Why Floor Plans Help Buyers Understand a Home

Realtors, you know floor plans sell houses. Why aren’t you ordering them when you get your media listings? So let’s talk about it. If you were to buy a house, would you want to see a floor plan?

Of course you would. And your buyers out there want to see that as well. And so do yourself a favor, do your sellers a favor, order the floor plans. They’re not that much more expensive.

We got really inexpensive products all the way to more expensive that are super nice. Order one of them. I don’t care which one you order. Order one of them.

You will do better. And let’s talk about why floor plans work because they’re showing the flow of the house as somebody could walk through it. They’re showing the relationship of one room to the other. Do we have an open kitchen to the living room?

Is it closed? Where do you get to the kids’ bedrooms? Where are the bathrooms at? The photos and the videos aren’t really going to show that.

We’re taking the photography. We try to show it like here’s where the dining room is relative to the kitchen. But it’s just hard to really get a good grasp of it unless you have a floor plan. So that’s what you want to have.

And these buyers that are looking in the houses, what are they doing there? Imagine themself in the house. How are they going to interact with the house? How are they going to walk from one room to the other?

Where are they going to eat? Where are they going to sleep? How close are they to the kids’ room? Where’s the back door to the yard?

Are they going to walk through the dining room every time they have to go to the yard? They want to understand that. They’re trying to envision themselves in that home. And if you’re not using floor plans, guess what?

They’re going to have to guess. And people, psychology says they do not like the unknown. They have a fear of the unknown. So if they’re looking at a house that doesn’t have a floor plan, they can’t quite figure out what’s going on versus looking at your listing that has a floor plan and they can figure it out.

A clearer listing can make it easier for a buyer to decide whether to schedule a showing. So make it feel more complete and show the homeowners that you care. You’re trying to impress your sellers. Why?

You want a referral. You want your next five listings. If you just phone it in, it’s not going to get you a referral. And because your sellers know it when you’re phoning it in, if you just order the basic photo package, they see it.

They see the realtor down the street selling in a neighbor’s house. They’ve done the video. They’ve done the floor plans, agent-guided tours, the photo, the drones, all these packages. And all you did was order photos.

They’re going to feel like they got the short end of the stick. So don’t skimp out on your sellers. You want future referrals. They want that and you want that.

That can support a stronger seller experience. So let’s take a quick look at some floor plans here and show you. This is, this is what we call an iGUIDE. It’s one of the products we have.

It creates the nicest floor plans and look at that. You can see the downstairs, you can see it’s got an open, open family room right into the kitchen. And you can see the breakfast up there. It’s all open.

They can all see each other. We can see they’ve got a formal dining room. They’ve got a formal living room. You can see where the garage connects.

So they’re imagining, okay, when I’m carrying in groceries, where am I going to walk from the car to the cabinets? How is that going to work? They can see all that. And without that, they can’t.

And they’re going to start to fear that unknown if you’re not showing it to them. So our next floor, we’re going to see upstairs, where are the kids going to sleep? Where are we going to sleep? How are we connected?

You know, do we want the noisy kid right next to the, to the primary room? No, we don’t want them clear off in the corner by themselves. And so they can start to plan. And the more time they’re spending on your listing, looking at these floor plans, the more they’re going to fall in love with it, the more they’re going to figure out a way to make it work.

Again, if they can see it, they can go, oh, but we can put Johnny over here, Sally over here, and they’re making plans without that, without that floor plan, they can’t make plans. They’re not dreaming about that house. So one more here we’re going to see is above the garage.

They’ve got a little room, you know, a living area there, probably an ADU, and they can see that as well. And they can see them in square feet, they can see the room sizes, they can see if their couch is going to fit. It’s really incredible stuff. And the greatest product that we’ve had so far, the four plans are what we call estate plans.

And look at that. These plans show the landscaping and provide a high-end presentation. And I just love this. They can see where the yard is, where the kids are going to play in the backyard, where the dog’s going to run, if it’s fenced, not fenced.

You know, the pictures are great, but this, I mean, this is data here for them. And they love that. And the last thing we get in an iGUIDE report is an actual report of the dimensions of the rooms. And you can see how many square feet the house is.

And our system is scanning the whole thing of the laser. It provides detailed measurements and area information. So if you’re not using floor plans, you absolutely should be. Again, some of our packages, it’s just a trivial amount to add these.

Choose the floor-plan option that fits the property and the experience you want to provide your seller. And that’s what you need to stay alive in real estate. I am Scott Kemp. Thanks for listening.

Realiant Media Minute.