new to tours many questions

New to the real estate tours and looking for advice and suggestions from those who have found success.

I am not new to video and have done a lot of research for the tours. I have watched Fred Light’s dvd several times and read the e-book. Also, have visited many of the websites offering the tours.

Please advise on how to proceed.

There are approximately 1,000 realtors in this area. Several large agencies along with smaller agencies and independents. I have spoken with one realtor to understand from his perspective the pros and cons of the tours. I will also be meeting with a representative of the local real estate association to discuss the guidelines for listings.

Many agents in this area do utilize a photo advertising channel on the local cable system so there is an opportunity to expand with the tours. Also, in researching I have found where some agents have tried and failed. My guess is they either attempted the tours on their own or hired someone that may have been to expensive. It is encouraging though to see there is an interest and this should succeed if presented properly.

My thought is to have one internet site for listings. This would have a welcome page with five featured listings and a welcome to the community video. The home page will have a weekly 15 minute podcast featuring a realtor addressing topics of interest, such as the buyers tax rebate, how escrow works, etc.

From the home page are links to individual realtor’s listings. For the home page I will use the horizontal video player. For the individual pages I like this layout but don’t know how it is created:

http://www.hdhathomes.com/tours/80_channel.html

To get started I will have five realtors for which I will do a few videos for free to introduce the tours. The agents here are very much a “me too” mindset so I hope that once they see the value I can get agents to call and participate.

A reasonable cost seems to be $140. Lower than what I would like but there is a great chance for continued and repeat business. The photo tours are around $150 so this is priced as an alternative. I will not require any commitment or prepayment and am considering offering one free tour for every nine paid tours. Tours are again on the website and made available to the agent for their sites, youtube, etc.

I have the domain name and am now doing the research and setting up a plan of attack.

Thoughts, suggestions, advice, comments all welcomed. THANKS!

Depending on what you include in that $140 package, you may be too low to keep your business sustainable.

I currently have a $125 offer, but that is truly a bare-bones package.  I will be giving that package the axe the end of this month (for good!).  From there, my packages will start at $250.

I've found I just can't compete on price with virtual tour providers and photographers, but that's fine with me.  I'm not in this to be the lowest price, I'm in it to provide a superior product, and for that the client has to pay more for it.  If they don't see the value, then I haven't done a good enough job articulating it!

Be very careful of trying to compete on the "price" playing field.  Normally only Walmart (or visualtour.com) can control that game.  You need to try competing on the "premium" field.

Anyway... just my 2 cents worth.

Definitely listen to Fred (and Fred charges more than double what you're proposing)... he's the guru in this market!

BTW: just got off the phone with another realtor who hasn't seen the video tour but is already hopping to get going!  He's a mover and shaker (4 more listings will close this month), so I'm excited to meet him.  The agents who get it are the ones who understand marketing (he was really excited when I told him that the listings include professional voice-over).

Thanks for the info!

i spoke with a realtor with remax, we are both in the same business networking group and the amount of 140 was his suggestion. He is honest and is really helping me get this off of the ground.

i would prefer to be in the $200-$300 range but do not know if it will succeed if that is the starting price.

I would like to offer the $140 rate to the first set of five realtors that help me launch the tours and offer to additional realtors at $200.

Thanks for taking time to respond, i can definitely see the potential for the tours in my market and want to present these so they are profitable to me and beneficial to realtors.

George,

Here is our experience:

1) The tour channel you linked to in your first email is ours and is not a Wellcomemat channel but something simple to put together with some of the video players out there.  There are fancier for sure but we designed it to just get the job done and load as fast as possible.

