CoStar Acquires Matterport
Andy Florence hit the center stage at the HousingWire Gathering in Scottsdale, Ariz yesterday morning. It was a packed house. If there is one thing that you can say about Andy Florence, when he and his leadership team commit to something, they go in 100%. Early this week, Matterport was trading at just under $1.4B.
When WAV Group worked with Matterport as a startup to launch into real estate so many years ago, we witnessed the awe of real estate professionals who immediately recognized the breakthrough innovation of the Matterport experience in real estate marketing.
If you recall your first Matterport experience, you surely witnessed true technology innovation. The ability to move through rooms, and understand space through the doll house animation delivers an online home viewing experience like no other.
With CoStar's massive domination of commercial real estate, rentals, and a top competitor in residential real estate portals, Matterport will be componentized into the marketing of all existing and proposed building structures.
The announcement caused Matterport stock to jump from $1.70 per share to nearly $5 on the release. Sadly, we had exited our positions in Matterport long ago as their stock price languished. The price surged the valuation of Matterport up over $1.4 billion this morning on the news release.
Press release follows:
Matterport, the Global Leader in 3D Digital Twins, to be Acquired by CoStar Group
The Transaction is Expected to Increase the Development and Deployment of Matterport's Advanced AI and Digital Twin Technology
SUNNYVALE, Calif., April 22, 2024 — Matterport, Inc. (NASDAQ: MTTR), the spatial data company leading the digital transformation of the built world, announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement with CoStar Group, Inc., a leading provider of online real estate marketplaces, information and analytics in the property markets, pursuant to which CoStar Group will acquire all outstanding shares of Matterport in a cash and stock transaction valued at $5.50 per share, representing an equity value of approximately $2.1 billion and an enterprise value of approximately $1.6 billion based on the closing price for CoStar Group common stock on April 19, 2024. Under the terms and subject to the conditions of the agreement, which has been unanimously approved by Matterport's Board of Directors, Matterport stockholders will receive $2.75 in cash and $2.75 in shares of CoStar Group common stock for each share of Matterport common stock.
Founded in 2011, Matterport pioneered the development of the first 3D capture solution to deliver dimensionally accurate, photorealistic virtual tours or "digital twins" for any type of property. Matterport's proprietary and patented technology enables anyone to digitize a property using a variety of camera technologies including cameras found on most smartphones. Matterport also produces a line of innovative 3D capture devices, including the company's flagship LiDAR-based Pro3 camera which is capable of high-precision indoor and outdoor capture. At the center of the solution is Cortex, a powerful artificial intelligence software engine that automatically generates the 3D digital twin and virtual tour while providing property insights like detailed property dimensions, room layouts, and more.
Matterport's 3D technology is utilized in nearly every sector of real estate, spanning residential, commercial, hospitality, retail, and industrial spaces, among others. Over the years, Matterport has curated what is considered the largest and most precise collection of spatial property data worldwide, with over 12 million spaces captured in 177 countries, and representing more than 38 billion square feet of digital property under management. Contributing to this growth, Matterport has established a global network of several thousand photographers, capture services technicians, and service partners producing hundreds of thousands of new 3D digital twins for properties each month.
CoStar Group operates some of the most effective and widely recognized real estate information solutions and online property marketplaces in the world including Apartments.com, LoopNet, CoStar, and Homes.com, all of which feature Matterport's 3D virtual tours. CoStar Group was one of the first adopters of Matterport's technology, and currently has almost 300,000 Matterport digital twins available in the CoStar information product and online property marketplaces. Advertisers on CoStar Group marketplaces clearly recognize the value of Matterport virtual tours. In March 2024, there were over 7.4 million views of Matterport 3D Tours on Apartments.com, with consumers spending 20% more time viewing an apartment listing when Matterports were available. CoStar Group intends to utilize Matterport in a similar fashion on Homes.com to further enhance the most comprehensive agent, seller and buyer friendly residential portal on the market.
"CoStar Group and Matterport have nearly identical mission statements of digitizing the world's real estate. I look forward to welcoming Matterport to the CoStar Group family and believe that we will be stronger together, in pursuit of our common mission," said Andy Florance, Founder and CEO of CoStar Group. "The world has changed and today a Matterport is the new open house or property tour. People now select their next home, apartment, office, store, hotel, or warehouse on their mobile device often without ever visiting the property. There is no better way to remotely experience space than via Matterport. CoStar Group intends to support and invest in research and development opportunities to further develop Matterport's spatial technology, including the application of AI and machine learning to extract information from the 3D spatial data library as well as using generative artificial intelligence to imagine and reimagine physical spaces."
