Do videos sell real estate?
Yes, videos sell real estate. And it is not just because of the current pandemic. Buyers are extremely busy and the ability to review multiple homes safely and conveniently from their phone or PC helps them better use their time. It also saves sellers time because those that do visit your home are further into their purchasing decision, since they have a decent idea about your house after watching the video or virtual tour.
Videos help give a buyer a better sense of layout and perspective on a home. Photos are still important but a quality video really helps. Plus some services like Zillow will rank a home higher in their search results if you have a video.
How can videos sell real estate faster?
People who are serious about buying a specific house will want to go through it. But we only have so many hours in a day to show a house. With a high-quality video tour or a 360 virtual home tour, multiple potential buyers can all be looking at your house at the same time. This is how videos sell real estate, they generate quality leads. It is also easier for them to share the information with others for feedback and ideas, again expediting the decision-making process and generating more qualified leads.
Is it worth having a professional make my home video tour?
A professional will not just be able to get the right angles and lighting, but they can add technical value on where to host your video and the best format and quality level to use for your video home tour. But it is also possible to take a great video with a good smart phone. Be patient and practice a few walks throughs as you make the video yourself, consider using a free or inexpensive desktop editor to clean-up the video. A professional can definitely add a tremendous amount of value and quickly turn around a high-quality product. Plus, if you are considering a 360 virtual home tour it will require a special camera to get the best results. Both 360 virtual tours and videos sell real estate.
What is the difference between a video walk through and a 360 virtual home tour?
A video walk though in its most basic form can be create on your smart phone (hold it landscape) and walk though the house showing all of the main rooms and features. They can get more sophisticated with a bit of editing and narration. But the basic concept is pretty straight forward.
A 360 virtual home tour use a specialized camera that has multiple lenses pointing in different direction that capture the entire room in a single image. A viewer can then use their mouse or finger to swivel the image around to see the entire space. If you have special software you can connect multiple 360 images together so that a user can move from space to the next. High-end 360 virtual home tour software includes features like hotspots to and picture-in-picture videos to really add depth and persuasion to the tour.
What is a 360 virtual home tour?
With a 360 virtual home tour a potential buyers can walk through your home almost like they are actually in it. They can swivel the images right-to-left and up-and-down with their finger or mouse to get a 360 view. A 360 virtual home tour use a specialized camera that has multiple lenses pointing in different direction that capture the entire room in a single image. A viewer can then use their mouse or finger to swivel the image around to see the entire space. If you have special software you can connect multiple 360 images together so that a user can move from space to the next. High-end 360 virtual home tour software includes features like hotspots to and picture-in-picture videos to really add depth and persuasion to the tour. Below you can see I have embed a simple sample 360 Virtual Your created and hosted on Togotiki. It shows how a user can navigate between locations or drill into a specific point (hot spot) to get additional information (video, photo, 360 image, 360 video).
Do I need a special camera to make a 360 virtual home tour?
Yes, a special camera is the best way to go for a quality 360 virtual home tour. You can try to work with stitching panoramic images together from your smart phone to achieve a similar effect but generally speaking the quality is not that great and it’s a lot of work. 360 cameras range in price from a few hundred to several thousands of dollars, and you can tell a difference in quality as price increases. For example, the higher-end camera will take pictures that do not loose quality as you zoom in on specific point, cheaper camera will get grainy. Typically a camera in the $300 to $500 range will take quality pictures for virtual home tours, after all you will still have standard photos that can handle the tight zooms on detail areas. A 360 virtual home tour is about providing spacial context to the potential buyer. This article reviews some top rated 360 cameras.
How to create a 360 virtual home tour?
When creating a 360 virtual home tour you want to start by planning your route through the home. This will help you identify each of your camera positions. Once you have the positions identified you can check to see if the staging looks right.
As a general rule you should try to make your camera (360 photos) placements within a direct line of site of each other (see fig 1), though sometimes this is not practical or needed. It does help a viewer more easily follow the tour if they can see where they are going to and how to get back.
Once you have the 360 images you want you will need to organize them into your software or presentation system. Some cameras come with their own proprietary software, just make sure before you do a lot of work in it that you can use the final product (file) in your MLS system or website. For the easiest solution look for a product like Togotiki their platform lets you stitch all of your 360 images together, plus add hotspots, gelo-location and picure-in-picture video and much to your 360 tour. Togotiki provide HTML5 compliant embed codes and/or links for you to share your tour, they handle the entire back-end hosting.
