Key Highlights
- Consumers expect to see listing video prior to in-person touring
- New Inman Handbook to Digital Home Showings offers agents tips about creating and leveraging video showings
- Part I in this multi-part series focuses on “When and Why Basics” of digital showings
New Inman Handbook to Digital Home Showings Now Available
The new Inman Handbook to Digital Home Showings is available to agents just in time. Not only do your prospects and clients want to see listings videos, they expect to see them before seeing a home in-person.
For proof, Matterport, the leader in producing digital home tour content and a pending IPO company, grew its subscriber base by +500% in 2020 in countries throughout the developed world. “Seeing homes from a distance” was required during the height of the COVID pandemic. Now, seeing homes from a distance is a consumer requirement.
Part I of this multi-part series focuses on “When and Why Basics” of digital showings
When to Use Digital Showings?
In addition to protecting everyone’s health, digital home showings maximize and value both sellers’ and buyers’ time. Buyers want to be able to preview a home before they decide to see the home in-person. Sellers want in-person viewers of their home to be “serious” prospects. Digital home showings help weed out “just looking” prospects. Virtual tours also save sellers the time and energy of having the house staged and show-ready at all times of the day or evening.
Listings agents can leverage digital showings by “strongly suggesting” buyers view digital tours prior to scheduling an in-person tour. A simple form from the listing agent to the buyer’s agent would do the trick.
What If a House is Empty?
If the house is without furniture, combining virtual staging with virtual showings can make the house much more sale-able. Flat, empty rooms don’t stimulate buyers’ imaginations. Even one or two rooms being virtually staged in an empty house is more buyer-friendly than a big, blank box.
Why Use Digital Showings?
Since digital showings get the most eyes on a property the fastest possible way, listing agents can be proud in offering their sellers a well-curated and well-produced digital tour of their home. Digital showings are 24/7 marketing tools.
Some home-tour software products can enable listings agents to present virtual tours as live events, as interactive hotspots, as live chats, as informal “walk and talks,” and as life-style driven formats to multiple users.
For buyers’ agents, remember that many buyers have a range of “Influencers” (parents, partners, friends) who “help” buyers make the decision to buy. What buyer’s agent wants to arrange multiple in-person showings so everyone with an influencing opinion on the buyer can see the house?
Tech Advancements in Creating Digital Showings Is Blanketing Entire Home Sales Transaction
Listing web sites such as Zillow and Google prioritize listings with video. So does SEO clout.
Lead information can be plugged into CRM solutions. Some companies have software products that have digitized listing presentations and even commission checks.
Even without using already available software products, just a smartphone and sub-$150 stabilizer with a magnetic phone clamp and magnetic ring holder can enable users to essentially “film on the go.”
Time to Create Digital Home Tours is Now
According to Peter Schravemade of the real estate visual marketing company BoxBrownie, “The overwhelming evidence is that you should be creating tours; the technology is over two decades old, we are still amidst a serious health global event stopping purchasers (from) getting into homes, the cost of creating a tour is no longer prohibitive, and most importantly, purchasers of all generations are telling you it is important to their experience in buying a home.”
Thanks to Inman.
