If a picture is worth 1000 words, then a virtual tour is worth ten million. In a competitive real estate market it is important to ensure that set your property apart from other homes on the market, something I call competitive advantage. Weather you are selling your home through a Real Estate Professional or doing it on your own, the investment of a virtual will not only give you this competitive advantage, it will give potential buyers a better feel of your property.

You can do a virtual tour with your current digital camera or hire a service to perform this for you. A recommendation that I have for taking pictures of a home is to use a wide angle lens. If you have a point and shoot digital camera you can purchase a 0.45 magnetic wide angle lens for about $ 45. Wide angle lenses give you about 60% more of a room when you are taking pictures.

 You could take the pictures of your home yourself and have a third party stitch the pictures together to give a panoramic tour of your home. Stitching pictures is a process where you take a series of pictures throughout a room that overlap each other. These pictures are then “stitched” together and when the done right, looks like a panoramic of that room.

One key tip is to capture the best images of the home and the best attributes and amenities. The number one tip I can provide is make sure that you prepare for the virtual tour. Know what key highlights you want to capture and what vantage points you will use. There are three things that potential buyers typically look for in a virtual tour.

The first is the front of the home and street. Using a panoramic 360 degree tour starting with the left side of the property for sale and rotating right so that the neighborhood can be seen is important. It is important that your driveway is free of any vehicles and your lawn is freshly manicured. You should also ensure that trees don’t have any dead leaves and any plants are alive and vibrant.

The second area that is of interest to potential buyers is the kitchen. Highlighting your counters, appliances and cabinets will satisfy the curiosity of potential buyers. While taking photos of your kitchen make sure you remove portable appliances like toasters from the counter tops and remove anything from the refrigerators, like your kid’s report cards and drawings.

The final area that will be of interest is the master suite, this includes the bathroom. Make sure that all beds are made, the room is organized and there is nothing on dressers or nightstands that should not be. Make sure your bathroom counters are clutter free and your toilet seat is closed.

Another tip that I can provide that is also very important is safety and security of your property. I have seen many virtual tours where the 65” Plasma television, Blue Ray DVD players, Rolex watch boxes and expensive art are part of the virtual tour. Never allow this to happen. Putting your prized possessions and valuables on the internet may result in potential risk to these assets. Think about how would be burglars find there ‘targets’. It is just not a good idea. In rooms that have these I would recommend that a vantage point in the corner is used where these valuables will not be part of the pictures taken. As a side note, that is why I recommend that there are no vehicles in the driveway.

From a marketing perspective these virtual tours should be uploaded to as many online websites as possible. This would include your Real Estate Professionals website or a For Sale by Owner website if you are selling on your own. You should also have your virtual tour linked to Realtor.com, Zillow.com and the local MLS. You can also use free sites like YouTube.com where people can search by key words. When you are putting these on the internet make sure you also include text and a voice over describing what each of the tour segments are. If you are taking a panoramic tour of the pool for example make sure that people know what kind of pool it is, if it is heated, depth of the pool and any other features it has like a water fall for example. People absorb information in three ways, they have to see it, hear it and read it and by having a virtual tour with audio voice over and text you will cover each of these.

As a seller, you should demand that a virtual tour of your property is completed and marketed throughout the internet. According to the National Association of Realtors nearly 84% of potential buyers use the internet to initiate their property search. By leveraging the technology of virtual tours, you will be able to walk potential buyers through your home and give them a personal tour from the comfort of their home. From a showing perspective, we found that potential buyers that want to preview the actual property are much more serious about making a purchase when you have a virtual tour for that property because they have already “previewed” it once.