“I watch The Real Housewives,” says Becky Fatemi. “It helps me sell the lifestyle, not just the bricks-and-mortar.” The executive partner at UK Sotheby’s International Realty is one of a growing number of estate agents leaning into social media, and turning posts into property sales. A landmark £20mn sale in Belgravia last year was initiated on Instagram. Her colleague Sam Sproston, meanwhile, recently sold two off-market properties from IG reels – for £4.75mn and £3.5mn. “Another client didn’t want to show a video of their home,” he says, “so I described it in an Instagram story as I was walking through Wandsworth Common, and someone bought it for £7.75mn.”
It’s not like the deals are done in the DMs, but it’s often the first point of contact
Ryan Serhant, estate agent
The influencer economy is big business. Beyond unboxing videos, it’s an ecosystem of content creation and product placement that Goldman Sachs predicts will be worth close to half a trillion dollars globally by 2027. Estate agents are increasingly playing their part. Currently, 23.1 per cent of US agents use content marketing (placing ads on social media), according to B2B marketplace the Digital Agency Network, while 46 per cent cited social media as the top source of high-quality leads.
