Fred Light

• Manage |RSSConnect NY 2009
• Manage |RSSConnect SF 2008
• Manage |RSSReal Estate Marketing
• Manage |RSSReal Estate Marketing 2.0
• Manage |RSSReal Estate Trends

Victor: Here are some nice, "raw" videos for ya! http://www.nashuavideotours.com/virtualtours/bad-video-real-estate-tours.html Real Estate Video Tours http://www.NashuaVideoTours.com

I think there is room for amateur video as well as professional video. Realtors can easily shoot highly effective video testimonials from satisfied clients, which is incredibly powerful. They can easily shoot a video blog. They can also shoot a tour of a home. I've seen some very good quality home tours shot by Realtors. I've seen some amazing photographs taken by Realtors. I've seen some striking brochures, flyers and websites created by Realtors. However... the reality is that 90% of Realtors do not have the skills, equipment and most often, the time, to do these properly. They all take time, skills, the proper tools, and - most importantly - knowing how to USE those tools. Can it be done? Absolutely, If you've got the time, the skills and the tools to do it properly. Sorry, but $150 Flip camera is the right tool for some things, but it's not the right tool for a property tour. Without a wide angle lens, without the ability to shoot in low light, and without the ability to capture good audio, you're creating the moving picture version of a really bad cell phone photograph. Comparing a real estate video promoting a home that is selling for hundreds of thousands (or millions) of dollars, with YouTube videos of a cat summersaulting into the toilet is not a fair comparison! Yes, many people enjoy and watch extremely shaky, raw, blurry YouTube videos of stupid things everyday. That does NOT mean they expect or desire that quality on a home that they are potentially interested in purchasing for hundreds of thousands of dollars! Curb appeal of yesterday is WEB APPEAL today. The presentation online that someone is viewing at 2am in their bunny slippers on a 15" laptop determines whether someone picks up the phone to see the home in person - or clicks the NEXT button. Making a quality, compelling presentation online is key to success. Many people put real estate professionals in the same camp as used car salesman - it's not exactly at the top of the food chain in the eyes of consumers. Putting a marketing piece online of a product selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars that looks like Uncle John's bad home movies does not exactly reverse that stereotype! Granted, many sellers don't even bother to pay attention as to how their agent is marketing (or NOT marketing!) their home, but if I was a seller and I was potentially paying you $15,000 - 20,000 in commission, you'd better market my property in the best, most professional way possible. That does NOT include dark, blurry, crooked photos snapped with your $150 point and shoot camera in 5 minutes as you quickly run around the house. And that most certainly does not include a blurry, shaky video tour with bad audio and "raw" narration! Just imagining a tour of a property on HORSEBACK as suggested, galloping up and down makes me nauseated just thinking about it! That idea is absolutely insane - sorry. Zappos, an online shoe retailer who did $1.2 billion dollars in sales last year seems to know a little bit about marketing. For a $35 sandal, they offer seven (7) professionally shot photographs! That's more than many agents use on a $500K house! They will now be producing videos on each shoe, with a goal of 50,000 videos next year! And guess what? They're not shooting them with a $150 Flip camera! Maybe they know something? There is a huge difference between a slick, overproduced "commercial", and a shaky, blurry, blatantly amateurish video that makes most people lunge for the barf bag. Ideally, you want to be somewhere in the middle. Nobody says it needs to be slick and overproduced, but it definitely needs to be something that will make your seller happy and increase the professionalism of your brand to future clients. Learning to do a quality video is something that anyone can do - if that is a priority for you. Spending $200-$300 for a quality video that makes them look professional and lets that agent do his JOB where he can make a lot more money seems to be a small price to pay. I see many agents pay far more than that for a small ad with a photo of their head in the local shopper that nobody reads anymore.... Having shot well over 1,400 property tours and having spoken to many sellers (who are usually future buyers), they're NOT pleased with zooming slideshows regurgitating the same MLS photos they just saw and they're NOT thrilled with "Blair Witch Project" types of "raw" videos. Real Estate Video Tours http://www.NashuaVideoTours.com

There's a reason most people don't want to watch Uncle Bob's vacation home movies.... Using that "technique" (shaky, unedited, "raw" video with horrible audio) to market a home costing hundreds of thousands (or millions) of dollars... just doesn't make any sense. If you actually speak to buyers looking online for property, you'll find most are NOT thrilled with that type of presentation. It doesn't need to be flashy or slick at all, but it needs to be watchable. A barf bag should not be a prerequisite for watching the video. And it needs to accurately represent a product that is potentially selling for a great deal of money. You owe that to yourself as well as your seller. I can't imagine that you would respond positively to a shaky, blurry, "raw" commercial with bad audio for a Lexus or a Mercedes, would you? You would mock an advertisement like that! Yet you're selling a product worth many, many, many times more than a Mercedes! Why should bad marketing be acceptable in real estate when you would not accept it anywhere else? But, most realtors feel that taking dark, crooked, blurry photos of furniture pieces in a home (since that's about all you can shoot with a typical point and shoot camera) for the MLS is an acceptable way of marketing a home, so this is just a moving version of that philosophy - I don't expect things to change much for the majority of real estate marketing today - it can be pretty awful. The sideways toilet with yellow water I spied on the MLS just last week proves that point yet again! But I would suggest if you want to truly present YOURSELF as a professional, present your BRAND as professional, and present your PROPERTY in a professional manner, that you NOT walk around with a $150 FLIP camera and horribly bad audio as a marketing tool for the public. Unless you really want to spend a great deal of time learning how to edit video and shoot video and deal with lighting issues, etc., you're better off not doing it at all or hiring a professional. Most real estate video tours can be had for under $200-$300, which is pretty reasonable considering the reach it has to potential buyers and the professional way it can present YOU, as a savvy marketing agent to potential clients. Think of the sales pitch you give to potential FSBO sellers about why THEY shouldn't be selling their own property themselves. The same philosophy applies to you in this regard, does it not? Real Estate Video Tours http://www.NashuaVideoTours.com Online Video Marketing http://www.BostonWeb.TV