2) We(HDHat.com) edit video clips for a substantial # of agent and Pro videographers.  Most of our Pros are charging $119 which includes photos(MLS) and a video tour with Professional narration(Jeff Kafer) and stabilization(stabilizing we do in our editing process). 
These guys and their staff shoot personally as many as 8 tours a day and pay us $29.95 to do the editing, posting, hosting, upload to Wellcomemat, linking on Realtor.com, upload to the agents Youtube or ours, and a large # of other sites.  They go out in the day...shoot the tours then upload raw footage to us and we turnover the job and do whatever contract we have with each of them.  Some of these guys are full time at it and making a substantial living at that price.  Their business model is simple....price competitive with traditional virtual tours....book a bunch of tours each day then film and upload to a 3rd party who does the labor intensive editing and distribution, hosting etc. 

I personally shot 4 tours today for a couple of retail clients in less than 2 1/2 hours....the agents love them...they love the price point and they call us instead of us having to kill ourselves with marketing.

Some of the video pros we do editing for are rolling out their services now in multiple cities and keeping a price model of $119.  HDhat.com also will be rolling out full service options as well this Spring priced at $119 for photos and video with our photographers using the same camera and the same training so that we can repeat this model and strategy in every city.  The $119 is the price point I feel that real estate video tours will explode onto the market at.

I am totally the opposite of "going after the high end" the real money is in the large # of agents that will eat up video tours if they are priced in the $119 range.   My suggestion is to spend your time filming and job out the labor intensive portions such as editing and distribution.  Your evenings are free, your price point is easy to get new clients and referrals will just flow in!

3) Marketing we can help on that to with flyers and we can use "at wil"l our huge current database(100,000+) of accurate addresses and emails for each local market we are expanding into. 

As well we will feed the full service orders from our sites this Spring to those videographers that are partnered up with us for editing/distribution services.   

Mark Passerby, HDhat.com

Mark,

thanks for the reply. I really like the clean layout of the video player you feature on the realtor’s page. I would never intentionally steal and idea but i also don't want to recreate the wheel.

I can see both sides of the pricing. Higher prices may mean more income but a harder initial sell. Lower prices may mean easier acceptance by realtors and higher volume of sales.

Especially in this market where i have seen some awful marketing from agents. from poorly designed websites to bad photos of homes etc. i have to offer a quality product and at the same time compete with the agent who thinks he can do just as well with his handycam.

There is more than one way to approach these tours and I want to review all options and then commit to what will work best. The target is to start at the end of January.

I want to get established and profitable before someone else sets up shop in town. I see a lot of potential for this to succeed if done properly. A lot of planning can go a long ways.

Thanks again to all who have helped. It really is good to know what is working for others.

 Always remember... "The bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of it's price."

After reading the essay from "Bob Bountiful," the guy that always has a deal for you... then looking at the video (OMG!). It's clear to see that agents aren't getting any better with that, than they would, if they just used products like http://www.visualtour.com. Which in turn makes us look like a commodity, and none differential, or no better... hence the price. Price becomes the only issue or way to make a difference. You can buy Ford Escorts all day, and I am sure they are putting a dent in the BMW's overall business, right? I guess what I am saying here is this; the seeds you plant today, will be the produce you eat tomorrow. So, going after the low end consumers will net you what? Low end consumers.  Low price usually means low confidence in yourself, your market, or both. You are trying to establish your market now, so be careful not to get stuck in your own mud with the rest of the cheap seats. Would you build your house on shifting sand? 

If the fish you keep catching are too small, who's fault is that? Catching bigger fish takes a different presentation, different lures, a different plan of action. At the end of the tournament, the winner is the one with the most poundage... not the most fish. Do the research now and find out where the big fish are biting. In other words know the market you are going after like the back of your hand and target market those people. Work smart for your money, not hard because you have to in order to make a profit.  Do you think there is a reason why BMW won't bother marketing to Ford Escort buyers? So how can you be more profitable with fewer fish? If you know what puts money in the pocket of an agent, you'll know how to cater your sales approach to them. You'll know how to filter out the ones that will be a total waste of time. You'll learn how to discern a high probability sales scenario.

