Is more or less best when casting a fly?
Many traditional fly fishermen spend the off-season assiduously perfecting imitation flies to tempt their prey, and then along comes some jumped up noob and starts lifting recalcitrant specimens from the silt with strands of kitchen mop. So successful have so-called mop flies become that the sport is trying to ban them.
Over the years many agents have tried to find ways of selling properties with as little effort as possible – but the beauty of the business is that it’s a people business and they have emotions, and however hard you try the internet cannot replicate them.
Stoking those emotions is what advertising is all about and some agents are pushing at boundaries that have been visited before – but is their timing better?
I’m talking about video tours/virtual reality.
In my time in agency many have tried it, from Property Vision (clue is in the name) back in the 80s through to some pretty sophisticated stuff a few years back – tried by many agents and ultimately abandoned.
It’s not cheap – indeed a well known and resourced top-end agent looked recently at VR tours and simply decided that whilst they were undoubtedly fabulous, all they actually did was present a bigger, and expensive, hook to visit what they were seeing in cyberspace, not bid on the spot.
Some felt that being able to walk through and focus in on various parts of a property and its furnishings was a security risk, while internet bandwidth, largely settled now but still an issue if you live in the sticks, was also a major issue.
Public relations people love a new idea and these tours will get column inches despite not being new – but is now the right time? The goal is, surely, to elicit bids from buyers/tenants without visiting.
It’ll be interesting to see how agents find the reaction to virtual tours, but my feeling is it’ll be the same – i.e. producing a virtual facsimile of a seller’s property is unlikely to get a better reaction than a simple well presented mop fly, sorry, advert.
You want to buy a property – you need to see it. Surely an immutable law of agency.
Ask your clients if they would prefer 10 virtual tour views, or 1 actual viewing, and from my experience all would prefer the viewing.
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Not sure, Ed, that the goal is to elicit bids from buyers without visiting. Let’s look at it from the vendors perspective. Is the agency doing all it can to attract potential buyers? Doing something to justify why they charge a higher fee than online/hybrids? The perception of the agency from prospective vendors is as important as the R.O.I from the virtual tour. It portrays the agency as ‘forward-thinking’ and that’s not a bad thing.
I have just completed a podcast with Joe Newton from Nottingham estate agents, Walton & Allen, who use this technology. https://itun.es/i67f8Bm As you mention,it’s not new, but it does differentiate far more than local press.
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Call me cynical but isn’t this more about getting the instruction than selling the house.
It is the latest in a long line of ‘new’ ideas, only some of which have been really beneficial to buyers. The old viewing to offer ratio was about 20:1 now its down to about 8:1 in our area, speaks volumes for what websites, google street view etc.can do.
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At first I struggled to see why such an opinion, apart from being ill informed and wrong, was actually published as “news”. But then I realised it’s a PR stunt ahead of Ed’s new service launch. Well done. Got some exposure.
It’s just a shame his name will now be forever immortalised in print against an error showing a lack of understanding, which some simple research could have avoided.
A few immutable facts for digestion and education….
Vendors and Landlords love full screen HD 360° Tours because they provide a much enhanced presentation of their property. Evidence shows that agents offering them secure instructions as a result.
The agent has complete control of what does and doesn’t get shown and released into the public domain and can even limit viewing the tour to only pre-vetted applicants. So all security concerns are resolved to the absolute satisfaction of the owner.
For time poor owners it is much better to have a smaller number of properly screened viewers who are visiting to validate their opinion having seen the the 360° Tour rather than a larger queue including time-wasters who would never have been interested had they been shown the tour beforehand.
For time poor applicants it is much better to virtually travel around town “viewing” a selection of properties before deciding upon which one or two to actually visit. For out of town and overseas applicants this is a particularly valuable way of making sure that the small amount of time available for an actual visit is spent well.
For time poor negotiators it is much better use of their time to use the 360° Tours to do preliminary shortlisting ahead of actual viewings. It impresses the applicants, some of whom can be sellers too, and crucially reduces out of office time, wasted time, parking issues. All the while increasing the quality of interaction with applicants.
VR headsets are the must have addition in homes this Christmas. VR is here to stay and judging by the investment being made in it by the gaming industry will continue to improve year on year. Car manufacturers are ahead of the property industry in this regard as I know from first hand conversations that dealerships are investing in developing VR and 360° Tour technology to showcase new models.
The great news for agents is that the tech has now got so easy to use from companies like immoviewer that they can create an entire tour of a property in 10 minutes just using a smart phone and Ricoh Theta camera. It’s instantly 360° Tour ready and VR ready.
Mr Mead pours scorn on this advancement in the incorrect belief that it’s a replacement for a real viewing without seeing that it’s an enhancement to the entire process of marketing, presenting, viewing and eventually selecting a property. And it increases the listing opportunities for an agent which can only be a good thing.
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I’ve been creating a using 360 VR tours for almost a year now.
Here are the facts. People love them. Vendors, buyers, browsers. Getting ahead of other agents sets you apart and shows you are not doing what most companies do which is try and catch up once your competitors have been using it successfully.
I’m pretty sure the one’s I do are the only presented tours in the UK at present, no need for a VR headset and works tremendously well through social media.
Whether you use it as an instruction winner or otherwise is up to you. The fact is that for the whole shot we talk about change and new products, but no one actually cracks on and does it until it’s either a necessity or someone offers a cheap service where someone will do it for you.
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With 35 years experience in this industry, Video Tours (VT’s) are the best estate agency innovation I have ever instigated.
Having filmed over 260 myself for sales and lettings i’d say they have halved my actual viewing levels and my sales and rentals have increased.
A real niche is letting to those oversea or out of area applicants who are unable to drop everything to view immediately or miss out. I have let to many really good renters who signed up without even physically viewing the property.
Obviously, buyers wish to physically view before making an offer and yes, they do make an offer then, possibly because it is a ‘second’ viewing?
Buyers love them, sellers love them and renters love them. This statement is not based on an opinion,
Would one of your viewbers really want to carry out a viewing at 9.00pm? The busiest search time on RM? No, nor would I but I can now with a VT. Everyone now wants instant technology?
You may wish to disagree for obvious reasons Ed, I understand that, but around 200 video tour hits on average per property does actually better qualify all actual viewing applicants.
It is also a rather good way of propelling your Google SEO into new territory.Something that will be really important now RM are able to drive more applicants away from agents own websites as a consequence of their real time/instant alert initiatives.
In fact, I have so much faith in VT’s that I am thinking of promoting them to agents myself,for a one off fee, after all, once you fully understand the process and adaptions I have honed and refined and with the benefit of 5 years practical experience (I’m no I T expert) they are ‘FREE’.
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They serve a purpose, I would personally make people register their details to watch a virtual tour, and their details then filter through to the office where they can be followed up to then close for an appointment. When appointments are then booked you’d have confidence that they are not just time wasters and genuine buyers.
I have found with our properties that have VT’s to those that don’t, on average have a 2% better click through rate. Taking this one step further in comparison to asking prices those with VT’s achieve 5% better to the tune of £8000 more than those without. This is obviously just the firm I’m based up and can vary from town to town – but for us it’s a no brainer.
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Ha…this discussion has transported me back to 2006. The wheels of this industry turn very slow.
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You no longer need a headset to view 360 photos and videos. As an additional option for those that need it, why rule it out?
Not all properties are going to be marketed the same, or to the same markets. You should rather be in a position that enables you to offer whatever is needed for a particular property. That could be 360 images, Drone Photography or an Agent walking through the house using Facetime if needs be..
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