Joe Naccarato's Real Estate News You Can Use: The Evolving Role of Video in Real Estate

by Dean Hartman on June 2, 2011

I have heard it said that by 2013, 90% of new content posted to the web will be in the form of video…90%!!! What that says to me is that video is what our clients, customers, and prospects want.
They want it to educate themselves without reading. They want it to be stimulated more by sights and sounds than the written word. Quite frankly, as real estate and mortgage professionals, we need to aggressively get ahead of this paradigm shift.
Static print advertising is a waste of money for the vast portion of the population. If people want to buy something, they don’t look at the classifieds anymore, they scour the web. They go to eBay-like sites for consumer goods, and they go to Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com-type sites for homes. When they get there, they are quickly bored by still photos. They want video!

People want video about the home, for sure. But also, video about the neighborhood; and even, video about the agent who they might meet when they preview the home.
Now, I have seen some elaborate video productions that cost a lot of money, and in my experience, they are usually not worth it. The consumer is turned off by the “infomercial” because they feel they are being sold. There’s something that turns people off when something is too slick. People want to do business with real people in real situations, so a simple video that is imperfect works just fine.
Some video tips for agents and sellers to consider:

Keep your videos under two minutes and thirty seconds…even shorter if you can. The US population has a short attention span. They want the information delivered succinctly….in small easily digestible portions.
When videoing a home, don’t show everything! Show the best one or two features of the home. Everything else you show give people a reason not to see the house. Tease them to draw them in and ask for a showing or to come to the open house.
Consider shooting a video of the seller talking about the memories they have of their home. Remember that a home purchase is, at least, as much an emotional one as it is financial. The seller can touch heartstrings that agents and spreadsheets never will.
Lighting is very important. Choose the brightest rooms or even outdoors on a sunny day. The energy that good lighting brings to a video is huge.

Bottom Line

The public wants video. Agents can produce video without tremendous expense. Sellers can get involved in creating the content. Video is easy to market via Facebook, YouTube, attached to single property websites, burned onto DVDs, and so on. Embrace the video wave. Today, it is a differentiator. Be different!