Talking Billboards Make A Showing
The Age
Wednesday January 10, 1996
There are signs that the holiday ``downtime" might be shorter, at least in real estate. Christopher de Fraga reports.
YOU are driving past a house in an area that interests you when you spot a signboard showing a house is for sale.
It is holiday time. There is no one around. A call to the agent's office establishes that he, too, is on holiday.
Then you spot another number in the corner of the signboard.
This is the number of a strictly limited 300-metre-range radio transmitting the FM band.
You tune the car radio to it and all the information you could want starts flowing - if you are outside a house to be sold by one Brighton agent.
The latest in real-estate advertising, the radio system provides enough information for you to decide whether or not you want to come back and look at the interior.
Kelvin Evans from Info-FM of Dingley (9551 5685) researched for more than 17 months the ``talking house" system, which is used in the United States and Canada. There, it is marketed as a ``talking billboard" and ``realtor radio". (Realtors in the United States are real estate agents.) ``It has been tried here in a limited way," Evans says.
``A new solid-state system, however, has a program to allow the agent to record the information required without needing a separate third party. This makes it more economical."
The $1000 unit can be rented by the agent or vendor in the weeks leading up to the auction or preceding a private sale.
A new add-on system that uses a motion/heat sensor to detect the presence of buyers can quietly play the recorded message through a speaker at the board.
The telephone numbers of the agent, or the owner of the house, can be included in the FM message to the people standing on the footpath by the sign.
© 1996 The Age