http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news The latest news from Last Cut Homes and real estate video tours Wed, 20 Jan 2010 08:04:03 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news/2009/08/24/photo-lesson-for-sellers/ http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news/2009/08/24/photo-lesson-for-sellers/#comments Mon, 24 Aug 2009 18:27:31 +0000 tbanucci http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news/?p=138

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.

You can read the article here.

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).

]]> http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news/2009/08/24/photo-lesson-for-sellers/feed/ 2 http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news/2009/07/02/denver-post-on-video-tours/ http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news/2009/07/02/denver-post-on-video-tours/#comments Fri, 03 Jul 2009 04:03:29 +0000 tbanucci http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news/?p=93
Denver Post Article Link


Here is the text of the article below….



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.”]]> http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news/2009/07/02/denver-post-on-video-tours/feed/ 0 http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news/2008/10/29/video-impact-of-buying-homes-via-the-internet/ http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news/2008/10/29/video-impact-of-buying-homes-via-the-internet/#comments Wed, 29 Oct 2008 19:08:22 +0000 tbanucci http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news/?p=45

One message that came across in numerous sessions during this years Real Estate Connect conference, was that “video has captured the next hot trend mantle for real estate Web sites and individual real estate professionals’ blogs.”

Martin Nisenholtz, Sr. VP of Digital Operations for The New York Times Company, spoke about how the Times was about to roll out video for its real estate ads. Charlie Young, COO with Coldwell Banker, said that his company plans to do more with video on its Web site and elsewhere.

And how about the general public? They’re definitely on board with anything on-line. As recent as 2 years ago we have met clients looking to buy a house by getting in their car daily and driving around neighborhoods, spending numerous weekends going to open houses, checking out the market and looking for a real estate agent they wanted to work with.

Today, we meet home buyers that prefer to go online to do all their searching. They believe so much in the integrity of the online experience that seeing a video of a house is just like being there in person. This is a huge impact on how Realtors are listing and selling their properties today. If you’re still hoping one picture and a few Open Houses will get your listing sold, you are certainly not keeping up with the market.

Don’t let this happen to you. Contact us today so we can show you how to stay in front of your clients, your competition, and get your listings sold!]]> http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news/2008/10/29/video-impact-of-buying-homes-via-the-internet/feed/ 2 http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news/2008/10/13/economy-have-you-down/ http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news/2008/10/13/economy-have-you-down/#comments Tue, 14 Oct 2008 06:00:00 +0000 tbanucci http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news/?p=32

The economy is in ruins right now, stocks are at an 8 year low, and the amount of houses on the market is amazing! The following is some economical advice that was sent to me. I don’t know if it’s true, but I like it!

If you had purchased $1,000 worth of shares in Delta Airlines one year ago, you would have $49.00 today.

If you had purchased $1,000 worth of shares in AIG one year ago, you would have $33.00 today.

If you had purchased $1,000 worth of shares in Lehman Brothers one year ago, you would have $0.00 today.

But, if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drunk all the beer, then turned in the aluminum cans for recycling refund, you would have received $214.00.

Based on the above, the best current investment plan is to drink heavily & recycle. It is called the 401-Keg.]]> http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news/2008/10/13/economy-have-you-down/feed/ 0 http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news/2008/10/10/how-a-home-video-tour-can-save-the-environment/ http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news/2008/10/10/how-a-home-video-tour-can-save-the-environment/#comments Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:00:39 +0000 tbanucci http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news/?p=33

Gas prices have come down in the past couple of weeks, so I may be late in the game to write this post. However, a tank of regular gas is still around $3.50! Isn’t it amazing that just two years ago we were having a fit that gas prices had gone over $2 a gallon? And with the way things are going, there is no doubt gas prices are going to be above $4 again soon….

Why is a video guy talking about gas so much? I guess it could have something to do with that burrito I ate for lunch. Think about this- how many people are driving house to house trying to find the perfect one? Hundreds of houses are on the market, and that means thousand of car trips up and down the block! That leads to millions of gallons of wasted gas, not to mention the extra carbon dioxide in the air, enlarging that hole in the atmosphere, and melting a few more icebergs that polar bears can’t sit on.

Ethically, you must be suffocating right now seeing all of the earthly damage you’ve had a hand in. OK, you probably have not thought about it that much…. but now that you do know about it, don’t you want to do something about it?

Well, you can! Not only that, but you can use it as part of your “green” marketing! Simply book us to complete a video our of your home listing. The buyers will see everything they love or hate about the home in the video because we show the area the home is in, the unique details, and the whole layout with a personalized voiceover that guides the potential buyer through the home. It’s almost like actually being inside the home, without having to kick out the owners every time someone wants to see the house! And if the potential buyer didn’t like the property, well they probably saw it through the video and not the 8 tiny pictures you normally put up on the MLS. Car trip averted!

