Top 5 Reasons To Market Your Home With a Video Tour
Posted by Amy Wallace on Friday, August 22nd, 2014 at 2:33pm
We've had incredible success marketing the homes we list with Video Tours. Sure every homeowner wants a video tour taken of their property. It's a bit flattering right? Like having your picture appear in the local newspaper. But beyond the little vanity boost do video tours really do anything to promote your home to buyers? Is it possible they can make it sell faster? Or for a higher price? Absolutely! Take a look at one of our tours before you read on!
You'd live there right?
Here are the top five reasons to have a video tour taken of your property.
#1. You'll Be Forced To Get Your Home 100% Showing Ready
You've seen all the staging shows, you've read all the articles. Of course you live in your home. But the point of selling it is to not live there anymore right? Anyone who tells you that you don't really need to get your home looking as pristine as this home on the left, is selling you a bill of goods. Buyers, regardless of their price range, want to feel that they are buying into the best possible version of their future. Your property video has the potential to inspire dreams! There's something that's a little more fun about getting your home ready for its film debut then getting it ready for some strangers to tromp through it. Grab onto that spark of cinematic inspiration and make your house its best version of itself. Think of it as a movie set and declutter, brighten with lamps and by removing (if only temporarily) light blocking window dressings. Do that at the beginning and you'll be able to keep it that way. It won't be such a drag to get ready when those strangers do show up to tromp through. Staging early will help with the video, the photos, and SHOWINGS!
#2. Views of Properties With Video Tours are 10-1 Over Properties Without Videos
For some reason this one is always a little tough for people to swallow. But its TRUE! A property that has a video or virtual tour attached to it gets 10 views online for every 1 view properties without them get. When buyers are searching online many of them sort their searches so that they will only see properties that have video tours and virtual tours. They ignore the other listings! Or they decide to look first at the listings with tours and then go on later to the properties without tours. But if they get excited by a listing that has a tour they may never make it to your listing if it doesn't have one.
#3. Agents will be intimately familiar with your home instantly.
Here's a dirty little secret, Real Estate Salespeople don't always get to physically preview every home that comes on the market. They know their own listings, the mls sponsors caravans where the agents drive around together, and we do our own Coldwell Banker Village Green Realty caravans. BUT in the first two weeks of June this year 298 new listings came on the market in Ulster County. 298! Even the most diligent of agents can't preview that many properties in 2 weeks! Or even half of them.
Every morning agents take a look at what's new on the market, what prices have changed, and if anything has been added to a listing to see which properties match the criteria of buyers they're working with; buyers who in many cases have moved beyond running their own searches on real estate websites, are ready to buy, and are depending on the expertise of their agent to suggest properties they will likely be interested in. The agents have the buyers who are ready to go NOW! And they only want to suggest properties to their clients that they are confident they will like. A well made video saves the agent a trip to preview your property (whenever they can fit it into their schedule). You won't have to ready your home for the agent to tour it to see if it will meet their clients expectations, and the agent can send your property to their clients right away with confidence.
#4. YouTube is the #2 Search Engine in the World
Here's an infographic from Mushroom Networks about the impact that YouTube has on the the internet. After Google it's the biggest search engine. 3 billion people search YouTube for recipes, comedy, products and properties a month. If you don't have a property video you're missing out on potential buyers. There are Real Estate salespeople who post slideshows on YouTube as a way to give their listings some exposure there. But there's a problem with pulling that little switcheroo. The person who is watching that video is a person, not just a person but a potential buyer. When you pull a bait and switch, let them think they're going to see a video and then give them a slideshow, they get annoyed. They get annoyed with the agent, annoyed with you, and annoyed with your property! That's no way to get showings! If you have a great hd property tour you can be sure that your bases are covered, and that at the very least you're not going to annoy potential buyers so they'll discard your house as an option for them.
#5. Buyers Who Have Already Seen a Video Tour are More Than Just Curious, They're Interested!
Take a quick look at this video and see if after watching it you can answer the little questionnaire below:
- Does this look like somewhere you might be able to live?
- Are the grounds too big or small for you?
- Is the connection to the outside enough for you?
- Does it have the ammenities you'd like in a home?
- Is there enough parking for you?
- Is it a style you like?
- Do you have a general idea of the flow and layout?
Were you able to answer most of those questions? Probably. At the very least you know whether or not you like it. So will a buyer after watching the video.
If you have a property video tour the buyers who come look at your house will already know that on a basic level they like it. So many sellers and agents waste time showing homes to people who have had their curiosity sparked by a few photos and a description of the property. Often they get to the house and it's not at all what they were expecting. When the same buyers have seen the video it's pretty easy for an agent to gauge their actual interest in the property. And when the buyer gets to your home, it will be exactly what they were expecting.
Here's another dirty little secret; every time you have to prep your home for a showing you'll inevitably get just a little excited about the prospect of these buyers being the ones. Some sellers get really excited. It can be disappointing when the buyers take a cursory look and walk out because they imagined something completely different. If the buyers have already seen a video you'll go through fewer of those cycles as a seller. We like our sellers to be happy in all things, and using video tours is one of the ways we ensure our sellers the least amount of discouragement possible during the selling process.
Property videos are so much more than just marketing window dressing. They do make a difference. Visit our YouTube channel to see all our property videos and if you have any questions about marketing your home with a video tour contact one of our agents.
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