Just happened upon a great article in the San Francisco Chronicle’s site, demeaning the mediocre attempts at using different types of photos and tours used to sell homes. Written by Anna Marie Hibble, she informs the casual house hunter that listings with an incredible number of photos attributed to it, is known as “house porn”. I guess the thought of the term just makes me laugh out loud!
Anyway, check out parts 1 and 2 of the articles here:
Here’s the kicker: All you need to do is hire us to create a simple video for your listing, which will show everything the buyer would want, and never go overboard. We can also take some stunning still shots for the listing, and suggest which 5 would be the best to promote your listing. Think about the children! Eliminate the porn! House porn that is.
WellcomeMat has stirred the pot again on a big topic for the type of service that I offer. The big debate is pricing; should a video producer charge upfront for real estate video or on a contingency basis?
You can read the forum topic here to see what many video producers and realtors from around the country have already said.
In my personal opinion, we have tried so many different ways of charging for our services over the 6 years we have been creating real estate video (since 2003). What has worked out for the best is our current pricing. Now it may not have given us as many customers as we have wanted, but in return we have more quality customers that know and appreciate the value of video, as well as marketing their image.
We have tried incentives before to getting new clientele, such as charging upon contingency. However, that did not work for us on many levels, the largest of which was that we were too dependent on the quality and integrity of realtors who wanted that option. We have also tried charging after the video was finished, only to get shafted on payment. In the long run, it was best for us to charge up front and a fair amount for the time we put into the final product.
One person had commented in the thread that perhaps a videographer should take a percentage of the sale. Essentially, with our pricing levels, that is what we are doing, but the percentage actually gets reduced as the listing price rises (that keeps us from making $10000 on a 20 million dollar home, of which, we have taped many).
What are your thoughts on pricing and how it should be handled? Let us know either in the comments below, Twitter, or our contact form, we’d love to know!
Larry from the Photography for Real Estate Blog pointed out an article today in the Wall Street Journal about some of the awful marketing techniques home sellers are using to sell their homes, most notably, using awful pictures.
There are a lot of great points from the article, including, “…nine out of 10 home shoppers begin their search on the Web”, meaning you should market from the web standpoint the most. In my opinion (maybe weighted), you should push as much of the house online as possible to potential buyers, best shown in video form.
The thing I find most interesting from the article is this statement: “I’ve spent many hours over the past few months surfing through dozens of slideshows of home listings on real estate Web sites. Many of them are just awful.” I would have to agree. I run into so many listings with terrible photos and virtual tours that are hard to control. If you are having trouble selling your listing, and want it seen by as many buyers as possible (which will in turn get you more offers in a faster amount of time), hire a professional (whether it be photographer or videographer).
A professional will be able to focus on the things that highlight a property, not the clutter in the corner, showing your listing off in it’s best light. And I’m not saying this just because I’m in the business of selling my services, but because I’ve seen the results from both kinds of realtors, then realtor that will spend the marketing dollars, and the realtor that will not. In most cases, the realtors that spend get incredibly better results (and incredibly better properties).
WellcomeMat, a real estate video hosting service that we occasionally work with, has posted a survey regarding video tours, targeted toward real estate agents. If you have time, please fill it out and share your opinion of video tours!
I just happened upon this blog post by Steve Bergsman regarding the hassles of maintaining a vacant home that is up for sale by various people including the realtor and bank. Steve goes on and on about advice on keeping the grounds maintained, transients out, and what the realtor must keep in mind when going about showing the house.
It actually escapes me that, despite posting this on the Inman News blog, which started their business by creating tour videos (a friendly competitor of mine), he fails to mention the obvious: provide a home video tour.
Put it this way folks, look at the costs (and hassle) associated with maintaining these vacant homes and always keeping them in their best light, despite having a boarded up entry way. Why not just spend a little bit of money and show only the shots you want to show to the buyer in a video? That way you never have to visit the house, you don’t have to worry about the homeless dude jumping out at potential buyers during a tour, and you don’t have to worry about the overgrown grass. Buyers will be able to see the house how it is supposed to be seen, and not in it’s decrepit state.
I’m happy to announce that we are eliminating a service charge and now providing it to ALL of our customers for FREE! Previously, we were charging people for converting our videos to iPod and iPhone (really any smartphone device) format so that they could show off listings to potential customers, even while in line at Starbucks, while waiting for their grande cappuccino latte.
Recent shifts in the way we deliver our videos has made it easier for us to deliver these files, and the savings shifts on to you, our customers! The great thing is that these files can also be played on any computer as well, making them ideal for your listing presentations.
So for now on, the videos are on us! And if you are a current customer who would like a former house of yours in this format, simply give me a call and I will send it over to you.
And for those of you who were suckered into this post from the title, suggesting you were getting a free iPhone, who knows, maybe that will happen in the future! Sign up to our newsletter and blog to find out!
