Most sellers, buyers, and real estate agents know the value of including pictures of a home in a for sale listing, but a new trend is emerging that is making it easier to sell a home. Many real estate agents are now encouraging their clients to create short videos that show off the best features of their home, yard, neighborhood, and city to include in their marketing strategy. Such videos have been shown to help certain homes stand out to potential buyers and even help to generate more people that might be interested in your home. So, if you’re serious about selling, you should consider making a short film that highlights all of the great things about your home and area to include with your for sale listing.
Social media has been of great help to many home buyers and sellers, since information can spread so quickly through sites like Facebook, YouTube, Trulia, and more. It doesn’t take much effort for people to click ‘play’ on your video, so broadcasting your sale through social media is a great, low-effort way to get your home to sell quicker. In 2012 only about 3% of real estate agents were using videos to help sell their clients’ homes, and fewer than that used videos that included the seller talking about their home on camera. This is why video tours of homes and neighborhoods have been so successful-they’re rare!
Recently, many agents and other companies in the world of real estate have started to notice the benefits of using video to sell homes; for example, Zillow has partnered with StudioNow, a suite of services to help agents – many of whom lack video-editing skills – make these short productions.
What do these videos look like though? How are they made?
Here are a few tips…
Homeowner Interview – homeowner answering interview questions about what they love most about their home and neighborhood. This is a great way to bring your property to life and to inform potential buyers of all the wonderful things they’re getting when they purchase your home.
Length – Once the video has been filmed and edited (they should only be 2 or 3 minutes long)
Where to post – Everywhere! First, upload it to YouTube then ask your agent to upload it to popular social media sites like Facebook, or include a link on Twitter, and to sites like Trulia, Zillow, Realtor.com, RealBird, and other search sites. You also want to ‘tag’ your video appropriately so that it generates a lot of traffic. You can experiment with different tags on different sites to see what generates the most traffic, but this step is usually one that is easier when working with an experienced real estate agent or knowledgeable third party.
Keep it simple – Remember to keep it simple-no special effects or loud music.
Watch for motion sickness – If you plan on walking through your home with a camera, make sure to be aware that some will not be able to watch the entire video. The camera will shake and the video can be blurry. Try standing still while taking the video and mixing still pictures in between the videos to break up the movement.
Finally, brag! You’re trying to sell your home, so really sell it; talk about the great neighbors, the summer festivals, the conveniences of having a walk-in closet-anything you can think of!
To read more on using video to sell your home, check out the original article from MSN.
Tidbits from Tari! 