Using Video to Sell Real Estate

<p> This is an interesting discussion and really deserves more attention than it gets throughout the industry. </p> <p> We have been producing &quot;visual&quot; tours for our listings and website for over three years now. This has proved to be reason we were selected listing agent in many cases. I did a study about a year ago of all active listings in our MLS at that time 9,986 and it turned out that only about 10% had any type of visual tour and those 10% were controlled by less than 2% of the agents. The average agent had just over 1 listing while the agents that used visual tours on their listings had just over 3 listings each (average). Proving, if nothing else, you have a good chance of improving your number of listings if you take the trouble to learn how to do a &quot;visual&quot; tour of any kind. </p> <p> We have always concentrated on listings...My wife favorite saying is &quot;List to Live&quot; and since we really stepped up our marketing to focus primarily (I&#39;d say over 95%) to on sellers our listing have shown a steady increase to the point we usually average over 50 active listings but in this down market, including our land listing we are approaching 100. </p> <p> Our visual tours have evolved over the years from a simple photostory produced slideshow to our current full production tours that include visuals, transitions, titles, narrative and background music. Total cost of production software is under $200 and the website host we use charges $49 a month and we have yet to blow our bandwidth even with 50+ tours at an average of 10MB each. Our next step is to incorporate full motion video in lieu of multiple stills and we are researching video capture systems now. Podcasts are right behind that. So I&#39;m hopeful that this forum will gain more members interested in pushing the technology with recommendations on what works and what doesn&#39;t. </p> <p> Our visual tour website is <a href="http://www.thegilliggroup.com">www.thegilliggroup.com</a>. Please visit and see what you think. Any and all comments appreciated. And yes the narrative is computer generated from a text file that we can also use with little modification for our &quot;Audio&quot; tours that are hosted through Arch Telecom and are referenced from all yard signs and print ads. We were having major issues in getting audio&#39;s recorded for both tours since no one in our group enjoys that task. This has proven to be a real time saver and the sellers have never raised it as an issue. And it does get the point across. </p> <p> If anyone has specific questions regarding tour production or the website in general please do not hesitate to ask... </p>

<p> I haven&#39;t run this by the video hosting services yet, to see if it meets their guidelines, but I think it&#39;s a good idea.<br /> <br /> </p> <p> I normally take down or inactivate my video tours when I sell or withdraw a listing. But there are some sites that might have the link up for a while after the listing is no longer active. I also have <a href="http://akhomz.com/">a site that has many of my sold listings, (without links,) that I have &quot;sold&quot; banners on</a>. On Wellcomemat, if you replace the old video with a new one, the old link still works.<br /> <br /> So... I put a <a href="http://www.wellcomemat.com/video/AA1D4A44C1">short video</a> together, (on the right,) showing a blurred-out generic home in the background with my sign in front and then put an animated <strong>&quot;SOLD!&quot;</strong> sign on it. I&#39;m planning on linking it to my sold listings.<br /> <br /> In the narration, explain that the listing the viewer is looking for has been sold. I suggest that they contact their Realtor or me to suggest homes that are still on the market that are similar to the one they were looking for.<br /> <br /> That way I, (or their Realtor,) have a chance to maintain contact and perhaps find an alternative home for them! Whaddya think?<br /> </p>

<p> Should you make the video a teaser so the viewer is hungry for more information? Or should you provide details that help the Buyer start the decision process without seeing the home? Maybe even to the point of making an offer?