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Virtual Tours Help Sell Listings Faster!

By
Services for Real Estate Pros with RealtyReach.com

Anyone practicing Real Estate today knows how important a first impression is.  You know the scenario the buyer is in - they're at home or at your office, going through a list of properties returned based on their search criteria.  They make a decision instantly in their subconscious if they like the house or not based on what they see in the pictures given.  As a Realtor myself, I've often had to say things to make them reconsider their first decision, which is often made when there is a dark photo of a kitchen, or the front of the house is tilted sideways, and worst of all - there are no photos.

If you're listing a home or selling your own, you need to ensure you are doing everything possible to increase traffic to your listing and ultimately get buyers in your home.  A (GOOD) Virtual Tour is a perfect way to do this.  

As with any product, there are many options when ordering Virtual Tours, from high end products that are visually stunning (RealtyReach.com ;)  to something the kindergarten class pulled together for an afternoon project (insert your nightmare experience here). 

Some obvious and not-so-obivous factors to consider when shopping for a Virtual Tour:

- Quality of the Photos and Panoramas

Make sure you're paying for a professional product.  That's the point of your order!  You want a tour that will attract buyers to the home and paint the best possible picture of that home!  Are you getting a Virtual Tour that allows buyers to "see" and "feel" what it is like standing in that room while looking at a computer monitor?  Taking a still photo and zooming in on it does not provide these sensations, does it?  You need the ability to look up, down, left, right, and back again!

 

We recently had a client receive an offer on a home 3 days after posting the Virtual Tour.  So what?  Well, the home is in Davidson, NC and the buyer is in the state of Texas.  They wrote an offer (that was accepted) based solely on seeing the virtual tour.  The tour let them "feel" what it was like to be in the home, and they liked it so much they didn't need to buy a plane ticket to come to NC and see it!

 

Additional Benefits of Doing Business With That Particular Virtual Tour Company

What extra benefits are there to doing business with that company?  Is your listing going to be placed on high traffic websites?  Are you going to have to pay a hosting fee to keep the tour "live" for a year.  What kind of branded/unbranded tours will they provide you?

 

- Reputation/Clientèle of Your Virtual Tour Provider 

As with any product or service, is there a reference to draw upon?  Does this Virtual Tour provider do business with the top producers in your market?  Look at some of the tours they've produced and ask yourself how you feel about that home after looking at the tour.

 

- Quality Guarantees/Professionalism

This may tie into the previous point a bit as you may have a reference to go on, or sometimes you just have to ask questions and trust your gut instinct.  Does the company provide a satisfaction guarantee?  We all know there are people out there you can never completely satisfy, and speaking from experience, there are some houses that you can only make look so good, but does your Virtual Tour provider guarantee to re-shoot the property until you are satisfied?  If not, shouldn't they without a "Re-shoot Charge"? 

Is this a professional business or someone's part time thing that they'll get to when they feel like it.  Our experiences lead us to believe that if you put in part time effort, you'll get part time results (feel free to use that).  

- Price

This is a little harder to place a judgment or opinion on, because of the many differing levels of quality.  But, you should match the product to your marketing budget.  Listing a $2 Million dollar home?  Don't buy a $25 virtual tour.  Listing a $100K home?  See if your virtual tour provider will shoot a smaller package for you.  The same principle applies to gaining exposure to your listing no matter what the list price.  But the same principle applies to your Virtual Tour.  A bad virtual tour will turn away a buyer from any priced home.

I've seen virtual tours my two Labrador Retrievers could produce that someone spent a fortune on.  Just because the price is high, doesn't mean the product is good.  (Shameless self promotion in 3...2....1) - RealtyReach.com provides the highest quality virtual tours while keeping prices reasonable and budget friendly - Click HERE to view our products page.  (Currently we are only in the Charlotte Metro Area - but we have friends in most major markets, drop us a line for a recommendation)

 

That's our overview of shopping guidelines and questions to ask when looking for a Virtual Tour provider.  Hopefully this will help some people when listing their next home.  A virtual tour will tremendously increase the amount of traffic to your listing, which ultimately leads to a contract, but it must have some key elements.  Fortunately for RealtyReach.com, our products possess all of these elements and more!  (Another shameless self promotion) 

 

Comments (5)

Cindy Jones
Integrity Real Estate Group - Woodbridge, VA
Pentagon, Fort Belvoir & Quantico Real Estate News
I won't agree with you a 100% on this one.  Good photos are a must.  As many as you can get posted in the MLS, websites, realtor.com and so on.  I work with a lot of buyers from out of state/military and out of the country.  Virtual tours are to hard for them to watch in most cases and take up to much bandwidth.  If I find a listing and all it has is a virtual tour then I am bound to have to go to the property myself, preview and then send my own pictures to clients.  It all depends on your clients and their preferences but without the combination of still photos you may be cutting some folks out of the buying pool early.  Oh and please who decided we had to have music with our tours?  
Jan 07, 2008 07:23 AM
RealtyReach .com
RealtyReach.com - Charlotte, NC

Cindy, great point about the photos!  If you look at any of our tours, you will see that there is a slide show that usually contains anywhere between 18 and 40 photos, depending on the size of the home.  This doesn't require any kind of Java player or any other add on that may slow computer performance.  With this many photos you are able to show a great amount of detail about a home.

If you're ordering a virtual tour and not getting still photos, you need to re-read the suggestions in my post ;)

 

We've found that music is one of those things that some people love and some people hate - the good thing about it is that you can turn it off,

 

thanks for replying! 

Jan 07, 2008 07:52 AM
Cheryl Powell - The Powell Team
Southern Homes of The Carolinas - The Powell Team - Harrisburg, NC
Concord,Harrisburg & Charlotte NC Area Real Estate

Hello and welcome to my Active Rain group, Cabarrus County North Carolina...The Racing Side of Charlotte!  Thanks for keeping us up to date on our Virtual Tour options.

I prepare a virtual tour for all of my listings and I think it is very important in today's Internet savvy real estate market.  I also post as many still photos as allowed on our MLS, but unfortunately that is only 8.  I post additional still photos on remax.com and realtor.com.  I appreciate the tip from Cindy concerning the bandwidth issue for virtual tours with some buyers.

Jan 16, 2008 02:36 AM
RealtyReach .com
RealtyReach.com - Charlotte, NC

Cheryl,

 

Great to hear from you!  Please let us know if we can help with your marketing needs!

 

RealtyReach.com 

Feb 04, 2008 11:27 AM
Niki Fiala
Great Homes Realty - Clearwater, FL
Your Real Estate Consultant for Life

I see this is a really old posting. I am looking for a virtual tour company in the Tampa Bay area, and also an online software that I can make virtual tours for for lower priced listings where it is not in the budget to hire a professional company.

Would ou recommend anyone?

I have used www.realestateshows.com it is pretty good but I am looking for other options.

Niki

Aug 01, 2010 05:17 AM