Invading the East Bay
Since we are a San Jose based company, we rarely promote ourselves to East Bay realtors, because we unfortunately must charge a nominal travel fee to make it out there. However, a new client, Hugh Metzler, recently contacted us because he realizes the huge selling value of real estate video versus the typical virtual tour.
Take a look at this great house in Dublin, located near great parks and shopping, and on a cul-de-sac with bike path entrance! 8057 Crossridge Road:
I was reading an article today on time-lapse photography and using it as a tool within real estate videos. Time-lapse, when used in the video sense, is basically taking a long amount of video (while stationary) and then fast forwarding that video by about 400%. The effect this gives off are images like cloud moving by quickly, a reflection of light moving as the day goes on, or shadows across the floor. Here is a nice example:
I actually love doing these kinds of shots, but the downside is that they take a LOT of time. You are basically sitting there for anywhere from 20 minutes to 3 hours making sure your camera does not move, and hoping you set exposure correctly. Our time means our clients’ money, and not many clients want to spend the extra cash for a cool effect.
So because of this, I have come up with a plan to make time-lapse affordable. I am currently creating stock video of different time-lapse shots, that can be easily inserted into any house. Most of these include parks, highways, downtown areas, and other relevant shots to real estate. For all of our packages that run over $500, we will include at least one stock time-lapse clip for free, and sometimes more if the video calls for it. For packages under that, we will be adding a $20 option per clip.
Now what if you wanted a custom time-lapse piece that relates to your specific property? We will simply work at a reduced hourly rate of $70 per hour to create that piece (normally we work for $150 per hour, so this is a deal when it comes to high-end properties)!
Interested in time-lapse? Contact us at any time and we’ll fill you in on your options. Look forward to some of our time-lapse pieces on this blog.
Denver Post on Video Tours
The Denver Post wrote up a great article on utilizing video tours for your property listings, saying, “Now it’s all about full-motion video.”
Virtual home tours arrived online about a decade ago, as the nation’s broadband networks developed the capacity to deliver them. First it was the 360-degree panorama — a houseful of slow pans stitched together with editing software.
Now it’s all about full-motion video.
“I’ve posted all of my listings with video for the past three years,” said Jim Smith, a Golden-based broker who acts as his own film crew. He speaks on camera, narrates as he walks the floors, and edits the footage with Windows Movie Maker software.
While some brokers have used video for years, the nation’s Multiple Listing Services are just beginning to catch up, said Christian Sterner, co-founder of WellcomeMat, a Boulder company that hosts video for real- estate companies.
Video postings are found on realtor.com, a public site that aggregates listings from many MLS systems nationwide. But many brokers fail to take advantage of the capability, even when their big employers pay for it, Smith said.
“The funniest ones are when they shoot a video but they don’t speak. You see the camera moving around the house and all you can hear is the guy breathing,” he said.
Video is not just about listings, said Sterner, speaking recently to Denver brokers gathered to learn more about social media. “Real-estate companies have an interest in being a local information source. So they produce information about schools, restaurants, shopping and entertainment, not just houses,” he said.
Keller Williams broker Jennifer Pollock operates in Denver’s Mayfair neighborhood. She blogs and posts video at mayfairdenver.com. Recently, she covered the groundbreaking for a construction project at Palmer Elementary School.
“Video engages people. It gives you a very personal feeling for the neighborhood,” she said. Her aim is to sell the neighborhood and herself as much as to sell homes.
In the social-media lingo swirling around video and real estate, Pollock is engaged in “hyper-localism.” An enthusiastic advocate of that is Mark Eibner of Denver-based BrokerIPTV.
Eibner urges brokers to blog locally with live streaming video, enabled by common hand-held devices such as the iPhone and BlackBerry.
“If it’s easy, you’ll do it,” Eibner advises.
He advises that clients don’t bother with scripting or editing and instead stream their footage to a distribution site such as Qik.com., which will “push” the content to YouTube and dozens of lesser-known sites.
“Quick-streaming video has its place, and so does a carefully planned production,” said Mark Schow. He is the Colorado distributor for Obeo, the leading provider of full-service online virtual tours.
There is no rivalry between “traditional” providers and the newer generation of quicker technology applications. Schow also owns Mediamax, producing broker profiles and more upscale property listings.
“Ease of delivery is definitely where the industry is going,” he said. “You have to figure out how to make brokers and homes look good at a reasonable price.”
Death of Old School Realtor
It’s rare that I have posted to this blog lately (sorry about that, we have a ton of projects that we are working on), but this video just made me excited about the thoughts on realty and video.
Ian Watt is a successful realtor in Vancouver, Canada who changed his strategy about marketing himself, and it has paid off in droves for him. Enjoy this seminar that he gave recently, it may enlighten you on re-aligning your own marketing.
