Lured by a soft dollar and a strong real estate market, wealthy foreigners have been buying New York residential properties in great numbers the past few years, but lately they’ve also become the target of real estate firms’ advertising and marketing dollars.
“There’s no doubt that if you look over the years, we’ve increased our advertising in foreign papers,” says Christina Lowris, vice president of marketing and advertising for the Corcoran Group. “We’ve taken advantage of the fact that we know a lot of the buyers coming to New York are foreign and have consistently gotten a great response from placing properties on IHT.com [the International Herald Tribune’s Web site], and the Asian and European editions of the Wall Street Journal.”
The Corcoran Group isn’t the only firm eager to entice this demographic sector. When the Plaza announced the hotel’s conversion into private residences, the foreign press corps was invited in before the local media for a tour. This publicity effort may have resulted in buyers from countries such as Japan, Italy, and Ireland, and whom Elizabeth Stribling of Stribling & Associates, the Plaza’s exclusive sales agent, describes as “a cosmopolitan mixture of international entrepreneurs and very successful business people who can afford anything.
“We didn’t have to do a lot of advertising for the Plaza because word or mouth and buzz were enormous,” Stribling says. “The Plaza is so mythic you don’t have to say anything — the Plaza is the message.”
But for new developments that don’t have a place in pop culture just yet, advertising is necessary to send a building’s message to the right foreign niche. In the case of the luxury condominium 15 Central Park West, the building was marketed to top economic and political figures at the 2006 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and on a wrapper for copies of the Financial Times. Richard Wallgren, a broker for the building, says the response has been “positive.”
According to Alchemy Properties partner Joel Breitkopf, there have been “a tremendous number of inquiries from foreign buyers” about the Sutton Hotel condo conversion, which Alchemy advertised in the International Herald Tribune.
There are other methods of homing in on foreign buyers besides foreign publications. Sotheby’s International Realty markets its resale properties to the art world through its auction houses, and when Sotheby’s attends an art fair, it keeps real estate brochures at its booth.
“If a property warrants international exposure, we immediately put [the listing] at the auction houses,” says Ellie Johnson, a vice president at Sotheby’s and brokerage manager for the Upper East Side office. “A perfect example of how that works was when the manager from Sotheby’s Cape Cod office sent a listing for a property to the London auction house because he had committed to the seller that he would do that. No sooner had the London house gotten the listing when someone called from London. And they actually bought the property.” In addition to their auction houses, Sotheby’s places ads with foreign editions of publications such as Architectural Digest in Russia.
One major obstacle to advertising abroad isn’t a fear that an advertising campaign’s message will get lost in translation or complicated foreign media regulations; it’s the real possibility that advertising to people who live abroad may be money misspent. While the ads may get the attention of foreigners, only a small percentage of people will actually come to New York and buy an apartment.
Doug Russell, a senior vice president and managing director of Brown Harris Stevens, notes, “There are lots of investors who come into town, but if they don’t strike while the iron is hot, they’re off in another country and you tend not to hear from them again. Why advertise in the Times of London when you can put an ad in the New York Times? It makes sense to keep the advertising dollars in the U.S.”
Cheryl Tanenbaum, a broker who estimates that 70 percent of her business is with out-of-towners, advertises her foreign properties, such as a castle in Switzerland, in newspapers such as the International Herald Tribune, but doesn’t advertise her New York listings there. Instead she sees the Internet as a real boon to her domestic business and an easy way for foreigners to get acquainted with New York properties.
“The Internet is a huge tool,” she says. “It has helped people get a feeling of what they are looking at, and to be educated about the market. Someone could be on there for hours looking.” Still, for Tanenbaum, word of mouth is the best way to attract foreign clients. “If a client is happy with your service, ” she says, “you get referred.”