A number of people are claiming 2007 to be the year of video in the real estate industry. Meaning, online listings will have video as a major component, rather than just pictures or 360 degree virtual tours. I agree, and think that this space within the industry is shaping up quite nicely.
Below is a review of three products that stand to make an impact in 2007:
WellcomeMat – WellcomeMat is the YouTube of real estate. It is an application that allows anyone to upload video, which it then converts to Flash. That’s much like what YouTube does. The big differences are that it is much higher quality and that you can add chaptering. Chaptering is the most innovative and compelling part of the application and allows users to skip ahead to view areas of the property that they are more interested in without having to watch the whole video chronologically.
You can take your video and embed it into any website, as seen below. WellcomeMat also allows you to create a full listing that is saved at a page on their site for you (ex: www.wellcomemat.com/_______). I would like to see the ability for anyone to grab the embed code and put it on spread it even further.
Online Walk Thru – If you are selling luxury property, look no further. Online Walk Thru is highly targeted for this specific niche. As you would expect of a high end video service, Eric and Lathe will travel to your area and shoot the video for you. They then take that video to their studios for editing, professional voice overs and final processing.
I would like to see a way for their service to spread a little more virally though. In this case, I think it would make sense to provide an embed code where users could place it in different sites around the web.
Turn Here – Turn Here differs from the other video services in that they don’t create listing videos, they create videos about neighborhoods and cities. The locales around the property listing. Their value lies in the fact that when people are moving to an area, they are interested in what the town, city or suburb has to offer.
Local companies can sponsor a video about their business and that video will be made available to the public when they are looking for more information about a specific neighborhood. There aren’t professional voices or actors involved, the whole video is of real people talking about their business or their community.
In Summary
Each of these offerings in the real estate video space add value to different types of clientèle and have a value of their own. If there is one thing that I think all of them need to embrace, it is the viral nature of the web. Give viewers and users the tools to spread the product. Their video counterparts, like YouTube and Revver, have made their names because they encourage the spread of their video content.
My second suggestion, and this applies more to WellcomeMat and Turn Here, is to also embrace user generated content. This means allow comments about each video and/or neighborhood. Now your value isn’t just found in the video, it is also found in the dialogue that builds up around it.
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28 users responded in this post
[...] Our friend Erik from Realty Thoughts had a nice write up on WellcomeMat and other video sites as well. He calls them the YouTube of Real Estate. Listen to this podcast [...]
Erik,
We have been in the process of releasing a new player for the last 10 days, and you can (as of last night) link to, email, or embed every single WellcomeMat video found on or off our site. Great suggestion! We dumbed our new player down over the last few days due to some bugs, which is why you didn’t see this functionality earlier.
Christian, you and Phil are doing a great job with WellcomeMat. I guess I should have waited a couple of days before I wrote this post… I’m glad you decided to go with the embedding thing, and I still think the ability to chapter the video is brilliant.
Christian and Phil, you guys are doing great with this. Keep up the good work. This is going to be adopted very very soon by a lot of agents. We need to talk about integration within our agent websites along with some other opportunities for you guys as well.
Phil and Christian,
Keep at it because I know I will. I have faith in you, your product, and the partnership it has created between us. Thanks for your continued work ethic and desire to make the Mat better and better for everyone who needs it!
Wow guys….we have gone a long time doing this (about two and a half years) as a self-funded team without anyone really noticing. This means a lot…seriously. My day just got a whole lot better.
BTW…we are going to make it a lot easier for agents to use us for our video capabilities only. We know where our value proposition is, and are working (right now) on putting it up front. Video.
Try getting video from the rural real estate listings. It’s like walking someone through open heart surgury explaining how and why it helps their lsiting.
Reseg, I’m glad you posted here, since now I’ve found your site. It looks really interesting, and fills a niche that I haven’t yet seen in the real estate blogosphere: rural real estate.
Yes, I’m sure video is a hard sell in some rural areas. I imagine those who are selling the more expensive homes are more amenable to it though (and I would contact the guys at Online Walkthrough for that, their work is incredible).
The chapter function on WelomeMat is awesome and like the simplicity. Good job on appealing to agents via branding at the beginning of each video.
Online Walk Thru’s product would surely be a hit with the $2M+ deep-pocket crowd in and around DC.
And Turn Here filles a void that a lot of local sites and blogs, real estate related or not, have at the moment.
And Christian, that’s awesome that you’ve been self-funded for so long and are still going strong. I know the feeling and am going through it as we speak.
