With today’s norm drastically changing due to the Covid-19 Pandemic.  Creating a Real Estate virtual tour is essential for showing homes to prospective buyers while maintaining a physical distance.  Luckily it is now easier and more affordable than ever to create a virtual tour!

With traditional media, like pictures and videos, it is often very difficult to get a sense of a property without actually visiting it first.  You should be conducting a live or recorded video virtual tour. This can help buyers get a feel for your home without having to visit it in person.

What equipment do you need for a virtual tour?

Your smartphone is really all you need, but it is recommended to use a tripod with a rotating head and a phone mount to make your video as smooth and professional as possible.   There are additional items you can purchase to enhance recording with your phone, such as Bluetooth remotes, and add on lenses that can help you take your video game up a notch.

How to make a real estate video tour

Real estate virtual tours allow buyers to digitally tour a home you have for sale.  You can create a live video, allowing for prospective buyers to engage with you while you walk around the home.  You can also record the video tour, creating a virtual experience for the home that you can also add to your single listing website to enhance the experience.  Keep in mind, your virtual tour should show your home on its best day ever!

To conduct the real estate virtual tour follow these steps:

• Before you conduct the video tour, make sure to test all of your video equipment, making sure you are familiar with how to use it; and that it is fully charged and working. Check your camera lens, wipe with a lint-free cloth to ensure no smudges so you can provide the clearest picture.
  
• Make sure the home is free of clutter.  Remove any objects you might accidentally trip on.  Hide unnecessary items that you don’t want to be shown in the tour, like cleaning supplies and trash cans.  Make sure any pets are out of the home too.
• Ensure that proper lighting is adequate throughout the home.  Taking note of what time of day the sun comes through the windows, that is the time you want to conduct your video tour.  Go around to all the windows, blinds, doors and open them and be sure to turn on all the lights.
• Do a test run.  Walkthrough the property creating the best route for touring each room.  Create a script for what you want to say about specific features and areas of the home. Remember this is not a photograph, you want to keep things moving (not too slow and not too fast) while keeping the camera as steady as possible.  This takes a little bit of practice but isn’t hard to do.  *Note: It’s easier to walk smoothly across the floor without your shoes.
• Start from the exterior and work your way through the home and out the back.  Remember this is not a photograph, you want to keep things moving.  Finish on your end mark and don’t forget to smile.

Additional benefits of creating a virtual tour to sell a home

There are many benefits of offering a real estate video tour. Have you ever taken the time to tour a home, only to be disappointed with how different the home is from the pictures? 

Still, photos can sometimes be misleading, but video tours allow prospective buyers to get a more accurate feel for how the home is laid out. Because of this the people you speak to who see this video will be more likely to be high-intent buyers who have invested more time in the research phase.

Use these videos for social media marketing.  Put it on your Facebook Business page, Instagram, LinkedIn, Youtube, etc.  If you still think the best strategy is putting a property on the MLS and let it sell itself, think again.  Boosting your listings with video tours and video marketing will increase your sales substantially. 85% of buyers and sellers want to work with an agent that uses real estate videos for marketing. 86% of homebuyers use video to research a particular community.  Source Inman

Chat with one of our trained sales agents to find out about additional video marketing tools that you can leverage from Zentap by clicking here.