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YouTubers both amateur and professional are turning to real estate, making videos that offer a look inside the mansions of the ultra-wealthy.
Enes Yilmazer, who has more than 820,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel, posts tours of some of the priciest homes in the country, from penthouses on New York’s “Billionaires’ Row” to waterfront mansions on Lake Tahoe in Nevada and California. His videos garner millions of views and tens of thousands of comments.
YouTubers’ focus on such properties is shining a brighter light on the high-end market. “They are making YouTube an increasingly important marketing channel for even the most privacy-obsessed home sellers and their real estate agents,” The Wall Street Journal reports. “That’s been particularly evident over the past year as the COVID pandemic reduced the number of buyers willing to tour homes in person.”
Some real estate pros are even turning to YouTube influencers to help show off their listings. Last month, real estate pro Rochelle Maize turned to TikTok to create more buzz around a $5.3 million listing in Santa Monica, Calif. During the month of April, TikTok influencers applied via an online form to spend two hours filming in Maize’s listing. They received access to several of the home’s “viral-worthy vignettes,” including its two-story pool slide, music room, recording studio, arts and crafts room, and game room.
Erik Conover, also a YouTuber who has nearly 1.6 million subscribers, told the Journal that he believes his videos attract potential buyers for the luxurious homes that are featured on his channel.
But not all real estate pros believe leveraging social media influencers is the best way to market their luxury properties. Some practitioners told the Journal that they believe some prospective buyers prefer not to have their future home splashed across the internet. “A lot of sellers at a very high level want to maintain some semblance of privacy,” said Alexander Ali, founder of the Society Group, a nationwide real estate public relations firm. “Our buyers would not necessarily want everyone seeing their bedrooms and the overall layout of the home from a security perspective.” Also, sellers in this segment may not like their homes used as “bait for advertisers,” Ali added.