Nathan Cool's report on Harvard Business Review's take on Virtual Tours19535
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 WGAN Fan Club Member Gilroy, California |
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This came up this morning. After listening, I wrote a long Comment (added below). If you want to take a scan through the 68-page article, "Beyond the Hype: Unveiling the Marginal Benefits of 3D Virtual Tours in Real Estate", the direct link to the PDF is here. Here's my comment entered on 2/21-2024 Nathan, your YouTube channel is a great resource, I'm learning a lot (even over the past few days watching your color cast and white balance videos). I must disagree with your perspective on the ongoing benefits of using 360 tours. I think you missed a couple of significant factors worth mentioning. First, you mentioned Matterport and i-Guide but not Zillow 3D Home Tours. Zillow has a couple benefits to consider, both for the media provider and the listing agent. The Zillow tours require only one 360 photo per room in a residential house. An average 3bd/2bth home can be captured in about 25 minutes (from pulling the camera out, connecting, attaching to the monopod, to completion of shooting). Then, once back at the studio, about 15-20 minutes at the most to tweak the tour and get it posted. An added benefit of the Zillow tour: Zillow will deliver a 2D floor plan within about 24 hours for free. So this tour option requires significantly less time, can be shot with a $300 Ricoh SC2 camera with good results, and does not require a monthly platform hosting fee (like Matterport). So the production costs are much lower and the cost to the real estate agent can be lower. Now the marketing benefit on the Zillow platform: When a listing on Zillow launches with a Zillow 3D Home Tour and a floor plan, for the first seven days its on the MLS, Zillow will feature the home in an area search - the property shows up at the top of the search results. That is a huge benefit! The icon for the 360 tour is positioned prominently next to the hero shot, much larger than the little icons that Redfin and Realtor.com use at the bottom of their hero shots. Another factor that I don't think the 68-page Harvard Business Review article considered, is the impact for a listing agent when they present their Listing Presentation to a prospective homeowner with a property marketing plan that includes digital media beyond simply photos. Offering a Zillow 3D Home Tour and floorplan as part of the media marketing plan can definitely be an advantage to an agent seeking to convince a seller to work with them to sell their home. That may not impact the selling price or the days-on-market, but for the agent, it may likely help win more listings. In a recent property I supplied media for about a week ago, the viewing numbers are supportive of the value of including a 360 tour. After 15 days on Zillow, the listing page was viewed 7,850 times while the Zillow 3D tour was viewed 4,443 times. The Zillow tour views also came from other sites, like Redfin. My statistics are showing that the 360 tours get far more views than walk-through videos. I think the 68-page Harvard Business Review article covered a lot of ground, but there are some other factors to consider for realtors and media providers besides if a tour will help sell a property faster and for a higher price. One of the things the article mentioned was the benefits that "sellers might use them to screen out less interested buyers". That means more qualified and interested visitors to an open house because they had more than just photos to decide about putting a property io the short list for an in-person visit. On another topic, your mention of the use of social media by realtors to marketing their properties - I question the reach and targeting of Facebook and Instagram to prospective home buyers, and even more question how many realtors have large social media audiences. I know there is a lot of talk about using social media, but the average realtor (age 55) doesn't have a robust social media marketing presence. Those platforms are like a sign on the highway that people drive by every day, but how many of the passersby are actively looking for a home? The search sites are where people go to find homes that fit their criteria. It's more productive to focus on how to optimize your media to show up on Zillow, Redfin, and Realtor.com, the top three sites in the U.S. Bottom line action item for realtors and media providers: Matterport and i-Guide tours are good but they are not the only option for 360 tours. Find the media that fits your target market. |
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 WGAN FanClub Member Buffalo, New York |
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| @Dataventurer From my perspective, 3d tours are CRITICAL and I'll explain why. First is real engagement and then conversion. Nothing is better. And 3d tours are not important to fetch a higher sales price, on the contrary, it is solely because they elevate the home buying experience online exponentially, for buyers. And because they place 100% of potential buyers directly inside a property remotely, on demand, is the #2 reason. The main purpose of listing photos and such is to motivate people to visit the open house. More in a bit. It's not what it's cracked up to be in reality. 98% of interested parties of a property will not visit the physical open house. Too many options, too little time. Life, kids, etc. Most of an open houses attendees are lookers, not buyers. Ask any agent. If walk-ins on physical property was the only metric to focus on to justify and quantify it all, you'd quickly see why 3d tours are quite important if you add the numbers of people who virtually tour. 3D tours help buyers, 1 scan per room or 5 scans... sellers, agents reap the rewards, but this is really about focusing on how to make the BUYERS online experience better than it is. Listing lack floor plans, 3d tours and have drab agent photos. We are elevating the industry, and Harvard completely missed the reason 3d tours rock: HIGH BUYER ENGAGEMENT! |
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