You’re thinking of selling your home – awesome! Let’s talk about the most effective ways of marketing your home online. It isn’t 1990 anymore, and your first showing will take place online. If you want to sell your house fast, and for top dollar, you need to make people fall in love with it. People don’t need to sell their home with a realtor anymore. Today, you can list by owner, sell direct, hire a flat fee broker, or go the traditional route and hire a beast realtor. Whichever way you choose to sell your home, the point is that you have options! Regardless of which route you choose, getting professional photos and videos taken is no longer an option, it is a necessity.
The way people shop for homes has changed. Over 90% of searches start online. People today first see a house they like online, then they drive past it, and, if they’re still interested, that is when they will schedule a viewing. Therefore, the first impression of your home actually comes through the pictures and videos they find online.
Taking pictures and videos with your cell phone, while tempting (thank you “shot on my iPhone ads”), is a BIG no-no. You might as well use a polaroid camera and send prospective buyers the photos by snail mail. You must hire a professional to handle this for you. The statistics on professional photography speak for itself. And, if your agent doesn’t use a professional photographer, then, you probably shouldn’t be working with them either. Properties with HD enhanced images sell 45% faster and 75% closer to the listing price. So every property should have professional listing photos.
The pictures should show off the main selling features of the home such as the kitchen, views, details, and bathrooms. These are rooms that trigger emotion and should be shown in the best light possible. Buyers choose a home based on emotion, so showing them a home they could picture living in is key. The video is going to do the opposite. The video will showcase a live walkthrough of the house, and more importantly, give the buyer an idea of the flow of the home. The video is not going to sell the house, but it is going to increase showings. It allows your listings to stand out in a herd of homes for sale.
On our team, we have a full time professional photographer. This is all they do, and they’re the best in the business. We can show you comparison time and time again, of where a seller was working with a previous agent, and they hired us. Just our pictures alone made a world of difference in the marketing of their home.
There are a lot of other really cool marketing things you can do with your video that can increase the number of eyeballs who see it. For example, we can rank your video on YouTube, post your videos on a multitude of social platforms, and target your ideal buyer on facebook to ensure they see your listing. Video gives you that extra edge in marketing your home to the masses that listings without video just cannot do.
The way people search for homes for sale has changed, and so has the role of the realtor. It is essential that you hire someone with more than just a real estate license: they should be a marketer at heart! For example, the top real estate website such as Zillow shows homes with videos at the top of the list of their search. This means that you are going to get more buyers viewing your home. In our coastal market, when you’re living by the beach, you are definitely going to want to get arial and drone photography and video. This way we can show off that fantastic location of you being close to the ocean.
In today’s world, most buyers might want to take a virtual tour of your home before an in person showing. We allow them to do this using 3D 360 technology. This allows the buyer to virtually walk through the house, exploring every inch of the house from floor to ceiling. You can even inspect the house.
If you’re thinking of selling your home, please please please make sure you get professional photography and video prior to listing your home no matter who you hire to sell your home. Or, you could hire me, and I will do it all for you! Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions or would like to discuss further.