Get this- we’ve actually helped sell houses without the buyer stepping in the house! How effective is that? Not only for your marketing and the sale of the home, but for the car rides those buyers didn’t have to take!

Save our earth, buy a video!]]> http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news/2008/10/10/how-a-home-video-tour-can-save-the-environment/feed/ 0 http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news/2008/09/03/future-of-re-video-in-signage/ http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news/2008/09/03/future-of-re-video-in-signage/#comments Wed, 03 Sep 2008 23:01:50 +0000 tbanucci http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news/?p=28

In our first stop down “rehashing lane”, I thought it appropriate to talk about the future of video- especially real estate video, and where it’s headed. This interesting post on Sellsius talks about video signage being used to attract new customers to both brokerages and homes.

As a video professional, and watching trends in the marketing arena, I can say for sure that this type of marketing is in our future, and traditional signage may be extinct within 10-15 years. You can see this already in Times Square, where buildings are pelted with video displays all over the place. Go to the mall, and you will see video signage on the walls of the stores and at the movie theaters.

Ultimately, we will see video signage in front of an open house on a cheap LCD screen, touting the marvelous interior. But why hope and wait for customers to view your signage in a single location? Make your signage virtual and post it on the web, as we are now. But make it easily downloadable or accessible, in multiple venues. You can post to multiple sites, advertise on Google or Yahoo, or put a video on your brokerage homepage. “Virtual” spots that customers can click to and see. It’s really the same thing as putting a sign there, but the attraction level goes up 100%, because your advertisement is no longer a static shot.

Digital signage is definitely near, and of course it does not have the lone benefit of selling a house, but other video sales benefits as well. Where there is a void in your advertising, we can help create a video to sell anything. Take a look at our parent company, The Last Cut Video Productions for more video applications.]]> http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news/2008/09/03/future-of-re-video-in-signage/feed/ 0 http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news/2008/07/07/how-to-get-customers-during-a-recession/ http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news/2008/07/07/how-to-get-customers-during-a-recession/#comments Mon, 07 Jul 2008 21:39:48 +0000 tbanucci http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news/?p=22

This week we videotaped and photographed a beautiful house in San Martin, CA, which is part of an exclusive golf club and winery. You can see it here. What was unusual about this particular tour is that we were not hired by the realtor, but by the home owner instead!

This is a rare occurrence that happens maybe twice a year, and I have to wonder why it happens. Why wouldn’t the realtor themselves pony up for a virtual tour to promote themselves or gain more sales by offering a tour as part of their listing package? After all, when the realtor is going to make approximately 2% of a $2.5 million dollar home ($50,000), $500 for a tour promoting their name, their reputation, the home, and decreasing it’s time on the market, can only lead to future business for that realtor with bigger and better homes, and is not that much of a burden on the overall profit.

I personally have witnessed realtors who were doing 4 home listings a year start using our services to where they now have 4 listings per month! To say that our service alone made those changes happen would be vain, but we have been told stories by these realtors that they were picked simply on the notion that the home sellers liked the fact that the realtor was offering a unique marketing service, compared to the same old drab photos and 360-degree tour that normally are furnished for a home sale.

I spoke with the home seller at length about the situation between her and her realtor out of curiosity of his marketing plan. Turns out this realtor is a friend of the family, which is another topic all together. He told her (after signing her to a contract) that he was only planning to market the home in the traditional sense because that is what worked for him, AND he was having cash flow problems. Cash flow problems?!?! Maybe the reason he is having cash flow problems is because he hardly sells any houses (if any). As an investor, as well as president of a company, I always remember the old adage: if your stock goes down because of the economy, don’t sell, invest more! This is the difference between people who only are looking for the quick buck, and people who are looking for long-term wealth. This applies to my company as well, when business slows down, re-create yourself. There is nothing so constant as change!

This idea of change has been around forever, and is recognized by the most successful businesses out there. I once taped a meeting room of a whole 200 person sales force chanting this slogan for a company wide video, that’s how badly the company wanted to ingrain this idea into the minds of their employees! Although not a new idea, this concept is also known as The Madonna Effect, for her ever changing music and appearance stylings (and I won’t talk about her current Alex Rodriguez change, since it’s still conjuncture).

As for this person’s realtor, I can’t say how long he’ll be the listing agent, but I did not get a good vibe from the homeowner when she asked me about what (our) typical realtors offer to their clients, that’s never a good sign for the current agent! Home sellers always want more, family friend or not! This guy better get his act together and start pleasing the homeowner right away or he is not only going to lose a friend, but a client!

