Property Marketing: Embracing Our Obsession with the Dream House

 

Keywords: Interior, Property, Content Marketing, Home Decor, Dream House

Today, on Instagram, #interior has 65M posts. We are, without question, obsessed with property in all it’s echelons: from home renovations and #homeinspo to #dreamhouse and the ultimate in aspirational living.

For some, Pinterest and Instagram offer practical advice on making changes to a home. Good, now we’ve got that one out of the way, we can embrace the reality that we all love watching someone else do things we absolutely do not have the resources to do ourselves. Following a project is relishing the satisfaction of transformation, avoiding the huge costs, time, effort and potential relationship fractions involved in doing it yourself.

So, when it comes to content marketing in property and interiors, how do you construct the dream house? What can real estate portals and sellers learn from our fascination with property and interiors on social media?

Green with envy

House hunting commands a mixture of emotion and logic, in which seemingly arbitrary aspects of a property can impact how we feel about it. Colour is a perfect example: light blue is calming and comforting, a sign of reliability and stability, what better way to present the heart of the home. Red is a dominant colour, often considered intimidating and overpowering, but perfect for making a statement. 

Farrow and Ball key colours last year included Duck Green (a deep, forest-green hue), Hay, Mouse’s Back (fawny grey) and a perfectly-named hue of off-white, Pigeon. These are colours of the natural world, particularly perhaps Britain. This would suggest in 2020 we were craving the nature we were missing, or perhaps the colours of the changing seasons and their reliability. For 2021, Ideal Home suggests this will continue, with the addition of Japanese design elements, Cottagecore and Grandmillienial, perhaps a look forward to an embrace of culture and pattern when the world opens up, a fusion of modern and traditional. Another emerging trend is Structured Simplicity, the embrace of clean lines and a pale colour palette, think New York loft, modern English farmhouse or LA beach house. This is a trend of ‘nothing left for best’, of low maintenance and classic design. 

But if we’re all looking for the perfect home to quell our generational, post-COVID anxieties, how can you please everyone? 

Love at first sight

Our initial impressions, across each of the senses, are likely to be the ones that stay with us. In real life, the smell of flowers at a garden gate or overflowing rubbish bins. Virtually, this rule still applies. Visual cues evoke memory: the same lamp our Grandma had, family photos, a sofa made for hungover days in front of the TV.

In the dream house we see escape, freedom, excitement and comfort. It is a manifestation of our hopes, a reassurance that in life’s twists and turns there’s the potential to feel settled. The most followed Instagram accounts embrace luxury, pattern and uniqueness, offering authenticity alongside characters, the homes are an ultra-stylish embodiment of the people who live in them. 

Home sweet home

The improvements and DIY that have consumed some of us through lockdowns have happened in a vacuum, perhaps fuelling the multitude of hours scrolling hashtags for the big reveal. For the lucky majority of us, much like a tortoise, homes are our protective refuge but also a display case for our personality. The colours we choose, the furniture we buy, and the way we live in and present our homes is personal. 

When it comes to marketing property, real estate portals and websites have a lot to learn from social media. We shape a property or interior in line with trends, share knowledge with sellers and embrace the authentic approach. Perhaps if could align marketing with the global obsession with the industry on social media, the market would be become that be more viable for attainable for future homeowners.