A Quick Guide To Virtual House Tours For Real Estate Brokers And Agents
Did you know that 67% of home buyers have said they want to view a virtual tour when looking at a listing? In fact, 50% of buyers prefer virtual tours over photography alone when they search for homes for sale.
If you want your listings to stand out and attract more potential clients, consider creating virtual tours. Real estate listings with virtual home tours get 87% more views than those without.
Luckily, creating virtual tours doesn’t have to be expensive or time-consuming—in fact, you can do it with a smartphone. Of course, you can also invest in professional equipment, too.
In this short guide, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know about creating virtual tours so you can ensure your listings convert into lucrative deals.
What Is a Virtual Tour?
In real estate, a virtual tour is a digital simulation of a property that allows potential buyers, renters, or investors to explore the space remotely as if they were physically present.
Virtual tours are designed to replicate a walkthrough experience by showcasing a home’s layout, features, and atmosphere.
They let potential buyers view properties from the comfort of their homes, making it especially convenient for those who are relocating or have a busy schedule.
Another advantage of virtual tours is that they save time by filtering out unqualified leads. Potential buyers interested in the property can make that decision early, meaning you’ll only have to show the property to people who are genuinely interested in it.
Virtual tours also help expand your reach and exposure, enabling you to attract interested buyers beyond local boundaries, anywhere in the world.
These tours provide a realistic feel of the property, helping buyers better understand the layout, style, scale, and flow of each room compared to static images alone.
How to Create Virtual Tours
You can create a virtual tour for a property you’re selling in two ways: using your smartphone or investing in professional equipment. Let’s unpack some tips for both options:
Using your smartphone
Creating a high-quality virtual tour with a smartphone is entirely possible with the right specifications and approach.
Smartphone specifications needed for virtual tours
To ensure your virtual tour looks professional and engaging, your smartphone should ideally have the following specifications:
- Camera quality: A camera with at least 12 megapixels is recommended, but 48 megapixels or higher will provide much sharper images, especially when zooming in on details.
- Wide-angle lens: Look for a phone with a wide-angle lens (typically around 120°). This helps capture more of each room in a single shot.
- Stabilization: Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) or electronic stabilization (EIS) are phone features that help reduce motion blur and produce smoother shots.
- High resolution for video: The phone’s camera should support at least 4K video recording at 30 or 60 frames per second (fps) for high-quality, smooth footage.
- Storage capacity: Virtual tours take up a lot of your phone’s memory, especially at high resolution. Aim for a phone with at least 128GB of storage or the ability to expand storage via a microSD card.
- Good low-light performance: Properties may have dimly lit rooms, so a phone with a larger aperture (like f/1.8 or lower) and a larger sensor size can capture more light, resulting in clearer photos and videos in low light.
Choosing a virtual tour app
Several apps enable you to create 360-degree virtual tours. Some popular options include:
- Matterport: This app allows you to create interactive 3D tours with a smartphone. It automatically stitches images together to create a seamless experience.
- Pivo Tour: An affordable solution for 360-degree real estate tours, compatible with various smartphones. It includes a rotating mount, which helps stabilize shots.
- Ricoh Theta: Although initially designed for Ricoh’s 360 cameras, their app can also be used with phones and allows seamless stitching.
- Cupix: A versatile app that lets you create 3D virtual tours with stable shots.
Tips for filming a virtual tour on your smartphone
- Use a tripod or stabilizer: Use a tripod or gimbal to hold your phone steady for a professional look. This helps prevent shaking footage, resulting in cleaner, more stable videos. A rotating tripod mount can be especially useful for 360-degree shots.
- Use the app’s 360 mode: Open your chosen app’s 360-degree capture feature. Most apps will guide you through moving your phone in a circle to capture all angles of the room.
- Move slowly and steadily: If available, follow the on-screen prompts and slowly move your phone to avoid blurring.
- Avoid reflections: When filming mirrors or reflective surfaces, position yourself out of sight to avoid being accidentally captured in the shot.
Using professional equipment
If you have the resources, you might want to consider filming your virtual tours using professional camera equipment. This enables you to produce high-quality, immersive content that can enhance buyer engagement.
The professional equipment you need
Here’s a breakdown of the essential equipment you’d need to create a virtual tour:
- A high-resolution camera: A DSLR or mirrorless camera with at least 24 megapixels for high-quality, detailed images. A 360-degree camera can capture the entire room in one shot for fully immersive tours.
- Wide-angle lens: For DSLRs or mirrorless cameras, use a wide-angle lens (10-24mm or 16-35mm) to capture large areas in each frame, giving a full view of each room. Ensure the lens has low distortion to avoid warped edges in photos.
- Tripod: A sturdy tripod is crucial for 360-degree shots and static room captures. If you’re recording a video, look for one that rotates for smooth panning.
- Portable lighting: Portable LED lights help brighten darker rooms. Lights with adjustable brightness and color temperature offer flexibility for different spaces.
8 Expert Tips for Great Virtual Tours
Below are our expert tips for real estate professionals looking to create excellent, immersive virtual tours:
1. Plan your route in advance
You want viewers to imagine themselves and their family in the space. Nearly 50% of buyers would make an offer on a home based solely on a virtual tour, so you need to give them all the details with your footage.
