How Video Helps Sell Homes

Posted by Chris Thomson

​For as long as we have known, the process of buying a house is looking at pictures and then deciding whether it’s worth having a visit to the home. But with the property market growing and becoming so competitive you really need to entice them to visit the open home and see it in real life. That’s where video comes into play. 

​A real estate video is more likely to be shared amongst family and friends and will engage the viewer in both a visual and audible way at the same time. Every listing will have a blurb about the home and several photos to go along with it, but with the modern day digital lifestyle, it’s all about the visual attention it gets and the blurb often gets bypassed. With a real estate video, you are essentially telling the potential buyer everything they need to know about the property and showing them those features at the same time.
Don’t get me wrong, photos still play a big part in selling the attention to that property, but videos take it to the next level. The video sells the dream and the lifestyle that could be had in that home.
What’s more, YouTube is now the second largest search engine, behind Google. If your website is properly optimized and includes video, you’re 57% more likely to show up on page 1 of Google search results. Higher search result rankings mean more home buyers find your listings. More listing views means more offers, and more offers makes for happier clients. And to think, it all started with a little video.
Your target market is online. And while the average visitor spends a mere 48 seconds on a website, that time increases to a full 5 minutes, 50 seconds when the website includes relevant video. When you’re marketing a home, it couldn’t be easier to create relevant video – your viewers want video of the home!
The final question is “What is a good real estate video?”. Well, if you want a video that is a slideshow of existing photos with some stock music from YouTube, well ignore everything I just said, because you’ve annoyed your viewer as they’ve realised they are seeing all the same photos they just looked at but in a slideshow video. They don’t want this…
A good real estate video shows something different and gives the prospective buyer the feeling of moving through the home, and is far more descriptive of the space than still images can ever hope to be. It has a calm yet confident voiceover and focuses on the property, not the agent. After all, you’re selling a home, not a personality.