RJ Pittman, Chair and CEO of Matterport said, "We are thrilled to join forces with CoStar Group, a long-standing customer and partner with a shared vision for transforming global real estate through technology and digitization. This transaction is another significant milestone that acknowledges the groundbreaking work Matterport has accomplished in 3D digital twin technology and AI-driven property intelligence. With CoStar Group's expansive reach and scale in property research and analytics and our joint commitment to innovation, we believe that this powerful combination will transform how properties are marketed, sold, and managed worldwide. Importantly, it offers Matterport's stockholders the opportunity to participate in the value creation and future growth prospects of our combined efforts."
The transaction, which is expected to be completed during the year, is subject to the approval of Matterport stockholders and the satisfaction of customary closing conditions, including applicable regulatory approvals. Directors, Officers and certain other stockholders of Matterport, representing approximately 15% of Matterport's fully diluted shares, have entered into voting agreements to support the transaction. The transaction is subject to a 10% symmetrical collar based on a CoStar Group share price of $86.02 as the midpoint.
Qatalyst Partners is serving as financial advisor and Foley & Lardner LLP is serving as legal advisor to Matterport.
About Matterport
Matterport, Inc. (NASDAQ: MTTR) is the World's #1 Digital Twin Platform* leading the digital transformation of the built world. Our groundbreaking platform turns buildings into data to make every space more valuable and accessible. Millions of buildings in more than 177 countries have been transformed into immersive Matterport digital twins to improve every part of the building lifecycle from planning, construction, and operations to documentation, appraisal and marketing. Learn more at matterport.com and browse a gallery of digital twins.
©2024 Matterport, Inc. All rights reserved. Matterport is a registered trademark and the Matterport logo is a trademark of Matterport, Inc. All other marks are the property of their respective owners. *Largest digital twin cloud hosted platform for the built world sq. ft. scanned. Data on file.
About CoStar Group, Inc.
CoStar Group (NASDAQ: CSGP) is a leading provider of online real estate marketplaces, information, and analytics in the property markets. Founded in 1987, CoStar Group conducts expansive, ongoing research to produce and maintain the largest and most comprehensive database of real estate information. CoStar is the global leader in commercial real estate information, analytics, and news, enabling clients to analyze, interpret and gain unmatched insight on property values, market conditions and availabilities. Apartments.com is the leading online marketplace for renters seeking great apartment homes, providing property managers and owners a proven platform for marketing their properties. LoopNet is the most heavily trafficked online commercial real estate marketplace with over twelve million monthly global unique visitors. STR provides premium data benchmarking, analytics, and marketplace insights for the global hospitality industry. Ten-X offers a leading platform for conducting commercial real estate online auctions and negotiated bids. Homes.com is the fastest growing online residential marketplace that connects agents, buyers, and sellers. OnTheMarket is a leading residential property portal in the United Kingdom. BureauxLocaux is one of the largest specialized property portals for buying and leasing commercial real estate in France. Business Immo is France's leading commercial real estate news service. Thomas Daily is Germany's largest online data pool in the real estate industry. Belbex is the premier source of commercial space available to let and for sale in Spain. CoStar Group's websites attracted over 160 million unique monthly visitors in September 2023. Headquartered in Washington, DC, CoStar Group maintains offices throughout the U.S., Europe, Canada, and Asia.
To view the original article, visit the WAV Group blog.
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Real Estate Media Trends You Should Follow in 2023
As a real estate pro, staying ahead of the curve and being up-to-date on the latest industry trends are essential. This not only allows you to serve your clients better but also allows you to stay ahead of the competition.
The media landscape is constantly changing, and it can take time to keep up with the latest trends. However, following the industry trends is vital to stay on top of your game.
Here are the top six real estate media trends for 2023:
Virtual Reality Is More Favored
One of the significant technologies changing the real estate landscape today is Virtual Reality (VR). VR allows potential buyers to virtual tour a property and its location without physically visiting the space.
It also allows real estate developers to present complex projects in an immersive and realistic view. It is an excellent tool for real estate marketing. Realtors can create virtual tours of properties, making it convenient for potential buyers to view and ask questions about the property.
So remember to keep up with VR and its continuous helpful effect on the industry to continue to provide your clients with the best possible service.
