Month: January 2009

Real Estate Video Tours with Interactive Floor Plans – The Ultimate Virtual Tour

More information is better for the buyer AND the seller
Shopping online for real estate has always been a guessing game. The buyer is left to make their best guess about which homes are actually worth seeing in person. An online listing can increase the quality of its leads generated by providing as much information as possible. A virtual tour with interactive floor plans helps to minimize the guesswork and provides prospective buyers with the next best thing to actually being there in person.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth a million
Online videos for marketing real estate make sense because video provides more information than photos alone. Photos show the quality and craftsmanship of a home, but there is no connectivity between the rooms. The buyer has no idea where they are when looking at photos, and is left to guess how the rooms relate to each other. The overall “flow” and feeling of the home is missing in photos alone.

A video walk through provides the buyer with the sense that they are actually walking through the home. It is a continuous experience that simulates what it feels like to tour the home in person. Video tells a better story about the layout and connectivity of a home by providing a more interactive and informative viewing experience.

Video is good, but something is missing
What’s missing is a viewer-controlled navigation or “map” that allows the buyer to see the layout of the home and provides the ability to jump to any scene in the video. Without this map, navigating a 2-4 minute video of an unfamiliar home can be quite awkward. Unless one is paying very close attention during the entire video, it’s easy to get lost.

It’s also difficult to navigate a video using the time bar. Imagine watching a video of the perfect home, and wanting to show the kitchen scene to another person. How does one know where the kitchen scene begins in the video? Individual scenes must be manually located by dragging the time bar back and forth, a tedious process.

The Interactive Floor Plan Saves the Day
Both problems of getting lost and jumping to a specific scene in the video are solved when using an interactive floor plan. The floor plan graphic “lights up” to show the buyer the current room as shown in the video. A quick glance at the highlighted section of the floor plan orients the buyer and improves the touring experience.

Additionally, buyers can jump to any scene in the video tour by clicking on the interactive floor plan. Buyers take control of their video tour experience, seeing the specific rooms of the home in their desired order. One can jump from the master bedroom to the kitchen and then out to the back yard, all with a few clicks of the mouse.

Online real estate shopping has never been easier nor has it provided the audience with as much information as contained in a video tour with interactive floor plans.

View a video tour with an interactive floor plan and experience the difference compared to a regular listing of just photos or video alone.