What a settlement photo actually says to a first home buyer

Lots of brokers post settlement photos. The sold sticker, a beaming couple, ‘another happy client, congratulations Tom and Phuong’. It’s a great post, intended to inspire and trigger emotion.

But the vast majority of these posts miss the mark, in that they’re too generic.

Who the post is actually for

The couple in the photo already bought. They don’t need convincing. The person the post is working on is the one scrolling past it, who’s been thinking about buying for eight months and hasn’t called anyone yet.

What stops that person is rarely a lack of information. It’s more about a sneaking suspicion that people like them might not get approved, that the process will expose something embarrassing, that they have left it too late. A settlement photo can answer all of that, but only if they can see themselves in it.

‘Another happy client’ does not let them. It;s a scoreboard, and they’re not on it.

The change

Make the post about the situation rather than the outcome. One specific detail about where the client started does more than any amount of celebration of where they ended up.

Keys handed over in Fremantle this morning. Last year Tom was newly self-employed and two lenders said no. We found a third who understood his income and saw the potential in his business.

Now the reader has something to hold onto. Self-employed. Knocked back twice. Not the two years of ABN history everyone assumes you need. If any of that sounds like them, the post has just told them the thing they were afraid of might not be fatal.

The details that do the work

The useful detail is almost always the obstacle, not the result. Some that consistently land:

• A deposit smaller than people expect is required
• Income that looks messy on paper — contracting, commission, a new job, parental leave
• A previous knock-back, from a bank or another broker
• A timeline that was tighter than comfortable
• A suburb name, because ‘in Fremantle’ is worth more than ‘in WA’

None of those are brags. Every one of them is a door.

• Write about where the client started, not where they finished
• One specific obstacle beats three adjectives about how lovely they were
• Name the suburb. Local reads as relevant

What to do if you can’t use the photo

Plenty of clients say no to a photo, and plenty of brokers would rather not ask. The post still works without one.

A plain graphic with the numbers does the same job: ‘Settled this week. Self-employed, eleven months of history, two prior declines.’ No faces, no names, no permission needed, same message to the person reading it.

If you are going to use a photo and a name, get it in writing, keep it, and ask again if you plan to reuse it later. A quick message is fine. ‘Happy for me to share this on socials with your first names?’ Most people say yes, and the ones who don’t will appreciate being asked.

What to leave out

Three things turn this post back into a brag, and all three are common.

The loan amount. It’s the number brokers most want to include but the one that helps the reader the least. It says something about the client’s income – and appetite for debt – and nothing about whether you can help this particular reader.

The lender’s name. Unless the point of the post is that a specific lender understood something unusual, naming them turns your story into their advertisement. Besides, you don’t want to inadvertently send people straight to the bank.

The word ‘easy’. If it was easy, the reader’s situation – which probably feels anything but – isn’t covered by your story. ‘We found a third who understood contracting income’ is a better line than ‘it was a smooth process’ precisely because it admits there were two lenders that didn’t make it easy.

One a fortnight is plenty

This format doesn’t reward volume. Two of these a month, written properly, will outperform weekly keys photos, because each one covers a different starting point and between them they gradually say: whatever your situation is, someone like you got through it.

That is what social proof actually does. It is not a trophy cabinet. It is permission.