It’s no secret that in this day and age, consumers are turning to the Web for most of their research and pre-purchase inquiries. This is particularly true of real estate. Out-of-town home seekers or businesses looking to relocate, and even in-town consumers, are seeking out classified listings online, the web-based MLS and even real estate company websites in search of their new property. But are they finding what they’re looking for, or could you and your real estate business be missing out on valuable potential clients? As a consumer who is currently in the market for property, I’m able to offer insight that most marketing firms can’t. I can explain exactly what I’m looking for in a home or commercial listing, what sparks my interest and what makes me turn and head for the hills. Listen up, because this could change the way you approach your marketing from now on!

I’m a big fan of Craigslist. My fiance and I have been in the market for a new place for nearly a year now. Why such a long search? Well, economy and changes in lending structure aside, we have yet to find a property that truly captures everything we’re looking for…or have we passed over it a million times without realizing it? Here’s the situation. Every day we devote a little time to getting our Craigslist fix. We settle down in front of the computer, pull up the site, and begin our search. But before we start, we enter in some advanced options ( location, the term “house” vs. “home” and only listings with images). Unfortunately, setting all of these search specifications leads to a very slim list of properties for rent and sale. For some reason, requesting to see listings with images severely limits the amount of listings that are returned. And so the discrimination starts…

We work with the list we’re given, because images are really important to us. As a consumer, my interest needs to be captured initially before I make a move to contact the agent or broker offering the property. So as we go through, we notice that the listings all have images, but most of them don’t seem to be using the allotted images to their advantage. Again, our selection dwindles because we come across listings with only one photo of the exterior of the property, or a feature such as the fireplace, or photos that are much too small to see clearly, or very blurry or dark photos. I know, they’re just pictures. But you’d be surprised how much of an impact they make (or don’t make) on our search. Out of nearly a hundred (sometimes more) property listings per day, we end up with less than 15 that actual appeal to us enough to investigate further. At the end of the initial search process (over a 1 week period), we’ve eliminated nearly all of the listings for our area, which includes multiple cities and counties. Out of nearly 700 listings, only about 2% appealed to us enough to research further. That means 98% of the listings in that week lost out on potential business!. And so for Realtors, real estate investors and firms, the first line of defense has already been breached.

Of those that did appeal to us, we began the tedious process of visiting websites. At this point, we’re looking for any additional info that the first ad didn’t provide, extra photos, perhaps a virtual tour…and again, our selection dwindles. Some of the properties have a photo gallery and even a virtual tour, but we have to give up all of our personal info before we can even look at these. We skip those because we’re not yet comfortable providing our personal info (we don’t even know if we’re all that interested in the property yet). At the end of it all, we’re left with about 8 or 9 decent properties that we’re interested enough in to request a live viewing. Just 8 or 9 out of 700+! These aren’t working out to be good numbers, for us as consumers, or for YOU the Realtor.

So now that I’ve walked you through a typical search process from an actual home-seeker’s point of view (not the point of view of a Realtor or marketer trying to think like a home-seeker), we can discuss where the break-downs in visibility began to cause issues. First off, most all home-seekers are interested in seeing good-quality photos that are large enough to see properly. If your listing failed to provide these, then you were more than likely skipped over (unless you offered additional info such as links to websites with more photos, virtual tours or other media to showcase the property).  If your listing did provide photos, were they large enough, and of good-enough quality, for the home-seeker to view? Did you include enough photos, or links to additional photos? If your listing failed to provide either of these, then you also were probably skipped over in this search.

So lets say you made it past phases one and two, and you actually managed to get a potential home buyer to your website. Do you know how long they stayed, what they did, or at what point they left? Did you manage to capture any contact details or search preferences from them? If you can’t answer any of these questions confidently, then you too probably lost out on potential business (this is actually a whole other topic, which will delve into later on). As a consumer, I was looking for very simple specifications, yet my search was severely limited by the number of listings without these specifications. Bottom line, if you’re not providing home-seekers with more than just a text-based listing, you’re missing out…BIG time!

Fortunately, there’s a simple solution to help you get your real estate business and listings on track! Professional digital photography and 360° video-based virtual tours allow potential home buyers to view all aspects of a property before they’re even ready to contact you! Photography and video work together, each capturing what the other can’t, then yin and yang of real estate marketing! Listings with photos are much more likely to be noticed and researched than listings without them. And listings with virtual tours are much more likely to elicit a phone call or the filling out of a lead capture form from a potential home buyer! Recent statistics show that Internet-savvy consumers spend less time searching for and interviewing Realtors, preview fewer homes and work with Realtors almost 1/3 less before making a decision or closing on a home or property than traditional (non Internet-savvy) home buyers. This means that with simple marketing solutions like photography and 360° virtual tours, you could be selling your homes up to 4 weeks sooner!

Virtual Sidekick is the Durham, NC area’s newest provider of stunning HD video-based virtual tours and high-resolution photography! Whether you’re a real estate agent or investor with properties for sale, a residential or business complex with apartments or offices for lease, or even a Bed & Breakfast, high-resolution digital photography and 360° High Definition virtual tours can help your properties stand out from the rest! If your usual methods aren’t producing the results you desire, don’t leave potential web-based customers out!  Consider a virtual tour package from Virtual Sidekick, and appeal to Internet-savvy consumers as well!

For more information, visit online at www.virtual-sidekick.com! We’re locally owned & operated, and proud of it!