Presupposition Is The Mistake:  Why Housing Marketing Doesn’t Meet The Bar

Though I’ve never taken a marketing class, I remember fellow students quoting the famous Philip Kotler, who said that marketing is “the creation of demand.”  Simplistic to be sure, but a useful shorthand for that many-splendored thing that many of us do for a living.  We market to create demand, which enables us to sell our products and services.  A neat formulation. 

In recalling that, I realized what is broken in the “marketing” of Housing. We are doing a poor job of creating demand. 

Here, a digression is warranted.

Out for drinks with two well-heeled early-thirty-somethings, we got to talking about housing. In the course of the conversation, it turns out that both were renting apartments and that neither had any plans or desire to buy a house. Both sought ease and freedom over homeownership.  Both sought flexibility, mobility, and the appurtenances that come with high disposable income. 

I myself am drawn like a moth to the flame of freedom, and might do it differently if I could do it again.  I’ve been lucky that the house my wife and I bought in 2005 has appreciated, but owning it has come at a real cost- high mortgage payments, jitters when it went down in value for years, and anticipation of high costs when things, well, break down.  The costs of maintenance are high, and the pressure of “lock-in” is real.  Still, I found myself wanting to lecture on both the financial importance of homeownership and the idea that generational wealth must be built. Neither person has kids or wants kids, and, as such, the latter idea wasn’t particularly moving to them. Homeownership represented restriction to them, not freedom.

In housing, we assume that people want to own and our marketing presupposes this desire.  We talk endlessly of our rates, easy processes, and great brands and reputations.  But we market using a sort of “after the fact” methodology, forgetting Kotler’s basic premise that if we were marketing well, we’d be creating demand, not simply assuming it exists. The presupposition that demand exists or is natural is a bad one and simply does not apply to a vast swath of people for whom the “American Dream” lies elsewhere.

In a complex world, with many life narratives possible, and with a growing consciousness of living life in ways different than the cookie-cutter, post-War halcyon zone, Housing is more of a metonym than a true desire.  Sure, millennials will say they see homeownership as a distant dream, but I’m increasingly convinced that here, “homeownership” is a metaphor for financial success and stability, not about the house itself. When millennials say they can’t imagine a path to homeownership, they are really saying that they cannot imagine a path to financial freedom. The house is incidental. 

If we’ve missed one mark in “housing marketing,” it is this- we make a set of assumptions that all people are alike in their desires, and forget the basics- that as with all things, demand has to be created not just presupposed. 

That pivot is essential if we are to work to convince those who can afford homeownership but choose to avoid it that homeownership has untold advantages. Marketers must make assumptions but not stick to them rigidly in the face of massive changes in the desires, dreams, and decisions of an ever-changing population.  

Romi Mahajan is the CEO of ExoFusion.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of HousingWire’s editorial department and its owners. To contact the editor responsible for this piece: zeb@hwmedia.com.