Virtual Tour 101: What You Should Know

For those of you not already involved in virtual tours, here are a few good reasons to consider them. Virtual tours offer buyers a truly visual experience, allowing them to experience the home they are interested in, from the comfort of their computers. Allowing buyers to get a detailed feel for the architecture, size, layout, and landscaping of your listings means fewer surprises during the walk-through. It's an excellent pre-qualifier and saves both your clients and you time. It also conveys confidence to your sellers that you can showcase their home in a comprehensive and professional manner.

So, now that you know the value of a virtual tour, what other considerations are there? Money is a top consideration for most, and the costs of virtual tours can vary from thousands to mere hundreds of dollars a year. The more you spend the better the tour, but fortunately even the less expensive options can give your buyers a sense and feel of the home they are looking for.

The most expensive options involve a 360 degree panoramic view of specific rooms in your listed home. These are taken by a professional photographer using a high-level digital camera equipped with a fish eye lens. The photographer takes two photographs of the specified "panorama", then uses software to "stitch" these images together into a seamless panoramic view. These services will also often offer custom interfaces to host your virtual tours. Since this approach has typically been expensive due to the requirement of hiring a professional photographer, some do-it-yourself REALTOR's avoid this expense by taking their own digital pictures and using the software sold with their camera to stitch these together themselves. The quality is usually not as high, and the time sacrifice can be great for those not adept with imaging software, but for those up to the challenge, this can be a real money saver.

Other services allow clients to upload their own images into automated scripts that compile them in a slide show fashion rather than a panoramic view. Often, these services charge monthly or one-time only fees. Slide shows don't give your buyers quite the feel of "being there" but they offer a visual compelling tour of the home nonetheless, which is sometimes all you really need.

Don't forget about connection speed when planning your virtual tours. If your typical client is using a dial-up connection, you want to be sure your tour loads quickly over slow connections. This may limit the amount of photographs you use in your tour, but remember, if your buyer gives up in frustration before they even see your tour, you not only never made the impression of the home, but you probably also left them with a bad impression of your website.

With all the options on the market, there's definitely a virtual tour that's right for you.