The Problem
Covid-19 had hit, and it wasn’t that the housing market was at risk, it was that there was no housing market. Without people available to view properties, no housing stock could be moved. A panic gripped the industry like no other.
However…
However, when there’s a crisis, there’s opportunity. Lockdown couldn’t last forever. Whatever the “new normal” turned out to be, people will still need houses. The housing industry wasn’t going anywhere soon.
To reassure our customers, we created a remote-pivot campaign, positioning LandTech as the solution for remote site sourcing. We touted the benefits of finding off-market land via LandInsight, versus the traditional method of cycling around a neighbourhood, looking for opportunities.
At the top of our funnel for this campaign, we wanted to create a data story unlike no other… a data story which would reassure customers that despite the urgency world-is-melting news, with a bit of perspective, this could be a unique opportunity…
Enter Housing Booms and Busts since 1975
The solution was a data story looking back on housing economic cycles from 1975 to today. It covered three periods:
- The overall housing market, and the result of Margaret Thatcher’s interest rate shock rise
- A look at the 90s, starting with Black Wednesday, and the regime of New Labour
- A look at the financial crisis, and its aftermath. With a brief catchup on the 2010 to 2019 period.
This data story looked not only at house prices, and interest rates. But construction data, money invested in construction, mortgages approved amongst others. One chart had more than nine pieces of data users could toggle on and off.
There were was key finding for our customers: after every economic downturn, was a housing boom that outpaced the previous housing boom.
The Result
The remote-pivot campaign was a success, with LandTech securing enough licenses and renewals during Q2 of 2020 to avoid making any redundancies. It positioned LandInsight as the go-to tool for remote work in the market.
The Housing Booms and Busts since 1975 has since been updated. Not only to have data going up to Q3 of 2023, but with much more data. Looking at the effects of interest rates on inflation. Wages data going back even further, and house market data going back to 1968.
It is a comprehensive data story, continuing to be a source of evergreen traffic that averages more than eight minutes on page in Hubspot’s metrics.