Choose a flow that mirrors a natural walkthrough experience, such as entering through the front door and moving from room to room. This sequence should make it easy for viewers to understand the home’s layout.
In the example below, the virtual tour showcases the entryway first, showing viewers what it would look like to step into the home:
Prioritize the property’s most impressive rooms, such as the kitchen, living room, master suite, and outdoor spaces. Be sure to capture special features like custom cabinetry, high ceilings, or scenic views.
The virtual tour below captures all the unique features of the property and creates an atmosphere of what it would be like to live in the home:
This virtual tour captures the high ceilings and lighting fixtures, which are a central feature of the home:
For homes where the layout is a selling point, show functional areas like storage spaces, mudrooms, or attached garages to give buyers a full picture.
In this virtual tour, the home’s layout is provided in detail, as this is the main selling point of the property:
2. Create a detailed script and voice-over
You can guide the viewer through the tour by narrating each room’s features. You can mention specifics like square footage, flooring materials, and recent renovations.
Instead of just listing features, explain the property’s benefits. For example, instead of “granite countertops,” say “durable granite countertops, perfect for cooking enthusiasts and easy to maintain.”
Keep your tone warm, professional, and inviting. You want potential buyers to feel welcome and envision themselves in the home.
This virtual tour includes an immersive, engaging voice-over that provides added details and highlights the main areas of the home:
3. Pay attention to staging
Staging with neutral decor appeals to a wider audience. Use minimal but tasteful furnishings to help potential buyers imagine themselves in the space without feeling overwhelmed.
Remove personal items, clutter, and unnecessary furniture to make rooms feel more spacious and open. Cleanliness and tidiness are essential for making a good impression.
Small touches like fresh flowers, neatly arranged throw pillows, or a bowl of fruit in the kitchen can make spaces feel warm and inviting.
In the below virtual tour, the home has been tastefully decorated with minimal furnishings to show off the space and create an inviting atmosphere:
4. Encourage viewer interaction
Provide the option for viewers to click and explore individual rooms on an interactive floor plan. This will allow them to focus on the rooms and features that interest them most.
Include clickable hotspots within rooms for details on special features like “Tap here to learn more about energy-efficient windows” or “This kitchen has custom cabinetry made from reclaimed wood.”
Some platforms allow virtual staging, where potential buyers can switch between different room designs. This can help them envision various possibilities for the space.
5. Include neighborhood insights
Provide information about the neighborhood, nearby amenities, schools, and parks. This can be done through pop-ups or a section at the beginning or end of the tour.
Mention the home’s proximity to shops, restaurants, or public transportation. Consider including brief shots of the neighborhood to highlight its appeal.
Explain how the location fits various lifestyles, like family-friendly, vibrant nightlife, or a quiet retreat, helping viewers see how the area matches their needs.
6. Keep it short and engaging
Long videos can lose viewers attention. Here are some ways to avoid this:
- Aim for a 10-minute tour. Focus on the most attractive features and keep the pace steady to retain interest.
- Use smooth transitions between rooms to avoid abrupt cuts. Pan slowly to give viewers time to absorb details without feeling rushed.
- For those who may not want to watch a full tour, create a short, one- to two-minute highlight reel showcasing the property’s cop features. This teaser can be used in email newsletters or social media posts.
7. Include a call to action (CTA)
At the end of your virtual tour, encourage viewers to contact you for a scheduled viewing or free consultation. This ensures potential buyers take the next step after viewing the tour and connect with you. Buyers are more likely to schedule an in-person viewing after seeing a virtual tour, but you need to guide them to do so.
In the example below, the realtor provides a CTA at the end of the virtual tour, encouraging viewers to contact him for more information or a viewing:
8. Optimize for various platforms
You need to ensure your virtual tour is optimized for all platforms it’ll be viewed on. Here are some ways to get this right:
- Ensure your virtual tour is viewable on multiple devices, including desktop, tablet, and mobile. Test your tour across these devices before you launch to ensure the footage functions well on them.
- Embed the virtual tour link directly into your multiple listing service (MLS) listings, your website, and other listing platforms to give viewers easy access. Potential buyers spend five to ten times longer on websites with a virtual tour than those without.
- Promote your virtual tours on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. The short highlights we mentioned earlier can generate interest and direct viewers to the entire tour on your site.
What to Do When Your Virtual Tours Start Generating Leads
When you start perfecting and promoting your virtual tours, you’ll start to see potential buyers coming to you for more information, a scheduled tour, or a consultation. This can quickly turn into new deals for you. In fact, listings with virtual tours close 31% quicker than those that don’t.
But how do you manage multiple deals at once and ensure everything goes smoothly?
Paperless Pipeline is a purpose-built transaction management platform designed for brokers, agents, and transaction coordinators to manage the transaction process from start to finish.
Our software is designed to automate and streamline the entire process, enabling you to manage multiple deals at once and ensure they close smoothly and on time.
Visit our website for a free Paperless Pipeline trial and see just how easy it is to manage your transactions from virtual tour to closing.