by Leo Wiles
29 April 2015
I have a question for your Ask Us blog. I’m a published freelancer in Perth, trying to really rev up my workload after a few years of only doing ad-hoc assignments while I had kids. I’m interested in getting into the property writing field but have never been published in this area before. (Previously written on animals, environment, business topics). Any tips on how to get people to take me on as a property writer with no property writing experience? Natasha
Interesting one. Real estate is general is volatile niche area manned by cut-throat agents, who keep their costs low by do the writing in-house. When they do pay, they tend to have long arms and short pockets. I know only one journo working in this field and she earns $100 a house – as you can imagine she visits a LOT of houses.
As it’s such a tough market, you’ll need initiative and tangible experience – you can’t fake it or write around it. You’ll need to know your patch and be prepared to work weekends going to the houses, flats, business parks etc that your clients represent. You’ll also need to understand the economic climate, the demographics of your area and have intricate knowledge of current housing prices and trends.
It may be worth putting in some time at your local rag, which are almost all supported by their real estate sections. That way, you can showcase your copywriting skills (the skills you’ll need to draw upon rather than your objective reporting voice). You may not get your normal rate, but at least you’ll have relevant cuts to show agents. Rubbing shoulders with local architects and building contractors, keeping abreast of interest rate shifts, mortgage brokers and insurance fine print should also become second nature if you want to write for the trades and expand your property writing to B2B.
A word of warning, though: real estate agents count everything. Working in percentages, they have a bad reputation for not valuing copywriters (and many think they can do it better themselves), and as I mentioned above they pay outsiders – like photographers and writers – poorly. So it’s really crucial that do your homework and skip the small firms who write in-house or may use cheap content mills. Instead, target the blue chip real estate agents with a high turnover who can afford to hire you on a regular basis. You can find them listed in Real Estate Business, the online trade publication that runs an annual round up of top firms.
The silver lining to this overly pessimistic post is that with over 40,000 real estate agents in Australia, and interest rates going down (with more people looking to buy), it should be a good time to make your approach. Autumn is also one of their peak seasons. So good luck!
Have you worked in the real estate or property sector? Any tips to share with Natasha?
