Talking House – My Thoughts

3 minute read

“What will they come up with next” is what we see on the testimonials page on the Talking House website.

Well it is not really anything new, this technology has been tried overseas with mixed results.

To me it is just another gimmick, it really does not do anything special.

I mean why would you drive to a house, tune in a radio station and sit outside listening to something when you are 30 feet away from looking inside?

Oh that Internet thing?
Have you heard of the Internet?
It is where people go to get a wide range of information about a property, informative text, photo galleries, movies and vr tours and files such as floor and block plans.

After viewing the information about the property these “Internet people” (around 50% of all Australians) then decide whether they like what they see and will enquire further by contacting an agent or vendor and asking for a further look.

So why would a person jump in a car and drive to listen to promotional information from a “talking house?”

Beats me, but maybe many Australians have nothing better to do!

Anyway here is some information from the Talking House website.

Talking House create a detailed script which is recorded and then beamed to a transmitter inside your home.

You plug the transmitter into any mains power and you are assigned a radio frequency that is advertised on your sign board. (i.e 99.5 FM)

The say “you are now on the radio and have the best chance to sell your property”. (Dubious claim I know!)

Anyway, it is a gimmick and nothing else and if it can attract vendors then go for it.

Something tells me they will not be about for very long and they will need to pay for the advertising on Sydney TV and that is a hell of a lot of units they will need to move.

They have had limited press otherwise, maybe they thought it would be exciting.

There may be other uses for this, I do not know what but there must be a real solution somewhere.

I suppose it goes back to the same old thought process that so many people have, that is….you sell it to one agent and because these people are so paranoid about their competitor having an edge in attracting vendors others will follow. Most agents are smarter than that!

Maybe the thought is that agents have bottomless reserves of cash to spend on these types of things.

Agents in Australia and New Zealand are a goldmine for big media players spending over 1 billion dollars per year on marketing and that is why so many of them are trying to get in on the big cash cow.

It just seems too tacky for my liking.
So why would you pay $165.00 per property for a gimmick when you can give users what they want and spend it spreading your advertising on the real medium that gets results the Internet!

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1 Comment

  • Tracey Gruber
    Posted July 4, 2005 at 8:55 am 0Likes

    You obviously arn’t looking at this from a buyers point of view. We drove to about 15 houses when we were looking for an investment property but only found 5 that we wanted to talk to the agent about. One of them was using a Talking House and because of the street, we would never have gone back except for that the Talking House gave such a good descripting of the property and surroundings.
    We didn’t buy that property but we did buy off that agent who showed us something else. So I’m sure he thinks it was money well spent.
    I’m not sure what other kind of marketing you can do for under $200 but I assure you the internet never gives the real picture.

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