Vancouver Wa Real Estate - Elite Realty NW

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. Is it worth a thousand dollars? Ten thousand dollars? More?

There was a time here in Vancouver, Washington, when the MLS system was a Xeroxed book that was distributed to the real estate brokers every week. Realtors would comb through the listings trying to match their clients' needs with the latest batch of homes to hit the market. If there were any pictures at all, they were a 3rd generation copy of the outside of the home. Real estate in Vancouver, Washington was a business of driving to and touring houses.  Buyers actually stood in the house, walked through the rooms, and experienced the space in person! If they liked the way the home laid out, then they wrote an offer. If not, back in the car and off to the next one. Vancouver, Washington was primarily dairy land with sub divisions in between. To see 6 or 7 homes in one day was difficult work.

Real estate in Vancouver, Washington has changed quite a bit since then. Real estate throughout the entire world has been revolutionized by technology and the internet. Buyers can easily see hundreds of listings in a few hours without even leaving their desk. They can literally see every listing in the county from the comfort of their own home.

What can we do to stand out in the market? How do we get a buyer to choose our listing as one of the coveted few that they are going to actually visit? There was a time when all we had to do was get them out of the car in into the house. Now it has become much more difficult.  First they have to find our listing. Then they have to check it out using all of the latest technology. If they make it this far and deem the home worthy, then they need to make an appointment (hopefully with me but probably with their own agent), print a map, get in the car, drive... You should get the point by now. Not only is the listing just one in a sea of hundreds but the buyers need to make more effort to see the home after they have found it online. I think that virtual tours are a great tool to help buyers overcome some of the roadblocks.

Virtual tours (actually I use Visual Tours at www.visualtour.com) certainly aren't the perfect solution to all of our problems, but when used correctly, they can give you an edge when it comes to prospecting for new clients.

Getting Found - By using a reputable virtual tour site your listings are infinitely more easily found on the information super highway. The good tour sites push their virtual tour inventories out to dozens of other sites for exposure. Your branded tours can be all over the net with the push of a button. The providers are constantly looking for new exposure to their sites. I track all of our leads that come in and I ask everyone how they found us. I am often surprised when someone has found us via a v-tour on a site that I didn't sign up for. Those are free links. Every web site that picks up the tour is another line in the water. The more lines you have, the more leads you get.

Getting Called - I have heard from other agents (agents who don't believe in V-tours) that they feel that the online exposure gets them less showings! They feel that so many people look at the homes online and use the tours to eliminate their listing from the list of homes to tour personally. Some even think that it hurts their traffic at open houses. I couldn't disagree more! If you create a nice tour, it should entice the buyer to want to see more. If your tours are scaring people away, then you may want to re evaluate your photo skills. Hire someone to shoot for you. I am not the greatest photographer in Vancouver, Washington, but I have never had a tour that hurt my chances of selling the house or new clients. Want to see what we currently have on v-tour right now?
Go to my inventory of Visual Tours for a few of our current ones.

Another advantage of v-tours is when it comes to outlying areas. Although to dairy farms of Vancouver, Washington are slowly be turned into shiny new neighborhoods, we still have more than our fair share of rural homes that sit 45minutes outside of town. Virtual tours are imperative to get these homes sold. Check out tour # 0087-5633  for a perfect example of this. This beautiful custom home sits about 15 minutes outside of Battle Ground, Washington in a gated community. Signs are worthless and there is absolutely zero drive by traffic. This tour has more views than any tour that I have ever made and continues to drive leads. This tour along with the listing on the MLS are the only tools that have worked for this home.

Photo credits:
House - Bluedaisy
Computer guy - Leonbidon