<br /> <br /> It&#39;s a difficult decision. And it&#39;s one that you need to consider before you begin shooting your video tour. Here&#39;s my thoughts on the different approaches:<br /> <br /> T<a href="http://www.wellcomemat.com/video/99938F22A1">he 1 to 2-Minute Teaser</a>... A tour of one or two minutes isn&#39;t really a tour but it&#39;s more of a video ad bringing the viewer&#39;s attention the subject property. Aside from the basics of size, style, location and a few quick scenes you don&#39;t have time to go into much detail. This approach starts with the assumption that you have just a few seconds to capture the viewer&#39;s attention and you need to get the message to them quickly and spur them to action. They assume to viewer is flipping through the possibilities quickly and won&#39;t stop to watch a video over one or two minutes. It&#39;s the approach that most of the ads you see on TV use. They are quick, catchy and tend to be strong in the call to action component. You might feel they are easy to produce, but it takes time and thought to compress an effective message into such a small package. You need to say more than &quot;Hey there, look at me!&quot;<br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.wellcomemat.com/video/DBE57B8BDA">The Medium 3 to 5-Minute Tour</a>... This is pretty popular video time span, especially if you don&#39;t narrate. With a tour of this length you&#39;ll be able to spend more time on the highlights and get into some detail with close-ups. You can also do a pretty good walk-through tour of the home and the viewer will feel more immersed in the experience than in the 1 to 2-minute teaser. For a home of more than 1,500 sf you might find it a little restrictive if you want to show and say most of you&#39;d show a buyer on a real tour. It&#39;s a little of both extremes and has the advantage of lower production time and smaller file size while exploiting the advantages of the media. </p> <p> <a href="http://www.wellcomemat.com/video/30A932F6CD">The Documentary 5 to 10-Minute Tour</a>... At this length you have time to go into some detail. If you use a walk-through format you can just about cover every room pausing to take in the highlights and still have time for a summary at the end. This length might be a little too long if you don&#39;t narrate the video, but if you do, it might take this long to do a good job. Ever notice how fast the people talk in the 30-second ads? That&#39;s because it takes time to get the words out. Luckily, most video editing software programs make this fairly easy to accomplish. Many will let you adjust the audio length so you can squeeze it into the right place. </p> <p> There is a school of thought among marketing and advertising folks that shorter is better. The idea is to present your message as flashy and impressive as you can in as short a time as possible. Generally speaking, this approach certainly has merit. When someone is flipping through the pages of a magazine or newspaper, visually flashy ads get their attention. There is the &quot;Hey You!&quot; component, then there is a &quot;call to action&quot; part and then there is a way to contact the advertiser or buy the product they are selling. Effective ads of this type are a precise mix of science and art. And it takes a real expert, or a very attractive product to do it effectively. </p> <p> The well-worn term &quot;just make the phone ring&quot; we real estate salespeople have heard, (and said,) for so long is a another way of saying &quot;shorter is better.&quot; It&#39;s based on the theory that if you can get the buyer to call you, you have a shot at selling them something, anything, just let me at them! If I can get them to call me before anyone else, I will have accomplished my objective. There are experts in real estate advertising that say you should never run an ad that answers every question the buyer might have. Make &#39;em call! For print ads, they&#39;re probably right. </p> <p> But for selling real estate on the Internet a more comprehensive approach might be worth considering. Maybe a &quot;Hey You&quot; component followed with a documentary tour has it&#39;s place in selling real estate. I find that people will watch a video for a long time if they&#39;re interested and motivated. It&#39;s sure a lot easier than driving around to open houses only to be disappointed that the home you came to see isn&#39;t what you had envisioned it to be. I&#39;ve had several of my listings sell to buyers that made offers sight-unseen except for the video tour. </p> <p> I think the buyer that depends heavily on the Internet is looking for more than just a &quot;Hey You!, Call Me!&quot; ad. I think they want information. And I don&#39;t think there&#39;s a media better suited to deliver that information than an effective video tour. </p> <p> That being said, there&#39;s still plenty of buyers out there that are shopping for a Realtor to help them. In the case of branding and self-promotion ads, there&#39;s plenty of room for all styles. I think a combination of &quot;Hey You&quot; videos followed by longer, more substantive ones of what you can offer, would be very effective. </p> <p> BTW... <a href="http://www.realtourvision.com/">Virtual tours</a>, those funny little spinning photos, are a good example of the &quot;Hey You&quot; approach followed by a pretty week attempt at providing information to the buyer. <a href="http://www.tourfactory.com/company/VideoTour.asp">Here&#39;s one of their &quot;videos.