As technology continues to change the real estate industry, you find yourself looking for ways to make a home listing stand out from the rest. Many sites offer the ability to purchase a home before even touring the property in person. But what does it take to stack up against physically seeing home’s best features?
There are several different and new ways to highlight a home’s strongest qualities and catch an online buyer’s attention. This is important because “buyers will imprint on a home and develop their positive feelings and attraction to a property at first sight.” – Jen Williams Redfin Market Manager
You may be asking yourself, how can we leave a lasting impact without traditional staging or a physical walk through? Here are a few ways to ensure your listing is ready for the online market:
Quality Listing Photography
One of the most important steps when preparing to sell a home is to professionally photograph each room. It’s crucial that these images are high-resolution to ensure that the final listing product is perfected for online buyers. Professional photographers understand the importance of balancing the attractive home features while remaining truthful about any potential pitfalls or damages.
Make sure to remove any unwanted items before capturing each room on camera – this will speed up the process of editing. Once the photos are primed and for publishing, the real estate agent will upload the photos to the MLS which then syndicate the photos to over 1000+ listing websites. With thousands of eyes on each room of your home, this is one step of the selling process that you don’t want to skip.
Listing Videography
Many buyers believe the floor plan is one of the most important features to consider when purchasing a home. Real estate videos are one of the most effective ways to tell the story of your home. By virtually walking buyers through the front entry, back to the chef’s kitchen, up to the master suite, and around to the backyard, your buyers can feel emotionally connected to the property.
Another option for videography is drone imagery that shows a bird’s eye view of the property. Incorporating this into the real estate video can give even more context to buyers regarding the space surrounding the home. Creating a video with a full view of the property is a way to take the marketing into your own hands and ensuring the most desirable aspects of your home are showcased.
Virtual Staging
As the name implies, virtual staging is done on the computer rather than in real life. This means that, unlike traditional staging, you don’t rent any furniture, decor, or accents. Instead, virtual staging digitally inserts all of those same items into photographs of empty rooms in the home.
This helps to attract potential customers online to tour the home, where they can then use their imagination to envision how each room would look with finishing touches such as furniture and decor. As you can imagine, this tactic is particularly valuable for listings that gain a lot of online traffic but don’t host open houses or tours.
Virtual staging has a number of benefits but the biggest is of course price. While staging a condo the old fashioned way costs an average of $2500 per month, virtual staging typically costs between $39 to $199 per room. What’s more, is that this fee is a one time cost as you don’t have to pay for renting furniture. As the average home for sale in 2018 stays on the market between 34 to 53 days, this means that virtual staging could save you several thousands of dollars.
Regardless of the innovative marketing tactic you choose to pursue, it’s important to make sure your home looks ready to sell, both online and in person. First impressions are often a deciding factor for buyers and these powerful tools create a strong impression that will ultimately sell your home quicker.