Real Estate 101 basic fact #1: One of the main benefits any agent can offer their client is their ability to effectively market properties, and most agents couldn't market their way out of a wet paper bag. Most don't even care. They practice the "4P" real estate marketing system: Place it in the MLS, Place a sign, Place an ad... Pray! They don't even understand what a marketing plan is. You need to understand more than just the tehnical aspect of videography, you need to understand marketing. Which marketing plans, that cater to an agents needs, will get them more market share? Understand that agents aren't just buying your videographic prowess, they are buying you. People aren't just buying a drill bit, they are buying the holes. With regard to agents, you need to know how to discern the difference between the order takers ("Would you like fries with that!") and the real pros. When you get in good with a couple of pros, the others (because of their "keep up with the Jones'  competitive spirit") will be checking you out. Fed Light is a shining example of that. If you run across an agent that doesn't understand how to market, you need to teach them how your system will ever increase their market share. Become the drill bit that helps them drill a lot of holes. Don't get intimidated by the volume dealers out there. There is a market for everyone. When it comes to a product or a service, price only matters when you don't want it or don't really care. But. if you really want something bad enough, you'll do what it takes to get it. Agents need holes really bad!

 That's "Fred Light"... sorry Fred.

Well put Lee!  Thank you... I think that is the real issue here.  I keep saying the only ones who compete on price are the Walmarts and McDonalds of the world.  They can AFFORD to have low margins, and they can buy everything cheaper because of their volume...  the little guy should compete on what the consumer REALLY cares about, and that's the quality and the service he gets.  If he saves $10 on a tour but can't talk to a live person if he has trouble, the price difference isn't worth it to him!  If he pays another videographer $100 less but the he can't deliver the video quickly to display on the MLS when the listing goes live, then he's LOSING money because it's late.

Price is only a "surface" game-- most people have other things they care about other than price.  If you try to compete on price then you put yourself on the commodity market.  When you compete on the service playing field (adding huge value to what you do and making your service worth EVERY extra dollar they spend), then you WILL come out ahead.

 Thank you to all who have responded, just a quick update.

meeting with the technical person for the local association of realtors next week. this is a good contact to have early in the planning process and should open a trusted referral path for realtors. should also provide some additional details on what will work best for this area.

design of the website is in progress and i will be recording at least three tours next month.these are a test run and a finished product to introduce this service.

right now the weather is miserably cold and things will really speed up this spring.

at the moment this is a lot of busy work but a little bit of planning goes a long ways. There is a great potential here and if done properly from the beginning will yield great results.

another question : )

what is the best way for billing of the tours? i am thinking processing it all online by credit card is easiest but is it the best way?

 George:  I wouldn't bank on an active spring market.   With the tax credit deadline on April 30, and the very real possibility of higher interest rates later in the year,  there will be FAR more activity starting NOW through April - people (sellers too!) want to take advantage of these incentives and they're putting their homes on the market NOW...  not waiting until the traditional spring market.

Generally, it's VERY slow from Thanksgiving until about February15, but I was actually fairly busy (did 4 tours two days before Christmas... WTF???), and scheduled 6 tours just this afternoon.... that's NOT the way it goes in early January!!!  I think things will slow down in the spring... the time to jump in is NOW. 

I agree we are seeing that type of transaction activity in our 6 RE/MAX offices in Michigan.  We are in the epicenter of this meltdown so this "tax credit" surge has been welcome here albeit there are some interesting and sobering statistics.  The REO's and short sales(mushrooming) are continuing to drive this and many markets.

You will find though a fairly good market with REO agents provided you price affordably.  The benefit is of course the house is vacant so you are in an out fast and can do many tours in a day.

I worked out a deal today with a "buyers" agent to do tours for an REO agents listings.  The REO agent then hands off the buyer leads to the buyers agent who pays a 25% referral.  Everyone wins.....the list agent just wants to move properties fast to get favor from the banks, the buyers agent actually gets paid better than the list agent in most cases on an REO sale, and of course the video tour company is happy with fast easy access to vacant homes.  Plus the seller never sees or cares about the video....they just want the home sold fast to get it cleared from their portfolio.  

All those tours out there in your market additionally help to spread your name and service.

Mark