Facebook Live gets up to 45,000 visits per property for agent

An agent in Hertfordshire says he routinely secures 5,000 visits to ‘live open houses’ on Facebook Live, and have on one occasion got 45,000 visits.

Adam Mackay of Mackay Property at Sawbridgeworth has told the Guild of Property Professionals that the medium is hugely popular with buyers.

“Before a property goes onto the market fully, we advertise the virtual open house as a Facebook live event. The ad will be served up to a targeted audience to ensure that it is seen by the right people. People are then able to engage with the ad and indicate their interest in attending” he says. 

“On the specified day, we will go live on Facebook at the property, ensuring we are wearing the appropriate PPE while showing the home. Holding the camera, we then walk around the property as if we were showing it to someone in person” Mackay adds. 

“As it is a live event, people can ask questions or send us comments. We would normally get between 10 and 30 people attending the event live, but it is after the event that the real magic happens. Facebook sees that the video is popular and there is a lot of engagement, so it pushes the video and increases its reach. 

“Over the next 48 hours from the event we get more and more viewings of the video. We are consistently getting around 5,000 video views, with our top video getting between 40,000 and 45,000 views. As a result, we are getting regular enquiries on properties before they are even listed on Rightmove or other portals.”

Mackay says that the Facebook open house virtual events have also drummed up new interest on properties that have already been on the market for some time. 

“We had 13 physical viewings requests booked off the back of one of the videos of a property that had been on the market for a while. All of the viewing requests were fresh enquiries from new buyers,” he adds. 

“We have sold four properties using this Facebook Live events and are now making it a regular part of our marketing strategy and pre-launch process, especially with vendors now starting to request them for their properties.”

Mackay’s office has also been producing ‘MTV Cribs-style’ videos of properties for social media. 

“The video is just 20 seconds long, which is ideal for TikTok, Instagram and Facebook. Using a wide-angle lens, we do a quick walk through of the entire property, which has proved popular with buyers and vendors alike. We have won some listings off the back of the videos, with vendors saying they love what we are doing on social media” according to the agent. 

“They think it’s great because they get to see the whole house in just 20 seconds, it grabs attention and people are more inclined to watch a shorter video as they can fit it into their daily life.” 

Here’s one of his videos as an example.