360 VR Tours vs Cine Video for Property Listings the Elite Realtors Pros and Cons

360 VR vs Video which is better for your listing?

Are you better off as a Realtor using a cine video tour for your geo marketing campaigns, or a 360 virtual tour? We will answer that definitively for you.

We at Elite offer both and there are pros and cons to both.

Let’s look at 360 VR Tours first:

A 360-degree virtual tour is a circular photograph that the user can spin around and look in every direction of a property assembled in an API platform that you can click from one hotspot to the next to virtually walk through the home.

The biggest selling point of these types of 360 tours is that you can see the layout and flow of the home, which is what a perspective buyer is seeking online.  Although that is also the reason our video tours have been so successful as they lead you through room to room in a consistent flow.

Mostly the VR Tours only show you the internal property so exteriors, neighbourhood, etc aren’t shown, and if they are usually not well.

With VR goggles tho it will feel like you are standing there yourself, that is pretty cool. Highly recommended for the techy buyer although a very small percentage of the people will actually have VR goggles.

What is a Cine Video Tour?

A cine video tour is a motion video showing a property, it walks you through where it feels like you are walking around the home, but we structure it in a story telling manner so that the buyer is more attracted with the details of the home, which includes exteriors, and even neighbourhood amenities. The added bonus is as a realtor or with professional talent you can do a voice over to tell the property neighbourhood story as well as even appear in the video in a walk and talk cameo, which helps boost your geo neighbourhood profile.

Our feeling at Elite is that a walk-through video tour gives a better view of the property and layout, not to mention the views of the exterior and community. Our ability to tell the homes unique story, especially since we also do lifestyle videos with a demo targeted cast who show off the home and its community living at its fullest. Overall, an infinitely better user experience.

My favourite part is that you lead the buyer through the home and control their viewing angle, so unsightly issues can be avoided as you tell the properties story.

Videos can also be posted to tour gallery sites as well as 360 VR Tours.

What are the MAJOR differences?

TIME ON SITE

360 VR Tour: Takes considerably longer to capture. 1 1/2 to 2 hours for a 1500 sq ft home.

Full Cine Video: 45 minutes with exteriors and no neighbourhood footage.

COVERAGE

360 VR Tour: Mostly covers interior imaging.  Exterior imaging (when available) is a 360 degree spin tour of the house only, sometimes drone if allowed can give you a 360 of the area.

Full Cine Video: Covers interior, full exterior and immediate neighborhood and its amenities, such as restaurants, shops, schools, and local parks, etc.

EASE OF USE

360 VR Tour: From the heat maps and usage stats I have seen can cause frustration for the buyer as it can be aggravating to navigate and time consuming to learn especially when there are so many different platforms and UI’s in the field.  It’s easy to make the wrong “click” and end up in stuck in a corner looking at the dated wall plugs.

Full Cine Video: Real estate is an emotional purchase you all as Realtor’s know this, tears are shed, high fives and hugs given out on closing. Buyers buy homes based on emotion.  That’s a fact and we specialize in bring footsteps to the door, telling an emotional property story through video is the most impactful way to deliver multiple offers, even during tough times, and especially in high competition in your local market. Besides high-quality photos it is the most impactful tool you can use in your realtor marketing chest.

360 VR Tour: Takes many clicks and time to navigate through a home on average 5 to 10 mins if they don’t have UI issues.

Full Cine Video: Takes one or two clicks, then play. They can then relax and enjoy. Video is a very popular medium and is driving the most powerful channels on the internet, including Google, Youtube, Instagram, Vimeo, Tik Tok, and Tinder.. sorry swipe left on Tinder for marketing your properties. Ha ha

VISIBILITY ON PROPERTY SITES REALTOR.ca/Zillow ETC

360 VR Tour: Not all real estate sites make it easy to find these tours.  Some do allow direct access to one or two platforms but usually you are hunting for a link.

Full Cine Video: The #1 real estate site on the internet, ZILLOW.com, rewards listings with video by ranking those listings with video at the TOP of their search for a neighboruhood.  They also place a prominent video link on the main photograph so it’s easy to find. 

