I'm in a small rural market. We have somewhere around 2249 active residential (including mobiles on rented land) listings today. Despite all the products available these day, most residential listings are still without Virtual Tour. In fact, there are only 509 listings with a Virtual Tour of some kind. WHY???
Of course, it makes it so much easier for us to fetch those expired listings if they didn't have a Virtual Tour provided by their previous agent. Buyers will spend more time looking at a listing if it has a Virtual Tour. Buyers might not even click on a listing that doesn't have one. It's easy for us to make the case as to why we are the agents to work with.
Yes, there are listings where a Virtual Tour can backfire. We have one of those: overgrown courtyard, interior needs serious cosmetic work. We're not able to get a hold of the seller to get written confirmation to hire someone to fix up the place. Soooo, we do not have a Virtual Tour on that property. Other than that, all our listings have a tour. It's standard these days, or is it?
Andrea, it does not appear to be standard these days in my neck of the woods, but it should be.
I'd absolutely do one on that listing you described, too. I'd also make sure it was priced accordingly. And that baby would sell quickly to a buyer looking for just that type of property.
Andrea, Travis James here. I am a Mortgage Broker also in a rural area; we have two offices; one town has 3,000 population, the other has 8,000. Almost no Real Estate Agents use virtual tours. Of course I have tried to help agents co-brand business but none of them will accept my offers. For example, I have offered to help pay for any RESPA legal marketing; pay 50% of any ads, any Open House costs, mortgage marketing yard signs, etc. We are fairly new, 1 yr and 2 yrs in the market place of each office / town. Why aren't agents taking me up on these offers to help them? What can I do to get their attention and become their financing referred source to their clients? I did hear feedback my fees were too high; I think they're used to dealing with local banks who charge almost nothing. I did a great job when we first opened then had one problem closing we had to push back 5 days due to the lender of which I'm sure she blamed me and since then, she doesn't send me business any more. What can I do? If I help them with their Virtual Tour technology, would that help? Please help!
Thank you,
Travis
I use a virtual tour on all my listings. I do believe with the glut of inventory that buyers WILL skip over listings with no extra pictures or a tour.
If virtual tours are the rage in your area then by all means you should have one. It makes no difference what shape the property is in.
Remember the purpose of advertising is to identify customers. Just as in 1988 when I listed a tri-plex for $35,000 ( other competing properties were $150,000). Yes the tri-plex was a mess but boy oh boy did that price make the phone ring. And I made a lot of money selling the buyers other properties that met thier needs. It was a happy and a sad day when I finaly sold the old boy.
I love them. On my most recent listing, I got over 800 hits in 21 days. So I knew that I had it priced right and we got four offers. On the market only 21 days and it's sold.
Lanette and Herb, you are absolutely right! I didn't even look at it that way. What a great idea! We'll do the Tour tomorrow! THANKS!!!
Travis, the secret might be "building rapport". I don't know about other agents but I'm very careful in chosing with whom I work with. I need to feel comfortable with someone, regardless of the perks I'm being offered. As for Virtual Tours, I think most agents are just too lazy to even mention it when they get the listing.
Ellie, I've heard this first hand from buyers: "Your listing was the only one with lots of photos and an extensive Virtual Tour. We didn't even bother clicking on the other ones."
Kenneth, I love to look at Virtual Tours myself, just for the fun of it. The more the better!
Andrea, what service do you use for your virual tours? As you mentioned, if many of the agents are lazy or just too busy, if I learned your virtual tour skill and offered to set their listings up on the service, would that interest them in starting a relationship with me? Your thoughts or suggestions? In other words, what would it take for a new lender to earn your business never knowing them before?
thanks,
Travis
Travis, I produce and host my own. Actually, my husband takes care of it and we've been talking about offering this service to other agents in my MLS for a small fee. He's been working on setting things up. I'll post it once we're ready to go.
I think the tour would be a good way to "break the ice".
Virtual Tours are a must have these days as almost eveyone in my market agrees. Most virtual tours are concidered a listing enhancement added to the listing that we assume the buyer has already found. What good is a virtual tour is no one finds the listing. So after days of searching the internet i found a company that actually markets and promotes the virtual tour they produce. I have never had such a huge responce. Check them out if you have time. They post the tour to 70 national websites. No other virtual tour company does this. However i do think most of the other virtual tour companies will start doing this if they want to compete with other companies or the do it yourself virtual tour programs that are offered now. www.ElectroTours.com I only have 5 listings right now but the last 3 listings i sold was a direct result in this company posting my listing to all of the other websites for me.
Carol