Drone Footage Is Needed
Another hot trend in real estate media is drone footage. Drones offer a unique perspective that allows viewers to see properties in a whole new way.
3D mapping is becoming popular as time goes on. It uses images taken from a drone to create highly accurate 3D models of buildings, landscapes, or objects that are not visible from ground level due to their height. Drones are an effective tool for real estate marketers. Given the demand for exceptional real estate photography and detailed property listings, this trend will be around for a while.
Social Media Will Remain a Powerful Tool
Social media is a powerful marketing tool in the real estate industry. Real estate professionals use social media to increase awareness, educate potential buyers, and generate leads. It is also a great way to connect with people in your community. Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter can be used to share information about events, news articles, or pictures of your listings.
Get on TikTok
TikTok is one of the practical marketing tools that can assist agents and brokers in reaching a larger audience and increasing their conversion rate. It enables you to present your listings and services to instantly catch homebuyers' attention.
The app has become a popular app for real estate. TikTok's true power stems from its relative simplicity. You can create lead-generating material that indicates your authority on the subject and help position you as the go-to real estate professional in your community with a few clicks using the information you already have.
Harnessing the Power of Email
Email marketing is becoming a necessity in this day and age. More than an online presence is needed; you also need a sound customer relationship management system. This means that you need to send out newsletters regularly. Real estate pros need to send out more marketing emails to reach your business goals and connect with your target audience. You're busy seeking new homeowners for your properties; automated email marketing campaigns deliver the appropriate message directly to them.
Real estate email marketing used correctly, can help you reach more clients and close more deals.
Prioritize SEO
SEO is a crucial part of marketing strategy for the growth of a real estate business. Building a solid online presence can help differentiate your company from the competition and grow your business.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is optimizing a website to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). This process includes on-page factors such as page load speed, content relevance, title tags, and keyword density. There are many things to consider regarding SEO and real estate. The keywords that you use on your website, the content you post, your design, and how often you update your pages all impact how well your website ranks in search engines.
The most important thing to remember about SEO is that it's not something you do once and forget about later. It's a process that requires constant attention and care if you want to see results.
To Wrap Things Up
Real estate media trends are changing rapidly, and agents need to keep up with these changes. With the emergence of new media technology, agents and brokers can reach a wider audience and increase their lead generation. In recent years, online platforms such as social media, blogs, and websites have provided agents with the necessary solutions for marketing their businesses.
Following these trends will improve your real estate business, whether you try them yourself or get in touch with experts to help you stay on track.
To view the original article, visit the Realtyna blog.
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Why Brokers Invest in 360 Virtual Tours for Real Estate
Pascal Pierre--licencee of LJ Hooker in Helensvale, QLD, Australia--has a proven track record of success and is a member of the Captain's Club Multi-Million Dollar Chapter. That means he is in the top 7% of LJ Hooker agents internationally!
Learn why he loves to use virtual tours for real estate in his business in this video:
He is currently selling a multi-million dollar mansion and a virtual tour is a must in his marketing package. Have a look here:
Customers First
"I think 360° virtual house tours are another dimension that's been added for the consumers," says Pierre. "For us, it's all about our consumers, our customers, and what they want, and in the day and age that we are in now, we're selling more and more properties from people who are time poor, people who are interstate, especially on the Gold Coast, who can't necessarily just drop everything and come to an inspection."
Property Functionality Preview
"What the virtual tour does is pretty much walk through the house and see bits and pieces that they otherwise would not see through a video, things that are important to people," says Pierre. "For example, pantries, walk in robes—which on a normal property video or a shoot, we wouldn't take photos of those. Yet, when you've got a virtual tour, you can walk through all of those things and there are questions that, when you're walking through a home and you're looking at the functionality of the home, there are important things will hinge decisions on because of the practicality of living there."
Save Time on Driving Back and Forth
"There are people who would like to come through the home and do a couple of inspections, but with the virtual tour, they can go back as many times as they like, and it allows them to go back through bits and pieces that they're not sure of, rather than having to call the agent, book another inspection, go back out there. For what it is and how much it costs us to do it, it's an absolute no-brainer in terms of the technology of the future, and everybody likes that," says Pierre.
Customer Expectations and Convenience
"Whether we like it or not, consumers have now gotten to the point with technology that they want things yesterday," says Pierre. "What this allows them to do is go, 'Ah, I want to go and see this, but I'd have to call the agent, book an inspection.' Now, they can just get on their phone and they revisit the home anytime.
