My company is currenttly engaged by a Real Estate Agency to assist them in rebranding their business... they want to be seen to be different but not too different. This has lead us to look closely at many of their rivals and their culture.
The question I would like to raise here is in relation to the language of Real Estate. Quite clearly they do not write or speak to be read or understood by their buyres. At auctions the verbage and tone are to say the least boring and out dated. To be told that --- we are in leafy ...., close to cosmopolitan ....,..... looking at a house with 3/4/5 bedrooms etc etc is surely a waste of our time and theirs. Quite clearly those attending know where they are and why... and from our research find this approach condescending.
And then the ads ... fabulous, fantastic, enourmous... are commonly used. I personallywould like to read about the benefits of buying the property not endless exagerated fetaures taking uip space that the vendor is paying for not the Agency!!
As a result of all of this and a brilliant book I have been reading The New Rules of PR and Marketing by David Meerman Scott I would like to compile a list of the most jargon laden phases and overused irrelevant words used in Real Estate. In his book Scott analysed Media Releases for Technology Companies and found words like next generation, robust, world class etc., to be very widely used and very widely ignored by those that they were aimed at.
I suspect much the same is the case in Real Estate they clearly dont write to understood by buyers ... they dont auction to impress buyers.,.. perhaps they aim to impress each other.
In our research the most common view expressed of Real Estate Agents is that they are too introspective ... and their biggest problem results from this - They Dont Know What They Dont Know!!
Look forward to your asistance in compiling the The Real Estate Goobledygook Manifesto.
Rick Carter - Chief Reality Officer eNova Communications
for more info on Scott's book and our experiences in PR2.0 visit my new blog http://enovapr2.wordpress.com/