The recent downturn in the real estate market has forced real estate agents to re-think their marketing plans. Gone are the days where agents can afford to pay one to two hundred dollars on marketing, including virtual tours.
Many homes for sale during this downturn are so under priced the many agents are passing on ordering a virtual tour for the home and instead choosing to do the basics, which amounts to maybe a brochure.
The attitude is most homes are short sales or foreclosures and to spend money on virtual tours to market these properties seems futile. However, a study conducted by Virtual Tour Mania shows that short sales and foreclosures sell 52% faster than those without a virtual tour when it comes to this type of sale.
The virtual tour study was conducted over a one-year period from January 2010 to January 2011. During this time real estate agents and banks who bought an Easy Virtual Tour package through the company averaged less than 60 days on the market versus properties without a virtual tour who averaged over 365 days or more on the market.
“The results were stunning,” says Joseph Sanchez, president and founder of Virtual Tour Mania, a full service virtual tour company headquartered in Chicago and serving the entire United States. “The results of this study really emphasize the importance of marketing even during the tough times. If you are the 20% or so of agents who do spend on marketing, you are ahead of 80% of the rest,” he said.
Sanchez is a pioneer in the virtual tour industry. Started back in 2006, Virtual Tour Mania rode the wave of quick sales a result of the hot real estate market that tripled their business in just one year. However, when the downturn occurred in the housing market, Sanchez discovered the need for a less expensive virtual tour option or what he calls a semi-custom virtual tour option known as an Easy Virtual Tour.
The concept is simple, the agent shoots the photos, which typically occurs anyways when launching a listing and then the agent uploads them to Virtual Tour Mania’s website. Once photos are received by Virtual Tour Mania, edits and enhances them using a powerful photo editing program called Photoshop®. The final photos are then used to build the virtual tour complete with a listing webstie for the agent, access to visitor statistics great for showing the client, free upload to realtor.com, upload to YouTube, tour buttons that link to flyers, maps, other listings, etc and every virtual tour matches the company/agent brand.
The cost for an Easy Virtual Tour is only $55 for everything mentioned above. To learn more about an Easy Virtual Tour visit http://virtualtourmania.com/easyvirtualtour.html or phone 815-342-6622.