"Whether you're in the LJ Hooker family, or you're not, in my opinion, if you're working in real estate, you need to be using all of the tools that you can possibly use to help your clients, and for me, this is one of those that, back in the day, we'd discuss floor plans, and once floor plans came in, we can't live without them. I think this is probably the next one."
To view the original article, visit the Virtual Tours Creator blog.
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Drawing Clients in with a More Immersive Experience
Founded by Bill Lawton--productivity coach and Keller Williams Mega Achievement Productivity Systems (MAPS) coach--and his mother, Karen Lawton, The Lawton Team has been in the real estate industry since 1998. With over 22 years of relationship building, the Lawton Team has helped countless members of the community buy and sell homes. Over these years, The Lawton Team has proven nimble in implementing innovative new practices, having started the business when "there was no internet" to now using Matterport to market properties and strengthen its customer experience.
By bringing prospective clients to properties virtually with 3D tours, the team has been able to win even more listings, increase traffic to those listings and garner higher engagement with clients. With this success, Bill and his brother started TLT 3D, a 3D tour photography and drone service company, to capture properties with Matterport and share the advantage of 3D tours with other real estate professionals.
We met with Bill to dive into how creating an immersive customer experience has helped his business over the years; 3D tours almost act as an "information resource" with all the details in one place.
Matterport 3D tours allow anyone to explore a home and put themselves in the space. Bill found that they were incredibly useful for eliminating unnecessary in-person visits to the home.
"What Matterport does so well is it gives people an opportunity to actually put themselves in the house. It's a really unique experience...It gives them an opportunity to look at the house from every angle and do it from the comfort of their own home. It's a 24-hour open house," said Bill.
Real estate has been, and always will be, a relationship business. Thanks to Matterport, The Lawton Team has increased the length of their client interaction by 10 minutes—from four minutes to 14 minutes—because they use their 3D tours to connect with its customers and enhance their experience.
To view the original article, visit the Matterport blog.
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Understanding Future Homebuyers and Connecting with Technology
In just a short period of time, the way we search for homes has rapidly advanced thanks to property technology, or PropTech. It's become more important than ever for real estate brokerages, brands and professionals to differentiate themselves in an increasingly tech-savvy market. David Chervenic, broker at Keller Williams Chervenic Realty, is always looking to better serve his clients and believes using the latest technology is paramount to delivering an outstanding customer experience.
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Matterport Changes Face Blurring to Opt-in Only
At Matterport, we're in constant motion, creating cutting-edge technologies to further enhance the capabilities of the Matterport digital twin for our customers. An important part of that effort includes a commitment to protecting the privacy of our customers with features they can enable to manage it. One such feature offered today is automated face blurring. Face blurring is software that is designed to protect the privacy of individuals by algorithmically blurring their faces wherever they appear in an image or video. The technique is used widely across industries from street mapping and directions, to news reporting and social media.
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Explore the Power of 3D with Digital Twins
With the launch of Matterport for iPhone, we welcomed many new members to the Matterport community and into a world where immersive 3D spaces can be created by anyone, anywhere--simply using the phone they own. What better time for a refresher course on Matterport basics, and how to best harness the power of digital twins?
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Howard Hanna Adds Virtual Showings to Online Offerings
Howard Hanna recently added scheduled virtual open houses and showings to its industry-leading real estate technology stack. Since the feature was added to the website, thousands of new and updated virtual tours have been added to HowardHanna.com, and thousands of virtual open houses have been held.
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A Real Virtual Open House Tour
Last weekend, a brokerage showed its ability to adapt and innovate through difficult times. The Michael Saunders & Company team executed a live Virtual Open House Tour event across its markets in Florida. I spent my Sunday afternoon -- while smoking a few racks of ribs -- watching how these agents leveraged Facebook Live to safely promote their listings.
While some livestreams were very good and others were just okay, I was impressed on another front. Agents and the company extended themselves outside of their comfort zones. They took a risk to change from the norm to perform their duties, and sell their customer's home.
