertyBox’s customer-centric approach is crucial because it allows our business to evolve and grow while tailoring our services to better meet the requirements of our users.

What improvements has PropertyBox made?

We’re thrilled to share that our efforts have resulted in a faster app, improved AI accuracy, and a significant increase in usage of PropertyBox’s object-removal tool.

  1. Accelerated speed for effortless efficiency
    • We are delighted to share that our app is now twice as fast as before. As mentioned above, we have listened to your feedback and prioritised enhancing the application’s overall speed, which will benefit our users. Through dedicated development efforts, we have optimised our app’s performance and speed, allowing you to accomplish tasks swiftly and seamlessly.
  2. Enhanced AI accuracy
    • We have enhanced AI accuracy through customer feedback. With a remarkable AI accuracy rate of 98%, PropertyBox ensures that your photo enhancements meet the highest standards of precision and reliability. The feedback allows us to learn from user interactions, adapt to evolving needs, and deliver exceptional results. By leveraging the power of AI and customer input, we have taken a significant step forward in providing users with reliable and accurate photo enhancements, which will ultimately improve your online presence and save you valuable time and resources.
  3. Object removal
    • Capturing appealing property photos can be challenging due to various factors, such as unwanted objects or clutter. Our object removal feature has been a game-changer, as demonstrated by the remarkable usage rate of 89% among our subscribers last month. This powerful tool lets you seamlessly remove unwanted elements from your images, resulting in visually appealing listings. Presenting your properties in the best possible light has never been easier.
  4. HD upscaling
    • PropertyBox is thrilled to introduce an exciting new feature called HD upscaling. Aimed at providing our customers with a remarkable advantage in property marketing. With HD upscaling, your property photos are automatically converted to HD, transforming ordinary images into stunning visuals. Agents can now win more instructions, boost sales, and achieve higher property prices, solidifying their market position and surpassing competitors

The improvements mentioned throughout this article will help our customers have a competitive edge over their competitors. The enhanced AI accuracy ensures that the photo enhancements provided by PropertyBox are precise and of high quality, which will allow customers to showcase their property at its finest. PropertyBox is dedicated to helping its customers stand out in a crowded market.

Why choose PropertyBox?

PropertyBox is here to help. Our fantastic team has expert knowledge of property marketing which will help your estate agency stand out from the competition. Whether you’re looking for photo enhancements, floor plan redraws, object removal, privacy blurring, or automatic branding, our team can assist with this.

It’s time to take your business to the next level, try ProperyBox today!

PropertyBox is the easiest, cheapest and fastest way to get your photos buzzing

Posted on by Callum Domigan

PropertyBox Chief Revenue Officer Aaron White gives his top tips for creating stand-out property photos every time.

We know that you want to make your property photos look as professional as possible but sometimes you’re hindered by weather and circumstances. Maybe the skies don’t look great on the day, or there are bins outside that can’t be moved, or maybe the scene wasn’t set perfectly in a living room and your eye is drawn to the untidy TV wires instead of the period fireplace. Now PropertyBox gives you the ability change all that after you’ve taken your shots and is the perfect tool to turn a good picture into a great picture. The difference is jaw dropping!

Eyesores gone in seconds

The most common items we’re asked to remove using our instant Object Removal tool are bins outside the front which don’t show the house to its best advantage, but just by removing them it can look stunning. Other agents’ sale boards are the second most popular item to be removed. When I first saw I could draw a line over an unwanted object in seconds, as opposed to it taking me 45 minutes to get rid of something manually, I was in awe at how we’ve developed these tools. I love demonstrating what we can do to potential clients – especially when they realise how we’re going to make their lives so much easier.

We’re simply the fastest on floorplans

We’re the only company that can turn around a floor plan within 4 hours for just £5. You don’t have to download software, just simply sketch the floor plan on a piece of paper, note down the measurements and the names of the rooms, take a photo of it and upload it and that’s it. Within hours we’ll deliver the completed floor plan to you, freeing up your time for other important tasks.

It’s interesting to see the growing take up of our floor plan service, as well as customers choosing our one-off pay and go service to produce a floor plan for their Airbnb property or holiday cottage. It certainly gives them the edge over hundreds of homes without a floor plan, making it much easier for holiday makers to see if the property has a layout that suits their needs. And it’s unlikely these homeowners will have used a professional photographer for the photographs so once again we can enhance these to make them look great.

Our new watermarking service for photography and floor plans is another game changer, allowing your branding to be more visible across all social media content, making it easily recognisable and creating more organic leads to your business.

Five ways to make your listings shine this New Year

Posted on by Callum Domigan

The market outlook heading into the start of this year is certainly calmer. But with Zoopla reporting a ‘Boxing Day boost’ with a 42% increase in new listings compared to the same day in 2021 and Rightmove reporting a 20% jump in the number of buyer views, there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic heading towards the spring selling season.

There will be big gains for agents who are willing to go the extra mile to ensure their listings stand out on the portals and win the click. Not only will professional-looking visual content help agents sell quickly and for the highest price, it will ensure they’re front of mind of prospective sellers too.

1. Professional photo enhancements will provide all the benefits of professional quality property photography, without the price tag. PropertyBox’s easy to use, instant photo enhancing tool provides blue sky replacement, vertical correction, brightness adjustment, shadow boosting and colour enhancement, with beautiful quality, professionally enhanced photos returned within seconds.

2. Professional floor plans help agents generate more leads, increase buyer interest and build a reputation for high-quality property marketing. Within just a couple of hours, a simple hand drawn sketch will be converted into a professional looking 2D plan, customised in the agent’s style, colours and branded with their logo, enabling them to benefit from up to 30% more enquiries from buyers and tenants.

3. Clutter-free photos help agents get the perfect shot by airbrushing eyesores such as wheelie bins, shampoo bottles, kitchen clutter and For Sale boards from property photos. Simply highlight any objects that need removing using an online pen, with an adjustable brush size for ease of use, then relax as our AI-driven Object Removal tool instantly airbrushes the eyesore and seamlessly backfills the space to march with the surroundings.

4. Estate agency branding on photos and floorplans helps agents grow their brand online and highlight their commitment to property marketing excellence. The online equivalent of a street full of For Sale boards, ensuring branding is clearly visible on the portals allows agents to promote their business and show potential sellers how much they care about the quality of their listings.

5. Upload between 8 and 15 photos when adding new listings to your website and the portals. This optimum number helps agents attract attention to the property and move a potential buyer onto the next step by making an enquiry. Between 8 and 15 high quality professional-looking photos will show off the listing to its full potential and give buyers plenty of information, but also leave them wanting more.

Are you ready to get started?