So… are you feeling ill-effects from this economic downturn we are experiencing? Do something about it! Change the way you do things and invest in yourself and your business! ]]> http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news/2008/07/07/how-to-get-customers-during-a-recession/feed/ 2 http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news/2008/06/27/windows-and-light/ http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news/2008/06/27/windows-and-light/#comments Sat, 28 Jun 2008 00:21:32 +0000 tbanucci http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news/2008/06/27/windows-and-light/

Lots of realtors ask us to tape the great view through the windows in our videos. We often accomplish this from outside the window because of the differences in light from inside to outside. You see, color temperature is a big factor in both photography in video. Sunlight (the brightest lightbulb of all) is known to be 5600 K (Kelvin, 0 degrees Kelvin is equal to -273 degree celsius) in temperature. Indoor light is more like 3200 K.

What does this mean? Well… when you shoot a window from indoors, not only is the window extremely bright, while the rest of the interior is really dark, but the outside light is actually a little more blue as well. This creates a HUGE problem when videotaping and photographing interiors of homes. It’s actually possible to make a decent photograph with the difference in light, by either using lots of light behind you when you shoot, or with a method called HDR photography (High Dynamic Range Imaging). However, with video it’s almost unavoidable to get pure white coming in from the windows.

For this reason, we often shoot exterior views from outside a window or yard, rather than through a window. We also try to avoid windows as much as possible in our shots, often setting up our video camera next to a window and catching it either in the very beginning or end of a shot.

Now, with that said, imagine trying to videotape this home in Germany! (found via Sellsius via LikeCool)

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Why not make a larger impact? We here at Last Cut Homes can lower the harmful effects of your marketing plan- environmentally and strategically! Our marketing offerings are 100% environmentally safe. We don’t use any paper waste (not even our invoices are on paper- we email them to you)! Strategically, nothing is going to show off your property listing like a video tour. Video tours are at the height of technology, give the most information of your property, are “Web 2.0” compliant, and are cost effective. They’ll even help you to get your NEXT listing down the road!

So, recycle those old unused brochures that you made up, your potential buyers sure aren’t saving them- they would rather remember that one of a kind listing by watching a video tour. Maybe you can use your old brochures to replace your toilet paper squares today!]]> http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news/2008/04/22/earth-day-2008/feed/ 0 http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news/2008/04/11/the-big-idea/ http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news/2008/04/11/the-big-idea/#comments Fri, 11 Apr 2008 09:29:00 +0000 tbanucci http://www.lastcuthomes.com/news/2008/04/11/the-big-idea/
One show that always seems to catch my interest is “The Big Idea” with Donnie Deutsch on CNBC. This is a show that interviews people who have made their riches from unique business ideas that they have come up with. It really is inspirational, especially after you hear about how these entrepreneurs have come up with their ideas and made them successful.

On one such show, Donnie was interviewing swimsuit supermodel Carol Alt, I thought to myself “this is going to be a pretty boring show”. But Carol had a great answer when Donnie asked her about getting rich. She said (in context) “There are tons of other models out there, and our job life-span is not incredibly long, so we have to find other avenues to make money quickly so that we can be financially independent. The way I did that was by sticking out of the crowd and always doing a little extra.”

Donnie replied, “That is what we continually talk about on this show. Success comes from sticking out from the crowd, and that is what we try to get across to our viewers.”

Well, it’s not hard to pick Carol out of a crowd, but in terms of her competing against all of the other models of her time, she promoted herself like crazy. She was the first to make a swimsuit calendar of just herself, she went on talk shows, made multiple pin-up posters, and other ideas that would get her noticed more. And it worked, she ended up getting more contracts and advertisement spots because of her hard work in promoting herself.

Now why am I posting a thread like this in a news blog about real estate video tours? Simple. There are thousands of other real estate agents out there competing against you. What are you doing to separate yourself from the crowd? Are you lowering your commission? Are you staging your property for free? Are you taking a few pictures or doing a cheap 360-degree tour like 80% of the realtors out there? The last I heard, there are 4 agents in Santa Clara county competing for each listing. That number might have fluctuated in the past year or two, but you still have some heavy competition!

Picture this: you walk into your next listing appointment and the seller asks you, “why should I pick you over the other two realtors that came here?”

That’s when you pull out your computer or a hand-crafted DVD with your latest real estate video tour and say, “because I can market your house like no one else, and get you a selling price that you want!” Isn’t that what the customer ultimately wants to hear? They want to know that they can sell their house for a great price and that you are going to pull out all the stops to make it happen.

Separate yourself from the rest and get those listings!

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