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Video Home Tour Requests Soar Nearly 500% in One Week, Says Redfin
Redfin saw a 494% increase in requests for agent-led video home tours last week. As of Monday, 18.9% of tour requests from Redfin.com were video-chat tour requests, up from 0.2% at the beginning of March, a 94-fold increase. Other measures Redfin has taken to prepare for the coronavirus include:
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How Tomlinson Sotheby's Uses Innovative Tech to Recruit and Train New Agents
How do top brokerages recruit and retain new agents? For Tomlinson Sotheby's in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, it starts with an iPad. From listing presentations to showing off virtual reality capabilities in casual conversations, new agents are trained from the start on the technology and marketing strategy that differentiates Tomlinson Sotheby's agents from their local competition.
In a recent webinar, three new agents from Tomlinson share why they switched to a career in real estate, the challenges they faced, and how Tomlinson Sotheby's innovative use of technology helped them earn their first commission checks far sooner than the industry norm. Read on for standout highlights from the webinar.
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Efficiency in the Closing Process with 3D Tours
Taking a property listing from posting to closing can be a complicated process. Creating efficiencies in each step can be simple and is essential to completing it with consistent success
Whether you're an agent or client, the process of listing a home and searching for one is a multi-stage effort. This is something we realize at The Kite Team as a part of the larger Keller Williams Infinity Group, and in our first post of this series we covered maximizing the client and agent connection where they meet in the first stage of closing a deal.
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How One Real Estate Agency Is Increasing Engagements with Immersive Listings
It's an increasingly difficult task gaining client attention in today's digital landscape. Establishing differentiation with your brand and listings can now take place on many different levels.
As a member of the Keller Williams Infinity Group, we at The Kite Team are always looking to find differentiation with innovative ways to improve our client's experience and create efficiencies for everyone throughout home search process.
The real estate tech boom is changing the way we do businesses
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Virtual Staging Service RealEZPhotoFix Announces Preferred Vendor Status with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices
RealEZPhotoFix by VirtualTourCafe, an online virtual staging service, is now a preferred vendor of the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices real estate brokerage network. RealEZPhotoFix helps real estate agents convert cold, empty, uninviting homes into beautifully staged, warm and inviting spaces using modern technology and skilled designers to create virtually staged digital media.
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Broker Marketing: 3D Virtual Tours vs. Open Houses
In their cross-generational Real Estate in a Digital Age 2017 Report, the National Association of Realtors' research department revealed that home buyers are more comfortable than ever starting and continuing their home search online. In fact, almost half (44 percent) of home buyers launch their new home search online - and 95 percent of them continue their search online. It's little surprise that more than 90 percent of real estate firms have a website - primarily to post property listings. And more real estate agents rely heavily on their mobile devices to connect with clients via phone, email, or text.
With the increasing digital adoption, we see a commensurate decrease in real-world engagement. Consider these responses from the NAR study about what real estate marketing resources home buyers seek and appreciate as they make decisions:
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Potential of VR Heat Maps in Real Estate
Your virtual reality (VR) videos offer insight into listings that you may not know about. Last summer, YouTube introduced 'heat maps' for VR videos with over 1,000 views. For the first time, 360-degree VR video creators could see exactly what viewers are looking at.
Just think about the potential impact these heat maps have for real estate. With VR heat maps, you'll be able to tell exactly what features of a listing viewers are looking at most.
If a listing is having trouble generating leads, use a heat map to see what your viewers are looking at and gain insight into what is detracting them from pursuing that listing.
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Using a Virtual Tour to Generate Real Estate Business
Many real estate professionals have discovered a secret weapon. Have you? It's the virtual tour. These tours are made from a series of still images taken from a single vantage point and they simulate an actual tour.
They're used in real estate to show potential buyers what a particular floor plan will look like. You can show photographs of a built-out property along with a floor plan, and make it interactive for a virtual tour of like properties. It's a great way to allow potential homebuyers to see a property before it's been built.
There are several types of tours you can choose from. The floorplan tour is a relatively simple option, but there are very sophisticated full-service virtual tours that can be created by professional photographers using digital cameras, specialized software, and other high-end equipment.
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Best Practices for 3D Home Tours
From April 2017 to May 2017, 560,000 new listings hit the market. And each was accompanied by a listing description, various images and highlights of the most appealing features. Are your descriptions and images compelling enough to stand out from the crowd?
Differentiating yourself is not something to be left to chance! One of the newest technology trends to help you stand out from the sea of listings available in your market is 3D tours.
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Take Advantage of VR in Real Estate
Imagine: Being able to show potential buyers a home while staying in your pajamas. It's possible! We live in a world with increasing advancements in technology that push boundaries of what we once thought was possible. The new and exciting world of virtual reality is creating opportunities for all kinds of business.