Eric and Lathe at Online Walk Thru are talented (great biz model). All the best guys.
[...] Erik Hersman presents Online Video in the Real Estate Industry posted at Realty Thoughts. Video can convey more than pictures or text… when it’s done right. Erik reviews a few different options for agents. [...]
Thank you guys for this post. I’d never heard of Welcome mat before… the chaptering feature is amazing.
Kevin from 3 Oceans just posted a good example of our chaptering at work. Check it out here and thanks everyone for your support.
http://3oceansrealestate.com/blog/bamboo-is-the-new-granite-extended-remix-version-a-contemporary-townhome-in-downtown-palo-alto.html
And Reseg, I agree. It’s difficult to explain how/why video can be an effective tool to sell Real Estate. It’s bettter just to show them. When we first began exploring the idea of WellcomeMat (over two years ago) I was even a skeptic. But it only takes seeing a few good videos to see just how powerful the medium is. Check out our post, ‘A few Lousy Photos’ for more on the topic: http://blog.wellcomemat.com/archives/11
[...] Erik Hersman presents Online Video in the Real Estate Industry posted at Realty Thoughts. [...]
wow this rocks! in my old job, i remember having to watch property consultants take clients to site trips to be able to actually see the lots they wanted to buy. online vid eliminates a lot of “middle men” and hassles because the consumer will already have some idea of what he or she is looking for even before meeting with the real estate agent.
as an aside, im on the lookout for an online video blogger so if anyone is interested, do shoot me an email at jayvee at b5media dot com
Great post….I dont know if 2007 will be the year of real estate video but it sure is for us at http://vidlisting.com. We have 100s of real estate property videos on our site in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. We’ve also just started posting interviews with agents and developers from the hotspots of Central America – Costa Rica (about 15 more to post), Nicaragua (none posted yet – about 20 interviews in editing right now and will be posted soon) , and Panama (there now doing interviews).
Tony, I hadn’t come across vidlisting.com before. I really like the international flavor. The international aspect of much of the technology being developed today often overlooks the much broader international market, so I’m glad to see this development.
do you anticipate more traction in FSBO or from realtors? I heard FSBO is 15% of mkt.
Do you partner with a Point2 or iiProperty for online distribution , or do you build disto services to the online listings yourself?
[...] I couldn’t agree more with Cory (below) about the dangers of looking at selling online video based on CPMs alone. To make the big bucks you have to think more like a radio salesperson, who are use to selling concepts, not just the numbers. Some emerging examples of how to make money off online video in this way are occurring in the real estate industry. Wellcome Mat has been referred to as the “YouTube of real estate,” enabling anyone to upload video about a property they are trying to sell. And there’s Online Walk Thru, more of a niche play focusing on luxury properties. Finally, there’s TurnHere.com, less focused on real estate and more on local neighborhoods. The point here, don’t just sell advertising, sell a complete marketing solution. There just has to be a better way than those annoying preroll ads. Don’t ya think? [...]
[...] I couldn’t agree more with Cory (below) about the dangers of looking at selling online video based on CPMs alone. To make the big bucks you have to think more like a radio salesperson, who are use to selling concepts, not just the numbers. Some emerging examples of how to make money off online video in this way are occurring in the real estate industry. Wellcome Mat (below) has been referred to as the “YouTube of real estate,” enabling anyone to upload video about a property they are trying to sell. And there’s Online Walk Thru, more of a niche play focusing on luxury properties. Finally, there’s TurnHere.com, less focused on real estate and more on local neighborhoods. The point here, don’t just sell advertising, sell a complete marketing solution. There just has to be a better way than those annoying preroll ads. Don’t ya think? [...]
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The locales around the property listing. Their value lies in the fact that when people are moving to an area, they are interested in what the town, city or suburb has to offer.This article is very interesting for real estates.
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real estate
I couldn’t agree more with Cory (below) about the dangers of looking at selling online video based on CPMs alone.sportsbook To make the big bucks you have to think more like a radio salesperson, who are use to selling concepts, not just the numbers. Some emerging examples of how to make money off online video in this way are occurring in the real estate industry.
http://www.enterbet.com
we actually want to..but it’s so expensive and now we’re out of a place to stay.
Hi there,
Another website offering totally Free uploading of video property tours is http://www.OneStopView.com.
They market property worldwide and charge no fees or no commissions. They also deal with rentals and long term rents, land and commercial property.
My property is on there at present in Spain and you do get good feedback from people viewing my video property tour.
Regards,
Chris.