With the global onset of COVID-19, we truly are living in unprecedented times. Since launching Butterfly Voyage (exactly) one month ago, I’ve spoken to people in every facet of real estate development. I can share that everyone feels that they are in some sort of a holding pattern at the moment. The emotions expressed range from nervous optimism to absolute panic, depending on how precarious one’s financial situation is. Is this a frustrating blip, short-term bad, or long-term terrible? We do not know enough to determine that today.

Yet, we are not powerless and we can begin to lay the groundwork for the inevitable move forward. Even in these moments of darkness, there is a strong light of low-interest rates to keep smart money engaged, and this very helpful feature from Zillow takes an in-depth historical look at the effects of pandemic vs. recession based market environments. I believe that we are about to encounter the first unique combination of the two as we were already entering a cooling market with rising development inventory levels coupled with lower absorption.

Over the past 16 years, I’ve sold, marketed, and branded over $2BN of new development for top firms on both coasts during some of the best and the worst market cycles. There is no need for those of us in development to sit paralyzed until the other shoe drops; we cannot predict the future, but we can acknowledge the now. I’m sharing my experiences, rationale, and thoughts via this series in the hopes that it can help to inspire a roadmap for what’s next.

Here are the five client-focused + marketing essentials that you can begin to address right now.

01

Start thinking about how to rework client engagement and communications processes. In the immediate aftermath and coming future, we will need to take this highly personal and relationship-driven business into a more virtual (and global) environment. Encourage and support your team to use some of this quieter time to explore options for, learn, practice with and perfect the use of new technology-based tools to adapt and enhance their workflows. Typically, these seemingly complicated tools are learned in the moment, which does not give each team member the opportunity to master and take advantage of the myriad of very helpful features that these technologies offer. 

02

Craft new messaging points for agents and brokers about your development so that they have them at the ready to convey to their client network. They too are human and will be equally stressed in these times - and will not “just know” everything that they need to communicate about your offering. Once you craft these points, use your newfound mastery of the aforementioned technologies to create a virtual “focus group” to discover what additional digital or tangible marketing tools are needed to initiate and subsequently close transactions.

03

Develop a revised reporting plan that is maintainable, accessible, and highly communicative for everyone on the core team. A slowdown in client traffic is inevitable at least in the near future - there will be a need for the correct amount of information to alleviate the nervousness of team members who are not on the ground or in the same geographical area. If your development is in San Francisco, and your majority equity partner is in Chicago make sure that your reporting clearly and concisely communicates the information needed to make rational (and often time-sensitive) decisions. As simple and intuitive as this sounds, this is a basic post-crisis building block that often goes neglected until a transaction is lost.

04

Mentally prepare to wipe your target buyer or renter slide clean along with any preconceived notions about who or where your new transactions will come from. In the coming months, anyone who has liquidity is an optimist about the economy’s recovery and prioritizes the opportunity to procure a tangible asset is your core audience. Every one of them will be precious to protect your sales or leasing goals. I’m referring to the perfectly sanitized slide full of smiling, happy faces referenced during the pre-development design and marketing phases. In order to move forward, you must have an open mind, and that will not happen overnight.

05

Be thoughtful about your product promotion and public relations marketing. At this moment we know beyond any doubt that all of our local, small businesses and their employees are suffering. A social media feed filled with macaron towers, fancy amenities, and marble-clad kitchens will be perceived as impersonal, insensitive, and conveys a developer and marketing team philosophy that is completely detached from reality. Think about how your development can help support the locale and promote it in a way that positions it as a valued addition to the community. Now add that to your marketing strategy. Do good now, and exponential good will follow you in the future.

This moment in time will undoubtedly change our industry, and the million-dollar question as I write this is just how much. Let’s use this time as an opportunity to reshape, improve on and create processes that utilize new technologies to drive a different type of client engagement; the rest of the world is already there and we cannot afford to be behind anymore.