Why you should add floor plans to your property listings

When buyers are actively home shopping, it's easy for them to miss or forget details because they're seeing so many homes at once. Homes tend to blend together, and memory is imperfect.

You can imagine a prospect asking their spouse: "Was the second home we saw on Saturday the one with the first-floor laundry?" "Which one had the finished basement?" "Where was the master bedroom, overlooking the backyard or a neighbor's house?"

Plus, photos can distort the size of a room. Every buyer has had the experience of searching a listing online and then being surprised by how small some rooms actually are. With a floor plan in your mix of images, any confusion is cleared up instantly. Prospects often refer back to the floor plan to gain clarity.

A floor plan supplements a listing's property features, accurately depicting the dimensions of each room, the number of windows and their placement, the location of the doorways, and the relative size of each closet.

Buyers can see where the stairs connect the different floors, the locations of bathrooms and the proximity of the bedrooms to each other. They can evaluate how well situated the kitchen and living room are and how private their bedroom can be. In a single image, a floor plan conveys a lot of information.

Buyers perusing homes on the web can get a strong sense of whether a home is right for them. But, without a floor plan, it takes effort on their part to try to piece all the visual elements together in their mind's eye.

Just think how many times you reviewed a listing's photography and wondered how all the rooms fit together. A floor plan replaces that mental effort. It shows the relationship of one room to another, giving the prospect a true feel for the flow of the house.

Room dimensions are not subject to the distortions that photography or even virtual tours can introduce. The placement of doors, windows, closets, and permanent fixtures, like bathroom vanities and kitchen counters, are all fixed in space. Viewing a floor plan gives the homebuyer the ability to virtually walk through a house room by room, upstairs, then down and back again. The feel of the space becomes tangible, a place to potentially live.

In the right home, this engagement with the floor plan produces an emotional attachment to the home it represents. The buyers can now "see themselves" in the home. Many prospects will then consider where to put their furniture, which child gets what room and decorating ideas. Once that happens, you might as well put out the Sold sign!

Entrepreneurs are fast realizing the potential of offering software and services to create floor plans for home sellers. DIY or hiring a professional are now affordable options. Many of the apps are free or nearly so, but you'll pay with your time instead. Be aware that some CAD-based (computer-aided design) products are for architects and builders and are well beyond your needs. It's important to do your research and choose wisely.

In contrast, here's one product example - CubiCasa - to help explain what you may be looking for. Their claim is that it would take around five minutes for you to create the scans the company needs to provide you with a usable floor plan in JPG, PNG or SVG file formats. The cost of such service, delivered within 24 hours, would typically be under $50.^Footnote2

With these types of innovations, adding floor plans becomes a no-brainer.

Perhaps the best case for adding floor plans is that you'll be providing a unique feature that sets your listings apart. It's hard to get a leg up in any business. But this is a real opportunity because most agents don't see the potential. For a modest fee and learning curve, it can help you close sales with less effort.