COST

360 VR Tour: Due to the time to scan a property, costs are higher, usually starting at $200 for a 500 sq foot home to $1000 plus for 4000 sq ft and above properties.

Full Cine Video: For homes under 4,000 square feet, a full walk through video starts at $250 and ranges up to $500 with some extras.

SEARCH ENGINES

360 VR Tour: VR is not SEO friendly. Your 360 tour will never be found on a search engine such as Google one of the first places a buyer goes to search for a home and will be hidden on a link mostly from MLS to a site with photos first and the 360 at the bottom of the page in order of importance on most tour platforms.

Full Cine Video: Video is the hottest thing on the web, and videos get indexed by all major search engines within hours, and most rank near the top of searches. Videos also appear on tours just below the photos, and above 360 tours because of their importance.

SOCIAL MEDIA

360 VR Tour: Isn’t effective on social media because of the external links they get ranked lower in the algorithm.

Full Cine Video: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter all promote video.  Facebook videos begin playing as you scroll down a timeline, grabbing the interest of a viewer instantly you can also share them easily through social or email.

VIDEO SITES

360 VR Tour: 3D tours are interactive 360 spaces, so can’t be uploaded to video sites such as YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, or Instagram.

Full Cine Video: YouTube is the #2 most visited search engine on the planet. Facebook has video and believes in it so much they launch IGTV for Instagram to boost traffic.

Here are some recent stats on video usage:

VIDEO STATS/HIGHLIGHTS

• 71% of people watch more video than they did a year ago. (HubSpot)

• 6 out of 10 people would rather watch online videos than television. (Google)

• Mobile video consumption rises by 100% every year. (Insivia)

• YouTube is the second most popular website after Google. (Alexa)

• Users view more than 1 billion hours of video each day on YouTube. (YouTube)

• 78% of people watch online videos every week, and 55% view online videos every day. (HubSpot)

• 75% of all video plays are on mobile devices. (eMarketer)

• 75 Million people in the U.S. watch online videos every day.

• Merely mentioning the word 'video' in an email subject line, the click-through rate increased by 13%.

• Internet video traffic will account for 80% of all consumer Internet traffic (eMarketer)

• 72% of customers would rather learn about a product or service by way of video. (HubSpot)

• 92% of users watching video on mobile will share it with others. (Wordstream)

• 65% of people use YouTube to help them solve a problem. Want to build a house or remove weird parasites from your eye? YouTube might have the answer. (Google)

• Social media posts with video have 48% more views. (HubSpot)

• Facebook has over 8 billion video views per day. (TechCrunch)

• 75 million people visit Facebook’s video platform every day. (Adweek)

• Social video generates 1200% more shares than text and image content combined. (G2 Crowd)

• Videos attach 300% more traffic and help to nurture leads. (MarketingSherpa)

• A website is 53 times more likely to reach the front page of Google if it includes video. (Insivia)

• Including a video on your landing page can boost your conversion rate by up to 80%. (Unbounce)

• Nearly 50% of internet users look for videos related to a product or service before visiting a store. (Hubspot)

• 85% of consumers want to see more video content from brands. (HubSpot)

• Adding video to your emails can increase click rates by 300%. (HubSpot)

• On average, people spend 2.6x more time on pages with video than without. (Wistia)

• YouTube video kills it with over five billion views every day VideoNitch

Should you use 360 tours???

NAR (National Association of Realtors – US) states that 89% say you need great photos, 81% of listing tours are viewed on a mobile device (VR does not play well on mobile, video does if your connection is good).

What do we recommend to our Elite Realtor’s?

1. First you need stunning photography without that it might as well be listed by the owner (Which is a horrible idea with your largest investment). Most great photos are accompanied by a Gallery tour, ours at Elite is one of the best and most responsive to different media devices, so that your photos always look great whether you are on a Mac or are a power user with a liquid cooled PC with multiple SSD drives and some disco lights constantly twinkling.

