Case Study: Pasir Ris 8 - Media Hype & New Launch Google Ads Campaigns

Pasir Ris 8 was a condo launch that happened mid-July of 2021.

The mixed development was set to be one of the most anticipated developments in the East, with four 11-storey blocks, three 10-storey blocks, and a total of 487 luxury units to offer. 

The project was in the hands of a joint venture by Singapore’s highly sought-after developers Allgreen Properties & Kerry Properties.

A whopping 415 units were snapped up within 2 days of launch, with a take up rate to 85.2%. 

Here, we take a look at the buzz surrounding the launch as well as how SMC performed amidst the high market demand: 

Pasir Ris was one of the residential projects that generated the most excitement of the year.

In fact, it was widely publicized that Allgreen had to modify their prices 6 times over the opening weekend.

According to the news, prices started at about $1400 psf in the morning of 24th July, and increased 6 times throughout the day to $2,116 psf at night. The biggest round of price hikes occurred at 8pm with a $360,000 jump that took a 2-bedroom unit from $1.145 million to $1.503 million (31.3%). 

So, here’s the real question - what brought this on and where did all the buzz really come from? 

Despite all the hullabaloo and fanfare, the news only stemmed from a mere 1.2% of the transactions - in other words 5 out of 417 units.

In fact, there were quite a few stacks unsold though there were a high volume of purchases.

These units were either premium units, or near to the major road - which was generally shunned due to its noisy traffic.

Speculative reasons for these purchasers’ willingness to pay for such a high price was its excellent view of Pasir Ris Park and the Serangoon Harbour.  

As of today, only 5 of the remaining 2,3 and 4-bedroom units of the residence are left unsold.

Before the launch dates, Pasir Ris 8 was marketed aggressively by all parties, with many real estate agency sites, blogs, and news articles talking about it. 

It created a sense of FOMO (fear of missing out) amongst peers, which has been a marketing tactic used for decades. 

But what truly made heads turn was its news post-launch.

Since news tends to focus on the most exceptional outliers, many papers highlighted the units that transacted for $2,000 psf. So, while only a handful of units sold for this price, Pasir Ris 8 still managed to stand out in that aspect. 

Pasir Ris was a mature estate that had no new launches for a very long time.

Like Ang Mo Kio, it had an underserved and untapped market. 

As such, you can imagine why it drew such attention from prospective homebuyers. 

At the initial phases of the campaign, there were not many leads. But these leads had a low CPC and were cheap to get.

As time passed, we transitioned to the phase where more people were finding out about the project. This was also the stage when the condo was being aggressively marketed.

Search volume for the keyword increased as more people were curious to find out about the new launch. As a result, the campaigns saw a higher number of impressions and clicks.

Unfortunately, the media hype created a false illusion. People were merely interested to know more about the project, but were not serious buyers. 

So, despite the high number of impressions and clicks, the closure rate was not high.

For Pasir Ris 8, we had a total of 80 leads generated and 5 units sold by 2 of our agents. They received a total of $75,000 in commissions.

That’s an average of $15,000 commissions per unit sold. 

Most of the Google Ads campaign ran for 3 months, 6-9 months prior the official condo launch date, with a total of $3k ad spend.

That’s 25x the returns.

But overall, our agents did quite well considering the existing competition we faced. 

Pasir Ris 8 was one of our better performing campaigns - and if you’d like to replicate our success, consider consulting our team of experts here. 

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Wishing you all the best for 2023 - may it be a year filled with inspiration, motivation and happiness. And of course, we hope you’ll SellMoreCondos too!

SellMoreCondos (SMC) is a digital marketing agency for realtors that redefines new launch marketing. We use a systematic, data-driven framework to reduce the workload of agents and increase their profitability. If you need help with marketing new launches, get everything you need to excel at new launch lead generation at our e-shop or get in touch with us for more information.