Doing video tours of listings is no longer something that requires a big budget, but on the same hand, producing "trailers" does take real skill.

There are a few different ways to visually present a property in a website with video being the most expensive and potentially effective.   I say potentially because poorly done video can chase away buyers who might have otherwise been interested. 

The different ways to present a images for a listing:

1.  A few images on a single page
2.  An image gallery (lots of images with click-to-zoom)
3.  A video of stills (like a Powerpoint presentation)
4.  Real video (a tiny movie)

Anyone with a digital camera can snap images of a property.  Cameras are cheap and software like Picasa makes it a no-brainer to manipulate them.  Learning how to upload a slew of them to a directory on a web server is
something that can be taught in 10 minutes.   Even if your website doesn't have this feature, Picasa (Google) has a public space where you can do this.  (I often recommend Picasa because their software is some of the best
we've seen for easily maintaining your inventory of images)

Doing video is no different.   Cheap digital video cameras can be had for a few hundred dollars that can be used to record the raw "footage" needed to create a home tour.   However, unlike snapping still images, video can be one long file with lots of things that need to be "cleaned up" to produce the final product.  (You may shoot 30 minutes of video to end up with a good 45 second trailer)

TIP:  DO NOT do realtime narration.  Unless you're a real voice pro and backgrond noise doesn't exist, turn off the mic when you're shooting.   If you want a voice-over on the final product, do that after you have your final video.    We also don't recommend using your own voice unless you are FM quality.  :)

SOFTWARE

You can produce decent quality home tours using a product like Windows Movie Maker (it was included with XP, not sure about Vista)  You can chop, splice and add your own sound tracks with this along with lots of different transitional fades between scenes.   If you are comfortable learning on your own, you can produce something in a few hours.   However I recommend you ...

OUTSOURCE IT!

Your time should be spent in front of people, not learning how to shoot mini movies.  If you're looking for the best bang for the buck, contact your local high school and put an ad in their newsletter/school paper asking for students that want to earn some $ while sharpening their video production skills.   You'll be amazed at the quality of work teenagers can produce!  

I have added a video clip inside of SouthAshley.com to show how video can be streamed from YouTube.  It's not a home tour, but it should give you an idea of how video can be easily embedded into a website.