2. Second on the list of property priorities for an Elite Realtor (that is you) is a toss up for now between accurate floor plans and cine video. Both carry a huge impact if your budget can handle it. Video drives more to the door, floor plans are useful for serious buyers that intend to purchase. Note: Future plans are that builders and MPAC floor plans will no longer be allowed on MLS because they are inaccurate and include Condo Corp exterior walls in their measurements. This is already happening across Canada and the US, check with your local board for when they will be implementing this, as that will definitely make floor plans number 2 on the list.

3.  Third (or Fourth as we grouped floor plans and video into 2) would be 360 VR Tours for their impact on the sale.

We work with hundreds of agents and thousands of vendors, 360 VR tours after speaking with and demonstrating the technology, the effectiveness on listings, the response and results weren’t that impressive, it has only helped in 10% or less of our listings. Most potential users found it aggravating to navigate the UI or had a device that would just lock up on them. For the tech savvy vendor tho it is a must, and they will request it first. You are the pro, it is best to educate your client, forward them to this Blog post from YOUR elite property experts, if they message us we can answer any of their queries.

We do both so are unbiased, but video is exponentially better than 360 tours for your marketing dollar and is why we recommend that first to our clients. It is also the best option in ease of use for Buyer’s and at the end of the day, we want our properties sold and our clients and vendors loving us.

We are ELITE and so are our REALTORS and their CLIENTS. We are only in business if you succeed.

2019 Elite Toronto Real Estate Awards Winners Part Two

2019 Elite Toronto Real Estate Awards Winners

We at ElitePropertiesToronto.com | Graphikeyephoto.com work with so many talented Real Estate Pros, we thought it would be fun to showcase some of that talent.

So here is our Year End Best of the Best ELITE REALTY AWARDS as voted by you and our team!!

Thank you for everyone that turned out to vote for these very worthy candidates on our facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/graphikeye

We work behind the scenes with all these pros and can reveal to you the amount of skill they put into their craft, we are so proud to partner up with so many talented people.

Enjoy

Elite Real Estate Support Service
Winner -   Christan Bosley - Bosley Real Estate

Other Elite Mentions  - Joe Sammut - Mortgage Architects -  Mortgage Broker + Brendan Riley - RIley RE
Ventures  - Real Estate Investment Services

Best Commercial Real Estate/ Developer Star
Winner -   Brendan Riley - RIley RE Ventures - Real Estate Developer/ RE Investment Specialist

Other Elite Mentions  -  John Robb REALTOR + Michael Tar & Karen McGuire REALTORS

Elite Property of the Year
Winner -   579 Bayport Avenue - Christine Cully REALTOR

Elite Condo of the Year
Winner -  1 Market Street 1903 - Parthena Lauraitis REALTOR

Elite Photographer of the Year
Winner - Elio D’Agostini

Elite Picture of the Year
Winner -   Wyant Nguyen

Elite Real Estate Cinematographer of the Year
Winner -  Sahad Rahman

Elite Cine Real Estate Short Film of the Year
Winner -   Sahad Rahman

Elite Cine Sequence of the Year 
Winner -   Wyant Nguyen

Stager of the Year
Winner -   Jessica Richardson – Interior Decorator Stylist

Other Elite Mentions  - Staging Sisters + Stage Right

Elite Event Photographer of the Year
Winner -   Wyant Nguyen

Elite Hybrid Photo + Cine Artist of the Year
Winner -   Wyant Nguyen

Thank you for tuning in to our awards and for taking the time to vote for all of these talented professionals.

2020 is going to be an Elite year in real estate.

Cheers

2019 Elite Toronto Real Estate Awards Winners - Episode One

2019 Elite Toronto Real Estate Awards Winners

We at ElitePropertiesToronto.com | Graphikeyephoto.com work with so many talented Real Estate Pros, we thought it would be fun to showcase some of that talent.

So here is our Year End Best of the Best ELITE REALTY AWARDS as voted by you and our team!!

