Buyers are purchasing more than just a home when they sign their final offer—they’re buying into the entire neighborhood, so it’s a good idea to get acquainted with it yourself to highlight all of its features to potential buyers.
Whether it’s an urban or suburban area with plenty of local restaurants, shops and parks or a rural area that has its own charm, buyers want to know what they’re getting into. It is your job to explore the area and walk them through what their future neighborhood is known for.
Local favorites
It’s tried and true for a reason. Prospective buyers love hearing about a neighborhood’s local favorite spots. If a place in town has the ‘best of-something,’ make sure to let buyers know about them. If this neighborhood is new to you, make sure to ask around and use local resources to find out where these top spots or hidden gems are.
If push comes to shove, use your next best resource: Google Maps. By reading through reviews of local hot spots, you can easily recommend nearby restaurants, coffee shops, salons and more during your next showing.
Walkability, transit and bike scores
Though this may not always be the case, particularly in rural areas, some neighborhoods score out of the park when it comes to walkability, transit and bike scores. If your listing happens to fall into that category, make sure to highlight that to your clients.
If you know there are coffee shops, schools, grocery stores or parks nearby, take a few moments to search those locations on Google Maps and see how far of a walk or bike ride they are from your listing.
While you can list out these nearby spots outright, you can also point them out if you are driving your clients to showings and tell them just how close their new favorite coffee shop is to their potential new home.
Neighborhood events
If a buyer is coming from out of town, they likely know very little about what the day-to-day culture is like in their new neighborhood. Do some research on your end and find out if there are any lively events set up by the city, like farmers’ markets, block parties, holiday parades or other community-driven events.
A good starting point is the city’s website as well as the local library’s events page. Sharing these details can help buyers imagine themselves not just living in a house, but becoming part of a community.
