Video Tours: Buyer Tested, Social Distance Approved

Listing photos are a great way to highlight the best and most important features of a home, but the showing is when buyers get a true feeling for whether or not they want to purchase a particular home.

Showing a home is one of the most important steps in selling, but arranging a time when the house can be clean, the sellers can be out, and the buyers and their agent can view can be a handful. However, a lot of the logistics involved with showing your listings can be solved by creating a video tour. With a video tour, buyers and agents can get a good feel of a house without interrupting the homeowner or current renter. It also helps promote safe physical distance and reduces the opportunity to spread germs.

Video Tour Ideas

Creating a video tour doesn't have to be hard or expensive. You can create a basic tour on your own with your cell phone or go big by hiring a videographer and actors. It all depends on what you and the sellers want from your tour. Here are some different ways you can approach your video tour.

Go Live

Turn your virtual tour into an event by scheduling it for a particular time. When that time comes, use Facebook Live or another live streaming service to walk virtual attendees through the home. This gives them a chance to ask questions in real time.

Show and Tell

The layout of a home is important, so start your listing tour on the walk up to the house and then walk through each room of the home explaining what it is, describing the lighting, best features, potential areas for improvement, and some different ways the new homeowner could customize the room to meet their preferences.

360 Views

Another way to approach your video tour would be to set up a tripod in the center of each room and slowly do a 360-degree sweep of the room. You can either describe the room as you record or record a soundtrack separately that can be added when you edit each room's video together.

Create an Emotional Connection

Buying a home is one of the biggest emotional decisions a person will make. They will spend years of their life in whichever home they choose and they want to be sure they love their home, location, and neighborhood. Look for ways to build an emotional connection between potential buyers and the home so that they will want to take the next steps to buy the home.

Share how the home fits their lifestyle.

Point out a variety of ways spare rooms or extra bedrooms could be used. You never know when someone will come along who's always wanted a home gym, crafts room, personal library, or home office. Let them know when a space could suit those needs.

Demonstrate the features.

Is the front porch a great place to kick back and relax at the end of the day? Set up a rocking chair, pour a glass of lemonade and show them how peaceful and relaxing the spot is rather than just mentioning how great it is.

Walk them through a typical day.

Add a little cinema to your virtual tour by demonstrating what their day could look like in the home. Take them from the bedroom to the kitchen to pour a cup of coffee. Do a lap in the pool or take viewers on a quick walk around the neighborhood.

Tools to Improve Your Videos

A smartphone is the only tool you need to create video tours. However, if you want to create more professional videos, consider pairing your smartphone with some of these tech tools.

Tripod – A tripod can help you position your camera at a consistent, stable position so that you can reduce or eliminate shaking. You can also set up microphones and light panels on tripods if you choose to invest in sound and light upgrades.

Microphone – Sound quality is extremely important in any video. Consider purchasing a microphone to deliver crisper, clearer sound in your videos.

Light Panel – Purposeful lighting can make a big difference in a video and make rooms or people look their best.

Cold Shoe Mounts Plate – You may find you get a better overall audio-video experience when shooting if you keep your recording device and microphone close to each other. In that case, you can use a cold shoe mount plate to put both devices on a single tripod.

Squidgrip Tripod – If you have multiple devices, such as a camera/smartphone, light panels, and a microphone, you may need more than one tripod. Having a couple flexible tripods can allow you to position your equipment in places you wouldn't be able to access without. They also have the benefit of being smaller, so you can use them on a desk, table, or shelf more easily than you could use a full size tripod.

Additional Resources

Creating videos of any kind can be daunting if you aren't used to it. Check out "Ten Ways to Build Video Confidence" here and find more tips in the Secrets of Top Selling Agents Facebook Group.

To view the original article, visit the Homes.com blog.