Video Real Estate Tours
The other day Hope MacManus at Old Town Realty in Florence asked if I could (would) host a video tour for her. It seems that linking the tour from the office web site was in violation of the RMLS rule about branding tours (more than a little ridiculous but I don’t make the rules, I just have to listen to the complaints ;-).
So far, this is the second video I have seen that client agents have had done for their listings. Now, two video tours out of 2,400 listings does not necessarily make it a trend. But throw in a couple of comments from other agents and there may be some interest. Maybe a few others would like to try it. Add the fact that I take pride in keeping ahead of other real estate sites in areas such as this* and well … you never know where an idea is going to come from.
So, beginning immediately, RealWorld will host your video tours at no additional charge. If it looks like we are going to become the youtube of real estate, I may have to rethink things. But for now, I would like to encourage the use of video as much as possible.
A couple random thoughts:
Video tours will have the virtual tour icon on RealWorld. If videos become popular enough, I will add a video tour icon and add an upload function to the on-line menu.
I recently purchased a Cannon digital camera that takes beautiful 640 X 480 video. A camera like this would allow you to shoot your own video. It would be great if someone offered the service of editing raw video into a nice looking tour with music and or voice over.
If you have a video produced, you should ask for two versions. In Hope’s case she had to have her producer go back and cut out the title segments with the office name and contact information. This unbranded video is the tour she will enter in RMLS.
Are video tours a good idea or a waste of time? Post your experiences and thoughts in the comments below.
If you know of someone who produces video tours or can help with production, post their contact information in the comments as well. I would like to provide a resource list.
* The end of August RMLS will be expanding their photo capabilities to allow 16 photos per listing and the photo size is being increased to 640 X 480. RealWorld has supported up to 25 photos and 800 X 600 for over a year.
Hi Ken: I was reading this and thought I’d comment. I use justsnooping.com for my virtual tours and it includes music. Justsnooping uses a program called institches you can purchase to stitch the photos together, and justsnooping came out with a higher resolution tour that I switched all my listings to. What is the difference in the video tour versus the virtual tour? By the way, Jenni Hughes in our Coos Bay office does photo shoots on her own time for virtual tours. I like the idea that RMLS is going to 16 photos, I hadn’t seen that on the site. I also like that you have 25 photo spots for your site! Thank you. Dawn
Comment by Dawn Strain — August 3, 2007 @ 6:10 pm
Dawn,
The difference would be, where the virtual tour usually has links to views of the various rooms, each room would be a scene in a video. I think with a well done video you could do more of a walk through giving the viewer a better idea of the relationship of the rooms. For example you could actually walk up a stairs or down a hall to see where the rooms are in relation to each other. Hope’s video doesn’t really take advantage of that.
Comment by ken.gregg — August 6, 2007 @ 10:19 am