&quot;</a> </p> <p> But no matter how you look at it, the future of on-line real estate marketing is VIDEO! </p> <p> <a href="http://del.icio.us/post?v=4&amp;noui&amp;jump=close&amp;url=http%3a%2f%2ffull-motionvideotours.net%2f2008%2f04%2f19%2fhow-long-should-a-tour-last.aspx&amp;title=How+Long+Should+My+Tour+Be%3f"><img alt="del.icio.us" src="http://images.quickblogcast.com/public/visitorImages/chicklet_delicious.gif" /></a> </p> <p> <a href="http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?title=How+Long+Should+My+Tour+Be%3f&amp;url=http%3a%2f%2ffull-motionvideotours.net%2f2008%2f04%2f19%2fhow-long-should-a-tour-last.aspx"><img alt="Stumbleupon" src="http://images.quickblogcast.com/public/visitorImages/chicklet_Stumbleupon.gif" /></a> </p> <p> <a href="http://www.technorati.com/faves?add=http%3a%2f%2ffull-motionvideotours.net%2f2008%2f04%2f19%2fhow-long-should-a-tour-last.aspx"><img alt="Technorati" src="http://images.quickblogcast.com/public/visitorImages/chicklet_Technorati.gif" /></a> </p> <p> <br /> </p>

<p> High Definition (HD) Video is getting a ton of press nowadays.<br /> <br /> But what part does HD Video play in on-line video? Can you get true HD Video in your on-line video tours? The quick answer is &quot;no, you can&#39;t.&quot; The technically correct answer is &quot;sort of.&quot;<br /> <br /> The biggest problem with using HD Video online is the fact that it requires a very high-speed line to get it to the viewer&#39;s computer screen for immediate display. While it&#39;s possible to download and play a very large file after it&#39;s downloaded, that&#39;s not how we use video for real estate tours. We want, and the viewer expects, to see the video within seconds of their request.<br /> <br /> Most on-line video we see today is piped to our computers in Adobe&#39;s Flash file format. Almost every computer out there has the Flash plug-in installed. If they don&#39;t, they&#39;ll get a message when they click on a Flash application that offers a free download that will install the plug-in for them in just a few minutes.<br /> <br /> The average viewer won&#39;t see the higher quality picture that a high def camcorder produces. When the video is uploaded to most sites it is converted to a Flash movie and displayed as a Flash application. So you lose the advantage of high-quality HD video when you publish on the Internet. While it may be possible to watch high-quality HD on-line, it&#39;s not generally available for the average Internet user. The average home buyer is an average Internet and so that&#39;s our target audience.<br /> <br /> The other problem with the HD format for on-line video is the shape of the displayed image. The ratio of width to height is 16 to 9. The ratio of the old standard TV set, and the old standard computer screen, is 4 to 3. That is, for every 4 inches of width you have 3 inches of height. This doesn&#39;t look like a problem at first because it appears that you are getting a wider view in the 16 wide by 9 high format of HD.<br /> <br /> But the problem doesn&#39;t lie in the display of the picture. It is in the creation of the video that we have challenges using the HD format. The camera manufacturers have given us a wider picture. But, generally speaking, they gave us the same lens that we had on the old 4x3 format. So, if I take a video of a small room I get the same width with my new HD 16x9 format that I got with my old 4x3 format. The problem is, on the 16x9 HD format, I give up some area on the top and the bottom of the picture that I had on the 4x3 format. And video tours are all about showing the house, from floor to ceiling. That&#39;s the reason we use wide-angle lenses and adapters.<br /> <br /> So for now the old standard-definition camcorder with a wide-angle lens is probably best for taking video that you want to upload for Internet viewers. Most HD camcorders that I have seen, or read about, will shoot in the old 4x3 format. But, most will cut the sides of the picture in, reducing the amount of the subject from side to side that you will have in the frame. To compensate you&#39;ll have to use a wider-angle lens than on the 4x3 standard-definition camera. And that will introduce more distortion.<br /> <br /> All of this has nothing to do with the production of video for use in non-Internet applications or specialized on-line applications that support high-def video and 16x9 display formats. HDV is certainly the future in Video and for everything but on-line display for the masses is here now.<br /> <br /> So don&#39;t throw away that old standard-definition camcorder just yet! </p>