Real Estate Investing Articles

It’s a statistical fact that almost 90% of potential home buyers start their search for their “dream home” on the Internet, and 72% of those Internet users drive past a home that they first saw online. According to Realtor.com, virtual tour listings get “hit” 40% more than ordinary listings. All of that leads to one conclusion, and the savvy real estate investor understands that they need to move beyond the traditional still (ho hum) photographs of the house and property, and create dynamic video that really conveys a property’s potential. These “virtual tours” are an ideal medium to draw that buyer to you, from anywhere in the world. Though still a rarity, it is not unheard of for a home to be bought entirely over the Internet, (physically) sight unseen, usually by individuals or families relocating from another area of the country, or even from another country.

Selling property the old fashioned way, via print media and weekend scheduled “Open Houses,” were fine in their day. But newspaper classified advertisements, and listings in the “Take One Free” brochures invariably found at bus and train stations, as well as 24- hour convenience store magazine racks, had a very limited (i.e. local) reach. Even in seller-favorable market environments, the period from listing to closing could take several weeks and even months.

The real estate investor, as the property seller, can benefit tremendously from virtual tours. The primary advantage is exposure — your property is available for viewing all day, every day, to people in your neighborhood as well as half way across the globe. For the vast majority of home buyers, the time factor, coupled with the ever rising cost of gas, is enough to keep them home sitting behind a desk and exploring the available real estate listings online. The virtual tour eliminates those buyers who aren’t serious – you’ve probably heard of them, they’re “professional” Open House visitors, who do it just for sport (and the cookies), and who relish the opportunity to inspect every nook and cranny (and kitchen junk drawer) of a potential new home.

Another advantage, arguably more important than exposure, is that listed homes with virtual tours sell for more money than comparable properties with only static pictures, sometimes by as much as ten percent.

Having access to a video camera, video editing software and a You Tube account doesn’t necessarily give you license to create your own virtual tour. Nor should you attempt to create your own virtual tour just to save a few bucks. That’s not to suggest you couldn’t do this, but any attempt to do so should be objectively judged, by you – because it will be, and perhaps harshly, by the visitors who view it and immediately click out of it. There are several do-it-yourself kits and packages that will help you create a successful virtual tour.

Some individuals have no picture taking skills whatsoever; they are generally the ones who tend to decapitate their subject, and wouldn’t know an F-stop from an O-spot. For those people, the answer is a professionally created virtual tour. Prices vary, but generally the package is well worth the investment. A professionally created virtual tour should also provide you with the ability to link to external sites, such as search engines, blogs, real estate portals, etc. Furthermore, your virtual tour should offer tracking options and site meters, so that you can see which room or features appears to be most relevant to your site visitors.

At a bare minimum, a virtual tour should have these components:

• Simple navigation – is it easy for your visitors to “walk around” the property, find a specific room or zoom in on something special?

• 360º Images – Some rooms and exteriors warrant a panoramic view, just to capture its innate beauty; you don’t want this for every room, just for the ones that you feel can best “sell” the property, perhaps because of their size or their unique qualities.

• Narration, Audio and Sound Track – You don’t need hokey background music, but you should have compelling voice-over dialogue written, so that you can walk your visitor through the rooms, and point out features and modifications that might otherwise be missed. A word about voice-over, if you’re creating your own virtual tour, listen to yourself on audio tape before you take on the role of narrator; the voice you hear is the voice everyone else does, and it may not be as melodic as you think.

• Load time – Internet users love speed, and if your virtual tour takes forever to load, you’ve lost a potential home buyer.

The virtual tour is a win-win situation for both the real estate investor and the home buyer. Think of it as a “Cyber Open House,” minus the refreshments, of course.

Barb Zigah is a freelance writer covering real estate and business topics.

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Posted by Barb Zigah under real estate agents & real estate marketing | 1 Comment »