Is video effective for real estate marketing?

Images have always been an important part of real estate marketing. You can only write so much about a property. If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much is a video worth? Usually quite a bit less.

In my experience, people love photos when looking for listings. Clear, high quality photos, and maybe some interactive panoramic photos that allow the user to explore a property as if they were standing there. Audio elements, both music and narration, are more likely to turn off a buyer than provide any type of staying power.

Video is actually also more static in presentation in that a user cannot click through the images they want to look more closely at. In a flash or thumbnail type photo navigation, the user can do just that, get a glimpse of the pic in the thumbnail and click to see the full size version.

Real estate videos basically come in two formats, the first simply involves using photos and putting them into a movie application which slowly zooms in, out, or pans across the image. It is essentially looking at photos in a video. The other format is a walk-through type video where the agent or home owner, with camera in hand, walks through the house while narrating and pointing out all the great features. This format carries a very high risk of coming across as just plain dorky or outright annoying. The ones which are shot by professional videographers can be quite good, but these are typically more beneficial to the luxury home market (over $1 million in price).

The vast majority of listings will benefit from using digital photos shot with a DSLR and to focus on the quality rather than the number of images to use.