Ever since we started Incolo, our vision has been to provide a fresh new way to approach real estate. The thing that has always bugged me about real estate websites is how media is displayed. Many sites provide pictures; and sure pictures are worth a 1000 words but when it comes to real estate, pictures don’t give you any perspective. You have no feeling of where rooms are in relationship to one another or the layout and feel. According to a Seattle Times article agents seem to be shifting to videos but from what I can see they usually end up being a slide show of pictures with some music. Not much of an improvement.
Incolo has taken more of a “MTV Cribs” approach by giving you a tour of the homes that we feature. Below are a couple links to our latest videos:
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/Z6BNS3yjl58" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
Since 80% of all home searches begin on the internet, what type of media do you find more effective? More pictures? Slide shows? Videos?
I actually work in video/broadcast and would like to offer up some suggestions if anyone is interested.
One the first video consider shortening by as much as half. Viewers on the web really don’t have the attention span to sit through 8 minutes unless the house is really spectacular. Also, try not to use music with actual singing, it competes with the host or voiceover. People will tend to listen to the singing and completely miss the sale. In addition, save yourself the legal headache and don’t use copyrighted material. More and more record companies are coming down on this.
On the other videos, consider slowly the video. This will not only smooth out your shots but give the viewer more time to take in the visuals. Also consider using a wide angle so you can maximize the space.
Overall, I am glad to see that more and more realtors are maximizing on the use of videos to show a house. Great Job!!
I actually work in video/broadcast and would like to offer up some suggestions if anyone is interested.
One the first video consider shortening by as much as half. Viewers on the web really don’t have the attention span to sit through 8 minutes unless the house is really spectacular. Also, try not to use music with actual singing, it competes with the host or voiceover. People will tend to listen to the singing and completely miss the sale. In addition, save yourself the legal headache and don’t use copyrighted material. More and more record companies are coming down on this.
On the other videos, consider slowly the video. This will not only smooth out your shots but give the viewer more time to take in the visuals. Also consider using a wide angle so you can maximize the space.
Overall, I am glad to see that more and more realtors are maximizing on the use of videos to show a house. Great Job!!
Greg, thanks for the helpful tips! There is soo much potential to integrate media into the real estate world. We have definitely found that adding videos to our property has saved our customer and us time.
Do you know of any good places to get “open source” music? The music we used in our 8 minute video was one of our friends but as you said the song had words in it and distracted from the video.
Also a wide angle would help alot! Looking into investing into one of those.
Greg, thanks for the helpful tips! There is soo much potential to integrate media into the real estate world. We have definitely found that adding videos to our property has saved our customer and us time.
Do you know of any good places to get “open source” music? The music we used in our 8 minute video was one of our friends but as you said the song had words in it and distracted from the video.
Also a wide angle would help alot! Looking into investing into one of those.