Is Real Estate Video The Way Of The Future?

The warning is clear: “[The internet buyer is] not at the information gathering stage they’re in the elimination process. If your listings don’t provide them with a tour, then your house is eliminated from the search,” portends RIS Media, real estate’s largest independent news and information service.

In today’s increasingly connected world, where over 80% of all buyers begin their real estate shopping on the Internet, you have just a split second to convince someone to linger on your advertisement, listing, or web page. Does your content have what it takes to make the cut?

Astonishingly, a whopping 86 percent of all website visitors will stay to watch a streaming media presentation, and these visitors will stay as much as 78 percent longer than they would if there was no video content available, according to Real Networks, a leading provider of Internet media solutions.

The Radisson hotel chain enjoyed an even greater gain when they added videos to their site, discovering that people are as much as 20 times more likely to click on a site with video. Their most explosive discovery? Where their previous visitors stayed on the site an average of three to four minutes, the average length of a visit involving video was 25 minutes -- a 500% increase that translated to 36% greater monthly revenues!

Real estate agents who currently offer videos of their listed homes can hardly keep track of their success stories. “The other day, a woman called me from Connectcut to tell me she is determined to buy a waterfront home I just listed,” recalls Brett Slattery, a realtor with Keller Williams Realty who can be found at http://www.BrettSlattery.com. “I asked her if she had seen the virtual tour. ‘I can’t pull myself away from it,’ she said. Her excitement made it clear the virtual tour had mesmerized her.”

Lucas Lechuga, a realtor with Miami Condo Investments, has experienced similar gains from video. “I’ve sold properties through video where the buyer didn’t physically see it before making the purchase. Video to them did a whole lot more than picture slideshows could ever do.”

Those who have experienced Internet real estate video firsthand can easily tick off a laundry list of benefits that come in exchange for virtually little investment of either time or money. In addition to increased and higher-quality traffic, both buyers and sellers can enjoy saving time and money by exploring a larger number of homes in a mere fraction of the time it would take to visit each one in person. Videos can be shared with family and friends, as well as with other real estate agents. Video purveyors also enjoy a higher rate of repeat business, thanks to the added professionalism that such service provides.

Up until recently, virtual tours were considered the gold standard of online real estate showcasing, but that reality is changing rapidly. FutureOfRealEstate.com predicted that “2007 will be the year of the video,” and that foresight now rings true. Stephen Jagger, of Ubertor.com, shares that “a lot more agents are moving away from virtual tours and into video,” while Joel Burslem of Inmantv.com has claimed that “video is the next evolution of virtual tour.” Real estate agents on the cutting edge of Internet technology can consider nothing less than detailed online videos if they want their listings to be competitive in today’s online marketplace.

When it comes to factoring in the bottom line, video offers the advantage of not just maximum exposure, but also maximum selling price. According to the California Association of Realtors, Internet homebuyers spent over $80,000 more on average than traditional homebuyers ($403,752 vs. $321,950, respectively).

Real estate videos don’t just benefit potential buyers -- sellers and realtors also reap the rewards it brings to the selling process. Sellers love only having to clean house once while still being able to showcase an immaculate interior on a daily basis. The security of a pre-screened video puts many realtors’ minds at ease, too, eliminating the fear of walking in on the kids “painting” the living room walls or the family Golden Retriever tracking mud across the formal dining room carpet. That doesn’t even begin to touch on the added convenience of avoiding the seemingly impossible: scheduling (and rescheduling) live tours at times that accommodate everyone’s busy schedules.

Successful agents have found the Internet video providers that have sprung up to assist the real estate market in transitioning into this new and exciting technology to be invaluable. Lechuga shares, “I get people from other cities, as a result, who are interested in real estate here because of the videos that I host [online].”

Kyle A. McMillan, Ultimate Service Sales Representative for Coldwell Banker Crampsie Realty, was also eager to share his success with Internet video services for a recent property that had languished on the market for almost three months and undergone two price reductions. “I have no doubt that [my] virtual tour was a large contributor to getting the listing SOLD. Within a week of getting the virtual tour done, the home SOLD for 97% of the asking price.”

There’s no two ways about it: offering a video of a home is the single best way to guarantee a potential buyer will consider your property.

As the number of Internet-savvy homebuyers continues to climb, and as our increasingly interconnected society leads to more and more long-distance relocations where viewing a new home in person is costly and inconvenient (if not impossible), the clamor for Internet real estate video will only grow louder. Real estate agents can either cater to this demand now, or face an endless string of unattended open houses and dissatisfied sellers as their listings are quickly passed over for those that include the interactive video advertisements essential for success as the industry adopts this new technology.