An advertising creative, seeing his freelance work shrink post COVID lockdowns, is using his experience and expertise as a storyteller to sell his house.
The sale, billed as Australasia’s Greatest ever house sale, also showcases his skills with film.
Brett D'Souza, with his income falling, needs to sell his home of 12 years, a three bedroom freestanding house in Melbourne’s Brunswick.
But he questions the value in using real estate agents. ”What is the skill involved in it?” he says.
“I've been advertising for years. I don't understand why I would just give someone $35,000-$40,000 to just put it online … if this house does go for $1.8 million, which I'm hoping it does.”
He started preparing for the sales a couple of months, using his filmmaking skills. He calls it a love story with a house.
Here's the trailer for 6 Walton Street Brunswick. There's more to come soon.
“I was scared of launching it officially because I didn't want to look crazy,” he told AdNews.
He then got help from Homesta, which has a service for homeowners to prepare for private sale. He also got someone to do the floor plan.
“I'm pitching it on the basis of not just buying a house, you're buying into the community,” he says.
“This is a love story of Brunswick. I don't want to leave here. If I had the money, I would keep the house … but I can't afford to do that.
“It's a love story area. You're not just buying a house, like you're buying a community.
“It's small enough that you kind of can know your local greengrocer. I've done a video with the greengrocer.
“You can know the people in the cafe by name and your kids can be safe.”
Post COVID lockdowns he’s found the advertising industry changed.
“All these companies have internal agencies so the jobs that I was getting had gone to these,” says D'Souza.
“I feel like the quality of work dropped a lot.”
He realises he’s not going to shake up the real estate industry by selling his house himself.
“If I'm going to sell it, I want to sell it on my terms,” he says.
“My son, who is nine, doesn't want to leave. He hates the idea. I had to explain to him: ‘Mate, I'm doing this because I don't have work’.
“His little hand print is in the concrete driveway.”
To keep costs down he is trying to bartering his filmmaking skills.
“I'm broke,” he says. ‘HomeStar, my first kind of corporate sponsor, put it online on realestate.com, for free.
“In the next couple of weeks, I'm taking these articles and everything I've done to the next organisation and I want to try and get their services for free. If they want I will make them an ad.
"I also feel that filmmaking is a bit overblown. Sometimes people think that they need 20 people on set and all that sort of stuff.
"The last doco I made I did with one person, a cinematographer, and that was it. No sound, no camera, no lights, no this, no nothing."
Here's the equipment he used to produce the private house sale content:
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