Enhance Tours
With virtual reality, connecting potential buyers with properties is easier than ever before. VR allows the buyer to view the property from anywhere – even another continent. All the buyer has to do is strap on a VR headset. Without even stepping through the front door, the buyer will be able to view different rooms and see what the property has to offer. It is an efficient way to keep the property transparent and your buyers interested.
Different Perspectives
As buyers take their virtual tours, they might be unimpressed by the current furnishings of a room or they might not have a designer's eye for potential.
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Win More Listings and Outsell Your Competition
Tuesday, February 28, 2017 at 11:00 AM PST
The real estate business is changing, and it's more important than ever to understand the new tools and techniques available to savvy real estate professionals today. Do you want to be recognized as one of the most tech-forward, marketing savvy businesses in your market?
Attend our live webinar to learn why Matterport is the future of property presentation and how you can get in on the ground floor of the growing 3D movement in real estate.
Webinar agenda:
Live Matterport Demo
Overview of how Matterport has helped agents and brokers from Sotheby's International Realty, Coldwell Banker, RE/MAX, Keller Williams, and more win more listings and grow their businessThe best way to implement Matterport at your business
A brief history of Matterport and 3D technology
The future of Matterport and virtual reality
Matterport Q & A
Register now!
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Inaccurate Listing Data? Check Your Virtual Tour Solution
A common tool that you or your agents are using to promote listings may be an unexpected source of inaccurate property data. If you're noticing that the price or other details of your listings are showing up incorrectly online and you're not sure why, you may want to check your virtual tour solution.
That's right--several virtual tour solutions on the market today offer syndication to the major portals. If you've turned off the syndication feature that your vendor offers, there may be another culprit. Many professional real estate photographers include virtual tours with their services. Check to see if the tour solution they're using requires them to enter property details manually. Virtual tours that don't rely on automated data feeds from the MLS are one of the biggest sources of listing inaccuracy.
When a photographer first creates a virtual tour, everything looks great--the photos are attractive and high resolution, and the property price matches the initial listing price. But what if the price of the home is reduced? Your agent will of course change that in the MLS, but it's unlikely that they'll think to update the price in their virtual tour solution--and that inaccurate price will still be syndicated by the tour.
To head off this problem, brokerages should be sure that their agents are using a modern virtual tour that are auto-populated with data pulled from the MLS. That way, the tour will automatically reflect changes to property information. When a listing's price is changed, that change will be reflected both on the virtual tour platform and on sites it may upload to, like YouTube. Additionally, when a listing is sold, the tour will automatically be taken offline.
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Powerful New 3D Imaging Technology Combines Virtual Tours With Fully Interactive Floor Plans
There is a new and exciting addition to the world of digital real estate imaging. The iGuide is a highly detailed visual property report that eliminates guesswork and confusion on behalf of the home viewer. Information that would traditionally be obtained by taking manual measurements and touring a home in-person can now be easily accessed in a sleek iGuide presentation, making this an unparalleled resource for brokerages and agents who want to add maximum value to their listing exposure.
An iGuide – created by scanning a property with the Planitar Interior Mapping System – includes a high resolution photo gallery, room measurements, 360 degree views of all rooms, interactive floor plans, PDF floor plans, interior floor areas, on-screen measuring tape and more. This report reduces the time and money it takes to acquire the visuals and information that are vital to putting a listing on the market. Here is an example of an iGuide, and you can view several more examples by browsing the iGuides listed here.
Watch the videos below to learn more:
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SEM and VTs
SEM and VTs--sounds a little suspicious. It's code for using some Internet strategies to do a little more with online marketing.
There is a gaping area of unexploited territory available to clever brokers who understand how to leverage unbranded virtual tours in real estate. As WAV Group has discussed before, the unbranded virtual tour allows a broker to publish a virtual tour to other broker and agent websites. If done correctly, that virtual tour provides a link back to the broker's website. It is not a link that the consumer sees or can even touch, but search engine spiders follow the link.
It has long been known that link backs are a big benefit in Search Engine Optimization. However, like every exploit, this strategy wanes in effectiveness as more brokers adopt the strategy, and as search engines change their ranking algorithms.
Moving on, some WAV Group clients have begun to try some new strategies that are proving to be pretty effective. The unbranded virtual tour can place a cookie on the consumer's browser that can be used to target search engine marketing and online banner advertising to the consumer across the Internet.
