I’m always chatting with real estate agents around the country to see, who is doing what in terms of new marketing. I’m always looking for new ideas to market my real estate listings here in the Salem area. I was chatting with a really great Colts Neck, NJ real estate agent, Andrew Lenza about the use of tours in marketing. He wrote a post about how a buyer for a property fell in love with the house after watching the virtual tour.
>Now I do video tours for my listings, but I was curious about how many local homes for sale in Salem Oregon specifically, had a virtual tour or video tour as part of their marketing. In this day and age, I have to say I was surprised. As of today, 17% of homes on the MLS have a virtual or video tour. 17%…that’s it. Now I can bet that most of those are just the slide-show virtual tours, and not an actual video tour, but I’d literally have to flip through all of them to see those stats, and well…that’s not going to happen.
I’m guessing that John Kirk and I are some of the few agents in town that do an actual video tour. I’ve been messing around with different formats for my video tours, and have been enjoying adding that aspect into my marketing. I do use a professional cameraman to shoot my videos since my tiny camera can’t handle the lighting differences.
So, when you are thinking about selling your home in Salem Oregon and you are looking at marketing plans think about this…
According to the 2009 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, 63% of home buyers found virtual and video tours helpful, and 26% somewhat useful. 89% of buyers found some use out of virtual tours, yet only 17% of local agents are using them. Are you using an agent that is missing the boat? The buyers like them. Compare that to the 84% of buyers who found newspaper ads not useful at all. Is your listing agent marketing to the consumer.
Seriously.
If you are getting ready to hire an agent to sell your home and you think the 8 page Sunday spread sounds like great marketing…think again. The buyers of your home are telling you what THEY want. The only question that remains is are you hiring an agent to sell your home that is listening.