In the past, I’ve never been a real fan of virtual tours for most properties. My thought process was that plenty of well lit photos from the homeowner will do the job and give the viewer what they are looking for. 2 things are changing my stance on this. The first is that the overall quality of virtual tour production is going up. I must admit, these tours are starting to consistently look really really good. 2nd, sellers occassionally take and submit awful photos. 

I’ve gotten to the point where if a seller doesn’t own a quality digital camera or they have difficulty emailing photos, I almost always recommend a virtual tour. The advantage here is not just the virtual tour itself, but also the photographer will take your still shots for you and email them to us for uploading to the MLS.  The difference in a listing with quality well lit photos and dim grainy photos is night and day. Many times you can talk the photographer into taking addtl photos for you or even tip them a few bucks and ask them to take a plethora of extra shots.

A virtual tour can be a bonus to any existing or new listing. When an order is placed through our brokerage for a tour, the photographer will contact you within 1-2 business days. Once a time is set, the photographer will meet the seller at the property to take the shots. A min of 6 panoramic shots and 12 still shots are taken by the photographer. As a seller, you always want to be present for the shooting. This allows you to ensure the shots you want taken are completed. Once the tour is complete, the photographer will email our brokerae the VT link for the MLS. We then add this to the MLS asap. Realtor.com will pull the tour into their website within a day or so. This will appear in the form of the red spinning house icon. The advantage to our ordering the tour through our brokerage is the seller will have the property linked to Realtor.com for free, flyers, and more.