US agents are ditching traditional listing videos for TikTok comedy sketches – hide-and-seek games, dating show parodies – with some videos hitting millions of views. Only 16 per cent of American agents use TikTok professionally despite 63 per cent of under-30s being on the platform, so the real measure for your own experiments won’t be views but enquiries, inspection bookings and traceable leads.
Sweeping drone footage, dramatic background music and polished property walkthroughs have become staples of real estate marketing. But a new generation of agents is adding something unexpected to the mix: comedy.
In the United States in particular, agents are transforming traditional property walkthroughs into TikTok comedy sketches, reality television parodies and elaborate games of hide-and-seek, turning homes into the unlikely stars of their own social media shows.
And while the results might have traditional agents questioning what happened to simply opening the front door and showing buyers around, the approach is attracting serious online attention.
According to reporting by The Business Insider, younger agents are increasingly borrowing ideas from popular culture to create property videos that feel more like entertainment than advertising.
One of those agents is 24-year-old Merek Greene from Compass, who gave a San Diego property the full Love Island treatment in July.
Rather than introducing the home with the usual list of bedrooms, bathrooms and entertaining areas, Greene presented the listing as a new “bombshell” entering the villa, borrowing the dating show’s familiar format to introduce the property to prospective buyers.
The playful approach still had a commercial purpose, with viewers encouraged to book a private inspection.
Merek told Business Insider that consistent social media posting had generated referrals and helped keep him visible to potential clients.
Meanwhile, in Northern Virginia, associate broker Lisa DuBois has taken an entirely different approach to property marketing: hiding in the houses she is supposed to be selling.
Her recurring TikTok videos challenge viewers to find her concealed inside listings, with hiding spots ranging from wardrobes and crawl spaces to Murphy beds.
The concept sounds more like a children’s birthday party than a marketing strategy, but one of her earliest hide-and-seek videos eventually attracted approximately 14 million views, according to the National Association of Realtors.
By turning property features into hiding places, Lisa gives audiences a reason to watch the entire video rather than scrolling past another conventional listing presentation.
The appeal is simple: viewers stay to find the agent, but along the way they see the property.
In another example highlighted by The Close, a US$3.95 million Long Island property became the setting for comedian Max Cohen’s two-part parody of a 1980s romantic comedy.
Rather than disguising the home’s dated interiors, the production used them as part of the joke, turning its distinctive design into the video’s main attraction.
For Australian agents, the idea raises an interesting question: could that questionable 1970s bathroom, unusually shaped living room or mysterious downstairs rumpus become a marketing opportunity rather than something to carefully edit out?
There is also a commercial argument for experimenting with the format.
According to figures cited by The Close, just 16 per cent of American Realtors use TikTok professionally, despite the platform being used by 63 per cent of US adults under 30.
While those figures are specific to the American market, the broader challenge is familiar to Australian agencies competing for attention in increasingly crowded social media feeds.
Traditional listing videos still have their place, but an entertaining concept can give audiences a reason to stop scrolling, particularly when the property itself becomes part of the story. Plenty of views, but what about buyers? Of course, attracting millions of views and attracting someone prepared to sign a contract are two very different achievements.
A video could become an international sensation without producing a single qualified local buyer, particularly when the audience is more interested in the joke than the property.
As The Close points out, there is not yet strong comparative evidence showing that comedy-based listing videos outperform traditional property tours when it comes to generating genuine buyer interest.
For agents experimenting with the format, the more useful measures are likely to be enquiries, inspection bookings, direct messages and leads that can be traced back to the content, rather than views alone.
There is also the small matter of keeping vendors comfortable with the idea of their most valuable asset becoming the setting for a comedy sketch.
And while the videos might look spontaneous, agents still need to meet their usual advertising obligations, including ensuring property information is accurate and marketing claims are not misleading.
Still, the popularity of unconventional listing videos offers a reminder that property marketing does not always have to look and sound the same.