Thank you for everyone that turned out to vote for these very worthy candidates on our facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/graphikeye

We work behind the scenes with all these pros and can reveal to you the amount of skill they put into their craft, we are so proud to partner up with so many talented people.

Enjoy

Elite Top Gun Realtor of the Year
Winner -   Patrick Rocca

Other Elite Mentions  - Richard McNutt REALTOR + Davelle Morrison REALTOR

Gold Standard Realtor of the Year
Winner -   Richard McNutt

Other Elite Mentions  -  Maria Jacot + Neil Stephen + Marie Natscheff + Lisa Lonsdale + Susan Asquith

Elite Superhero Realtor (Community Work)
Winner -   Jamie Harnish

Other Elite Mentions  - Davelle Morrison REALTOR + Patrick Rocca REALTOR

BREAKOUT Realtor of the Year
Winner -   Jamie Harnish

Other Elite Mentions  -  Lindsay Anderson REALTOR + NIC MARTIN  REALTOR + Chaea Piels REALTOR + Holly Garby Penney REALTOR + Hillary Lane REALTOR

Elite REal Marketing Plan Star
Winners - TIE
Patrick Rocca + Davelle Morrison - Realtors

Other Elite Mention  - Jamie Harnish REALTOR

REal Video Star Realtor
Winner -  Jamie Harnish

Other Elite Mentions  - Davelle Morrison REALTOR +  Brandt Morris REALTOR

BEST Realtor/Stager Combo
Winner -  Nicola St. John

Other Elite Mentions  -  Reenie Banks REALTOR/Stager + Victoria Walseth REALTOR/Stager + Hillary Lane REALTOR/Stager

Elite MAG QUALITY FEATURE/DETAIL REALTOR
Winner -   Davelle Morrison

Other Elite Mentions  -  Maria Jacot Realtor + Nicola St. John Realtor

Best Real Estate Team/Partnership
Winner -   Davelle Morrison & Reenie Banks

Other Elite Mentions  -  Lisa Lonsdale & Lindsay Anderson + Jen Lacshinger & Chloe Mollard

Tune into Part two Tommorrow as we wrap up the awards with Property of the Year, Best Photographer, Commercial giant etc..

Your Photos Are Your Cover - Are You an Elite Realtor?

In a recent real estate mastermind marketing meeting, an interesting topic arose.

Bad MLS photos, namely cell phone photos from agents for not only MLS but used for marketing materials such as property feature sheets and postcards.

As you could appreciate, I am passionate on the subject but not because of the reasons you would think.

This isn’t about me creating sales, although those are always welcome in an expanding business. The truth is, low end leases are more work than we get paid for, the main rationalization why we don’t like the practice is because of the brand we have worked hard to develop for our Realtors in the field.

Elite properties was founded on bringing back high quality print ready photos to the clientele we serve, as the photographer who mainly serviced our marketing clients had deserted them for commercial magazine work, and they were looking for a photographer who matched their previous photographers skill.

As a full-time real estate marketer, the added editing of poor photos from the assortment of replacement photographers made my job difficult, and time consuming.

So, what do I mean when I say your photos are your cover as a Realtor?

The majority of potential clients that will come your way in your geo farm areas that weren’t grass root networked will have seen your headshot on a bus shelter, in print, or on the web in social avenues well before they ever meet you in person. So good portraits are part of your overall brand, and value.

It just doesn’t rest though with your headshot, it also includes your property images. As they are a reflection of your own personal quality, as well as the service you provide to your clientele.

Don’t get me wrong we appreciate that some listings especially low-end leases aren’t profitable, but it is an investment you make in your brand, and in the quality of your realty service.

I don’t have to explain this to top realtors, they have practiced this for years, and those that haven’t are reducing the number of listings they get from discerning clientele that see the paradox in service in those Realtor’s portfolio.

Want higher priced properties to bring to market? Focus on your overall service. Just as your internet social footprint and the lack of privacy, once online, your listing footprint is permanent and can be searched and compared to that of a competing agent. They might not be as detailed as the CMA’s you send to potential vendors, but the public will do searches in their Comparative Realtor Analysis’. Besides reviews they will view previous listings and get a visual look at what your general listings look like. A mixed bag of beautiful staged properties and poor photos will come off just as that incomplete. Now I am not suggesting you stage your low-end leases but you would be surprised how bright beautiful photos even messy places will affect your results, even in tear down situations.

