Geocache Your Way to a Home Sale

If you're looking for an interesting way of showcasing your homes, introducing clients to your area or making an otherwise boring home hunting trip into an interesting one, why not try geocaching? Geocaching is a great way to get outdoors and make traversing a community more fun. It also can be the doorway to new ideas on how to market your homes and get the attention of people who are on the fence about buying.

If you're an accomplished cacher, you know what “geocaching” means. If not, here's a brief overview: Geocaching began in the year 2000 when people realized that Global Positioning Systems (GPS) could be used to pinpoint locations where a cache was hidden. This cache usually took the form of plastic or metal canisters which housed tradable items and a logbook. It has grown to nearly 850,000 caches logged around the world. For more information about geocaching, head over to geocaching.com

You might think that this is kind of crazy – what does geocaching have to do with home sales? Niche marketing is the answer. The concept isn’t new; there are currently “bicycle Realtors® who offer bicycle tours of homes for sale. There are realties that offer weekly real estate walking tours. So why not take advantage of one of the fastest-growing outdoor sports to encourage people to buy?

If you have clients who are geocachers or are outdoors inclined, a geocache hunt may be a great way to spend an afternoon touring the city. Offering a "Geocache Tour" of your area is an unusual and fun way of getting people interested in the neighborhoods they visit in the course of the tour. Geocaching is growing into a hugely popular sport and many people scouting out locations for their new home would be happy to know that there are a large number of caches in the area.

The geocaching principle can also be used for clients who are house touring. In addition to being a great way to take a break from house touring, your GPS can be used to plot the course of your home tours so that your clients can later review them, along with pictures. This can be a good way to give your clients a little extra information to work with when they make their choice.

If you can get together with other Realtors®, you could try planning a sort of “geo house hunt” of open houses in the area. It might seem crazy, but making a game out of house hunting could be the impetus that makes someone take the next step to buying their first home when they “fall in love” with a house that is on the tour.

Today’s market requires some ingenuity to attract the attention and interest of potential buyers. Geocaching is growing so rapidly in popularity that it is certainly a viable way of showcasing both your business and homes you hope to sell.