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How Long Should a Tour Be?

When Mike and I first started doing tours with Real Tour Vision, we were a little confused. We thought we could only have a total of 30 pictures per tour. And with every full panorama being 12 pictures, it was a challenge to put together a tour - especially for large homes. We usually did one full spin, a couple of partial spins and some stills.

Imagine our surprise and elation (and embarrassment) when we discovered the tours have 30 slots that can be filled with full panoramas, partials or stills - not just 30 pictures! Now Mike does lots of full spins, some partials and some stills. Our Four Seasons Virtual Tours clients (real estate agents and the sellers) seem to be happy with the tours.

However...I personally feel the tours as we are doing them now are too big. I think the smaller tours were easier to look at. Do we really need a panorama of the kitchen/family room from two different directions, plus stills? Do we really need to do a full panorama of a large room when a lot of it is blank walls? A good piece of art or writing is often better when it is "tighter". (I have to admit I'm a minimalist.)

I get impatient looking at them sometimes, so I'm wondering what a buyer might think. On the other hand, maybe the buyers want as many pictures as possible from every angle in order to get a good idea of what a home looks like. After all, they don't have to just let the tour run, they can control what rooms they look at.

Finally, the tours are taking much longer to photograph and stitch. We'll never get up to 500 tours a year at this rate!

What do you think?

Posted by Debra Higgins on 07/01/2008 04:29 PM

Comments (4)

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4 Comments on How Long Should a Tour Be?

JUL

2008

Hi Debra,

I find that it really all depends on the property. While two separate panoramas of a family/kitchen area might be excessive in a 1200 sqft property, the two directions may be absolutely imperative for showing off the stainless steel appliances & other unique features of a larger property. Smaller rooms might be better shown with a partial panorama. IMHO the flow of the tour and the ability to 'experience' the property are much more important than whether or not the scenes are full panoramas.

JUL

2008

Debra, I've been creating tours for about 4 years now. The more I learn, the more I believe that minimalist approach is good. On average, homes 2400 to 3500 sq ft require only 5 to 6 panos and 10 stills. I shoot a home in about 45 min and complete the tour on the backend in about a hour and half. Roughly 2.5 hours from start to finish. This by some standards is slow, but I put a lot in to what I do. You can check out some of OnView 360 tours at my web site www.onview360.com.

For most homes, I shoot panos of the Living Rm, Kitchen, Family Rm, Master Suite and the Backyard. I take one photo of the front view to enter the tour and the other 9 photos cover anything not in the spins.

I used to create tours with 10 spins and 20 photos, but I learned from the hit reports that, on average, only about 10 scenes are viewed with each visit. If you over do a tour, you start to show things that do not flatter the property, which is doing a disservice to your client. So, don't over shoot, leave the viewer wanting more.

Much Success!

Rudy Gutierrez

OnView 360

JUL

2008

Rudy:

Thanks for the input! I agree with you.

We're taking a lot longer than that to shoot a tour - you're fast compared to us. Mike spends a lot of time taking extra shots of the windows so you can see out the windows. He also likes to take pictures of EVERYTHING so he can choose his best shots. I don't feel that spins, or partials, are needed of second/third/etc bedrooms, dens, utility rooms, etc.

I totally agree about showing things that don't flatter the property. Sometimes, though, you can't talk an owner or realtor out of pictures of their huge basement - even if it's stuffed to the gills!

Thanks, Rudy

Debra,

To get good windows I bracket my shots to get 3 different exposures. The flash I use is on a 3 ft cord this allows me to bounce the flash and avoid flash marks in my photos. I ask the realtor or home owner to fill out a pre-shoot checklist. This checklist has 1-10 pano slot and 1-20 photo slots, then each has a priority from 1-10 and 1-20. This way even before I get there, I know what has to be shot and what they think is the most important. I let them know my time is limited and this checklist has to be filled out, prior to shooting.

When I first started I over shot and ended up with 100s of photos of each property, but this eats up time and diskspace. After over a 1000 tours, I know what sells a property, so I focus on that.

Much Success!

Rudy (Rude)

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