Key Highlights
- This post, Part III of the Inman Handbook on Digital Home Showings, focuses on “Working with Buyers”
- For maximum efficiency and effectiveness, prep your buyers with questions they can ask themselves about the online home tour you’re sending them
Virtual Home Tours Respect Your Buyers’ Time
To maximize your buyers’ time (plus your sellers’ time and your own), ask your buyers to specify what basics (price range, number of bedroom/bathrooms, home office(s), move-in timeline, etc.) and features (in-home gym/media room, views, feeder schools, proximity to neighborhood amenities, etc.) they need and/or want in a home before you send them any videos of “possible” homes.
Help Buyers Build Emotional Connection with a Property
When creating your digital home tour, start from the outside of the home (just as you would when doing an in-person home tour) and then go inside a show-ready home to “get up close and personal” with the property.
When you feel you have a “match” of your buyers’ wants/need and a house, send them some questions they may ask themselves while watching that video. This is a good way to help prospective buyers focus on what they’re seeing and how they’re reacting to the house they’re viewing.
According to Mauricio Umansky, founder and CEO of The Agency, these questions and “pointers” help “…to get the deal done.”
Arrange “Parade of Homes” via Digital Showings
Invite buyers to “visit” a group of homes within a specially created event website such as VirtualHomeSearch.com. Such a ”parade” was created in a partnership of the Realtors Association of the Palm Beaches and Beaches MLS and is now a quarterly weekend event.
At its first Parade of Homes in late April of 2020, more than 700 digital open houses were viewed and the website tallied more than 8,000 unique page views, according to Dionna Hall, the CEO of this Realtors Association in Florida.
The keys, again, are knowing what the buyers want to see in a home listing and matching their needs and wants. with the “right” house.
Remind Your Buyers to Utilize Chats and Direct Video Interactions to Ask Questions While They’re Watching a Digital Showing
Help your buyers utilize all the technology available to them in digital home tours. Give them a hand-out that explains the where and how-to’s of the tech, go over the hand-out with them verbally and perhaps do a practice run-through of a tour with them.
Provide “Extras” to Buyers that Not Included in Video
Include things such as floor plans, special disclosures about the house, recent renovations, photos/information about HVAC systems that likely are not included in any of the visuals.
Remember, it is your job as a top-producing agent to prepare your buyers so they can best utilize all the elements of digital showings
Thanks to Inman.