Obviously, you cannot advertise to a consumer on a competing broker's website, but you can track that consumer when they leave the competitor's website and hit them with all kinds of advertising all over the web. This practice is commonly referred to as retargeting.
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Why Use Video to Sell Real Estate?
Guest contributor Properties Online says:
NAR tells us that 73% of home sellers would choose a real estate agent who uses video to sell their property over one who does not. That means the small 3% of agents who are actually using video have a major advantage. Are you one of them?
Why use video to sell real estate? Well, if getting a leg up on some 97% of your competition to attract nearly three-quarters of sellers isn't reason enough, read on.
People like video, and the statistics back it up. While the average web user spends 48 seconds on a website, the same user spends close to six minutes (five minutes, 50 seconds) on a website that has video.
It's simple, really. If your real estate website and individual property websites include video, your visitors are likely to stay longer. And the longer a user stays on your website, the more likely they are to translate into a lead. Video is said to be a whopping 53 times more effective at drawing people in than text alone!
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2012 Multimedia: DIY or Professional?
Guest contributor Michael Antoniak of REALTOR® Mag says:
Creating effective multimedia productions can be a labor-intensive, time-consuming process. Will you be better served developing new skills as a multimedia producer or entrusting that job to a professional while you focus your time and effort on real estate sales?
Many video tour service providers now promote themselves as multimedia specialists. For a flat fee, they will put together an interactive tour or presentation. These services will relieve you of a marketing responsibility, but you may surrender some creative control.
Fee-based services typically limit you to a set number of pictures, a maximum length for the video, and inclusion of specified other elements. Anything beyond the basic package ups the cost. You're also dependent on the service provider's schedule and workload.
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Creativity Counts: 5 Tips For Customizing Your Property Site
Guest contributor Karli Larson of ePropertySites.com says:
Each property is unique. No two listings are alike, so why create generic property sites? It's important to market with a focus on what makes each property special. Here are a few ways you can customize your single property sites to highlight each listing's remarkable qualities.
1. Enhance your property description
Your MLS may have a character limit, but your property site does not. Dust off your Whitman hat and wax poetic about the listing's glorious details. A flippant "must see to appreciate!" will not suffice here. Rave about the countertops, go into raptures over the faucets. If you can't think of wonderful things to say about the property, why would a buyer care to see it?
2. Apply a custom domain name
Imagine a property site with a domain as unique as the listing itself. For example, telling buyers to find the listing at prettiesthouseontheblock.com would certainly generate some positive interest! Focus on something wonderful about the home and incorporate that into a domain name. (Custom URLs can be purchased during property site checkout on ePropertySites.)
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Making the Most Out of Your Video Tours
We talk a lot about how valuable social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. are to networking. But one that may go unmentioned (but not unnoticed) is YouTube. Having a video tour of a house is not a new concept by any means, but getting the video out there is much easier than you think and you can then embed this link in your blogs, on your social networking sites and the like, to maximize on viewing potential.
Why choose YouTube?YouTube is by far the most well known place to go for video searches. It exceeds 2 billion views a day and these videos are embedded in tens of millions of other Web sites each day. They can also appear in Google search results, so if someone drives by the house you are marketing and Google’s the address, they can come across your video of the home “123 main st. video tour” and find out more about the house and how to contact you.
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Looking for Easy Ways to Get More Eyeballs on Your Listings?
Trying to send a listing? Looking for a way to get more people engaged in looking at the fine details of the property? Virtual tours are a great way to accomplish these goals. Virtual tours can be a great way to break through and get attention to the properties you are trying to sell while standing out from your competition.
Virtual tours are a very popular tool for real estate consumers. They believe virtual tours can give them a much better feel for a home. Studies have proven that listings with virtual tours are viewed more often and for a longer period of time.
Interestingly, though, studies have shown that only 2 to 5% listings include virtual tours currently. There’s a large opportunity to increase the attention to a listing by featuring virtual tours.
So if virtual tours are so popular with consumers, why don’t more agents offer them? In interviews we’ve conducted with agents, they tell us they understand the marketing value of virtual tours, but they don’t have the time or budget to deploy these valuable tools.
The common perception is that most virtual tour companies burden the agent with the heavy lifting of taking the photos, uploading them and then creating a time-consuming end product. Fortunately, there are several virtual tour companies that have recognized this concern and are finding ways to make it easier and more affordable to feature a virtual tour on every property.
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