Now I personally work tirelessly round the clock to put a good foot forward for and with my clients. Your success is mine, and we both profit from landing stunning listings.

So as the pictorial example asks above, What do these examples above show about the common approach from the Average Joe Realtor’s and an elite Realtor who appreciates that their commitment to great quality and service starts at the lowest common denominator, not at the top where they are hoping one day to get to.

So, in a competitive market would you hire Joe Realtor from an average brokerage (fictitious character as we are not in the business of outing any realtor in particular - you know who you are)?

Or would you hire an exceptional Realtor like Jamie Harnish from a prestigious local brokerage like Bosley Real Estate with a long positive history in the real estate arena?

It is most people’s biggest asset in life (their home). Who would you invest in?

A reputable representative whose Comparative Realtor Analysis demonstrates service and quality, or the one with a collection of iCrap photos, and a lack of respect for their client?

We will stick with our Elite Realtor’s.

Top 5 Issues With Real Estate Photos Part 6 - Portrait vs Landscape Orientation

This comes up regularly across marketing desks everywhere, but mostly from Moe’s or Shmoe’s. The MLS listing system only accepts landscape orientation photos, yet we get a high number of portrait images that need to be edited with a white background to make it fit a landscape orientation. This reduces the height of the image and makes the flow of the 20 photos look strange and disjointed.

Think Wide for Real Estate, Never Tall - because you like a fat bottom line.

We at EPT use portrait images from time to time but only in the case of detail images that aren’t meant to go to MLS these photos are for features in print materials or on social platforms.

It is for the same reason you should never shoot vertical video even tho Instagram would like you to.. video is meant to be viewed on a widescreen for cinematic purposes.

This was the last in this series of posts - hope you found it informative.. from the desk of a real live Real Estate Marketer & Photo Editor.

Enjoy

*Information provided is based on TREB's MLS system and is generalized please check the exact specifications with the MLS Service in your area.

Top 5 Issues With Real Estate Photos Part 5 - Wrong Aspect Ratio

Pictures should maintain a 4:3 (landscape) ratio, ideally under 100kb or else the MLS system will compress the image, so although the recommended size is 640x480px we actually use 600x450px at the marketing office to avoid the MLS compression monster. We get many images that are not the correct sizing through our desks so we end up having to crop, and because the focal point of the room or area changes we have to do it manually instead of just setting up an action in Photoshop to crop a whole folder in a blur. It requires keyboard crunching at its finest to blow through the 20 maximum images and save them out properly. If you divide picture’s pixel width by its height, you should get 1.33 if not you have the wrong aspect ratio. If you want your photos to look good remember the 100kb file size limit also (TREB have relaxed on this in the last few years). If the aspect ratio isn’t correct then MLS will compress the size to fit, which means your photos will be squished or expanded to equal their aspect ratio, making for unprofessional looking images for the agent and photographer.

*Editors Note: TREB/MLS has relaxed some of these specs over the last few years and although it flags photos out of aspect ration we haven’t seen much of the stretching of images - if you are seeing stretched photos then correct the aspect ratio - to save on delivery we too now format our MLS images to 3:2 and have yet to see any ill effects.

*Information provided is based on TREB's MLS system and is generalized please check the exact specifications with the MLS Service in your area.

