Real Estate Virtual Assistant

The old adage is 'a picture is worth a thousand words.' Most of us in the real estate industry believe this to be true and offer the consumer numerous photos of a property to look at with virtual tours, single property websites, video tours and the like. One would think if one picture is worth a thousand words, then 20 pictures must be worth 20 thousand words...but is this really the case?

I must say, I had never given it much thought, either as a licensed Realtor or as a Virtual Assistant, until I read an Inman article, Too much exposure can be a bad thing? The article asks the question, Is it possible that too many pictures online is preventing buyers from looking at your property and therefore a bad thing? There are 2 very different schools of thought on this question.

Point2Agent has released a new study measuring the effect multiple photos have in marketing of listings. The study researched three variables:

1. Detailed views

2. Interest in terms of interaction with the listing on a Web site (i.e. how many times visitors viewed a virtual tour, viewed the listing on a partner site, completed a mortgage calculation for the property, etc.)

3. Leads generated

The study evaluated all Point2 listings entered into their system during the first quarter of 2008. The sample consisted of more than 100,000 listings and included listings from all 50 states, every Canadian province, plus other countries worldwide. All price ranges were represented.

According to Inman, the results of the study are:

1. Listings that lacked photos performed poorly in the study, generating little consumer response and business. Those that had one picture performed better, but not nearly as well as the sites that had 21 to 36 photos. In fact, those listings that had no picture generated 0.02 percent of the number of listing views as compared to those with 21 or more photos.

2. Compared to listings with only one photo, those with 21 or more photos generated more than triple the number of Detailed Views, more than double the amount of interest, and double the number of Leads.

3. Compared to listings with no photos, those with 21 or more photos generated more than 55 times the number of Detailed Views and nearly 27 times the amount of Interest.

4. Comparable results were obtained when plotting these three key variables against varying numbers of photographs per listing.

5. Views, Interest and Leads jumped 20 percent or more as the number of photos increased from 15 to 16.

The study seems to confirm that having additional photos on an agent or broker Web site affects the stickiness of the site, which leads to substantially higher lead conversion.

However, RealEstateShows.com's Jeff Turner presented research showing how the brain works viewing property online. Our attention span is the issue. The brain can absorb approximately 5 photos in 30 seconds and 9 photos in 60 seconds.  If we are presented with more photos than the brain can absorb, we tend to tune out and move on to the next property. Turner explains there is a reason television commercials are only 30 or 60 seconds...that is all we are programmed to absorb.

The Point2 study clearly indicates that having multiple pictures is a smart idea. Increasing them from 15 to 16 generates 20 percent more leads. On the other hand, we have no way of knowing how many buyers ruled out a specific property because they viewed it online.

What should you do? Watch your numbers. Track the visitors on your websites and virtual tours. Play with the number of photos used. Create tours with a 5-9 photos compared to 18-20 photos and see which gets better response.

Thanks to Point2Agent and Jeff Turner for providing this invaluable information!

It was brought to my attention by a reader of my Walk Score post, that Drive Score is also available. Drive Score shows a map of what establishments are in a property's neighborhood and calculates a Drive Score based on the number of places within a convenient driving distance. With Drive Score, buyers can see how close establishments are by car. Homes are often located in an area where restaurants, libraries, grocery stores, hospitals and other businesses are easier to get to by car than on foot.

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It has been awhile since I first told you about WalkScore.com. This is a fun website that helps people find walkable places to live. You type in any address and Walk Score shows you a map of what's nearby - stores, movie theaters, parks, restaurants, schools and more. It then calculates a Walk Score (or 'walkability') from 0 to 100.

The reason I bring up WalkScore.com again is because of an article on Inman.com the other day talking about this website. With gas prices surging over $4.00 a gallon, the 'walkabilty' of a neighborhood has renewed interest to home buyers.

From Inman: "WalkScore.com was developed up by Seattle-based, environmentally and socially conscious "civic software" developer Front Seat, which hopes people will use the site to find homes and apartments in 'walkable' neighborhoods.

Front Seat is making a Walk Score tile available to real estate professionals -- or anybody else who wants to embed the tool in their Web sites -- that's been embraced by sites like postlets.com and is now generating 100,000 views a month.

Walk Score looks at the distance to 'walkable' locations near an address, calculates a score for each location, and combines all of the scores into a single measurement. Lerner said research shows that the average person is willing to walk less than a quarter mile to destinations they visit frequently, such as a grocery store.

A Walk Score of 25 or less means you'll probably need to get in the car to take care of the smallest errand, while a Walk Score in the 90 to 100 range indicates a "walker's paradise" where just about everything is in walking distance and many residents get by without owning a car.

What makes a neighborhood 'walkable'?

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If you are like me, you really enjoy hearing about a program that will give you the desired effect in an easier, less expensive way. Picnik Photo Editing, is just that kind of program.

Although I have Adobe Photoshop, I have to admit, I hate using it...probably because I haven't taken the time to really learn it. But I don't want to take the time to learn it, either. I want to edit photos in a much simpler way...and Picnik does that.

Picnik is an online program that works with photos stored on your computer or from various programs, such as Facebook, Picasa, Flickr, Photobucket, Myspace, WebShots and FreeWebs. Once click of the mouse brings the photos into Picnik.

The editing features allow you to resize, crop, rotate, remove red-eye sharpen colors and exposure.

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Real estate is all about relationships. It seems we have a never ending challenge to communicate in a meaningful way with our clients and prospective clients. Providing real estate information is the easy part. It is constantly communicating on a more human level and allowing others to see us as real people and not just as a name on a website, that becomes challenging.

You may be familiar with the former service, Monday Morning Coffee, which provided weekly inspirational articles that could be added to your website or blog. The articles were always uplifting and positive...a great way to start out the week. They weren't too long, just a couple of paragraphs, which encouraged readership. When I was actively selling, my clients loved getting their weekly Monday Morning Coffee email and let me know if I missed sending it one week.

Unfortunately, the MMC people retired, but there is a new service, Branching Out from MyWordTree.com. Branching Out offers a custom weekly drip campaign service that provides you with a new article to send out to your email contacts every Monday morning, and also includes a custom-designed webpage that gives you the ability to add a personal message to each week's article.

You have a choice of themes for your weekly articles.

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