Top 5 Issues With Real Estate Photos Part 4 - Print vs Web Issues

This issue is probably the most contentious for most graphic designers/printers, as photographers properly expose in their cameras and calibrate to their own monitors and screens in post processing. The problem is that for MLS or web photos that is excellent but for print makes the images too dark on output on even the whitest of stock paper. Printing depending on the printer and calibration is always going to darken images by about 15% so your whites will be grey, your light greys will be medium greys, and so forth and you will lose all the detail in the shadows. Reason for this is your screen has light emitting through it even through blacks whereas paper does not emit light and depending on the stock you use will only darken this effect more depending on the shade of the stock and the mixed lighting environment it is viewed in. Newsprint is not only grey but it also absorbs ink because of the softer grain which creates an out of focus muddy look, so the darker the image the worse the effect. From a printers perspective the quickest way to correct this is with global adjustments on sets of images. As photographers and designers know global adjustments like that never produce a happy medium, better to locally adjust each image to get the desired result so that your hard earned images look stellar on all mediums especially in print which is the most costly of the mediums your images will be used on.

You should aim for images that are a quarter to half a stop brighter on screen by exposing to the right (ETTR) without blowing out the highlights, that way your clients get exceptional results and can heap praise and refer you to others, their Graphic Designer too will love you.

*Calibration is dependent on the accuracy of the equipment used by both yourself and the printer you deal with. In our case we calibrate our monitors and printers with X-rite i1 Pro Spectrophotometer and have balanced levels in-house and consistent external printer results. Check with your print provider or marketing departments to see a sample to evaluate your calibration in comparison.

* Our opinions are based on what we see come through our workstations, this is a generalized view of the local Toronto real estate market and is not exhaustive even to the local area.

Top 5 Issues With Real Estate Photos Part 3 - Wrong File Sizes

TREB (MLS) has a 100kb file size restriction per image (although that has been relaxed) before compression, as it speeds up the whole system and transfer to Realtor.ca. So if you want your images to look good aim for that file size. We get pro’s that send us TREB images that are over 1000kb’s which takes us longer to keyboard crunch down to size. It is just a waste of drive space for everyone on all sides, including longer downloads and uploads on both ends.

The bigger issue with file sizes though is that some Pro’s will send us images for print that are 1500x1000px and barely 600kb’s in size, which for smaller inset images is fine, but we also have larger full cover uses for the images and featured images that require higher quality files. As my banker says Bigger is better, as it provides us with higher quality finished results. Since those low resolution files are being compressed heavily from the original out of camera resolution, compression artifacts end up rearing their nasty head and banding can be seen in highlights (skies) and shadow areas even in properly exposed images. Also flat area tints often have damaged shades of colours when being over-compressed. The other extreme is we have been sent high res images in 8304x 4671px size which is overkill, unless designing for a billboard.

A good size for high resolution print at 300dpi is 3300x2550px (most in the 3000-4000px range is good for HD print resolution and helps to reduce jpeg artifacts on a properly exposed image), at that size the majority of printing needs are covered.

*Information provided is based on TREB's MLS system and is generalized please check the exact specifications with the MLS Service in your area.

Enjoy

Top 5 Issues With Real Estate Photos Part 2 - Photos Taken Out of Order

Usually the flow for photographing a property for example a home should be external front view, first level foyer, main room/living room, dining room, kitchen, family room if any, finishing with the bathrooms. Then proceed to the second floor bedrooms starting with the Master unless it is on a higher level. Ensuites should be photographed next to the bedrooms, if it is not an ensuite bath it should be placed at the end of the bedrooms. Then 3rd or more floors, and any terraces or balconies on the upper levels adjacent to the rooms they are attached to, then basement/lower level starting with the primary rooms and ending with the furnace room if necessary. Once the internal images are all captured then move to the final exterior images including the patio, garden, pool area, and culminating in the exterior boundaries area shots and garages.

That is the natural flow of the property in the eyes of a potential buyer and makes visual sense. It is surprising to me how many photo sets we get that have no logical shooting plan where everything is mixed up. What makes this situation more difficult to manage (as we have to reorder them for MLS and any marketing materials) is we will get this misaligned flow especially for vacant properties where almost all of the rooms look the same.

I am sure some of this is done in the post processing stage, but besides the realtor how is the designer supposed to guess the layout without a proper flow or floorplans. K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple) it for everyone.

We at EPT pride ourselves in re-organizing the photos before we package them with a natural flow, of course this is all to taste but in the eye of the viewer the property layout will make a lot more sense.