- Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.
Quick facts:
- 84% of all buyers start their search on the Internet.
- The top three Internet sites hit are Realtor.com, Zillow and Craigslist.
- 3 out of the top 23 searches are for agents, but these 3 don’t even show up before the top eight.
The above information is critical to the sale of your home. The Realtor you interview to sell your home in Simi Valley better know these quick facts and better be able to demonstrate how these facts will impact the sale of your home.
Quickly looking at just Single Family detached homes in Simi Valley, let me show you how far behind my Simi Valley colleagues are when it comes to marketing real estate in Simi Valley.
Simi Valley SFD Expired or Canceled Listings YTD = 255 only 14% of these listings had a virtual tour.
Simi Valley SFD Active listings between $750,000 and $999,999 = 80 only 25% of these homes have virtual tours
Simi Valley SFD Active listings over $1,000,000 = 47 only 43% of these homes have virtual tours.
I randomly entered the addresses for many of these homes into google to see how visible these homes are on the Internet and was shocked to see the only a few search results for each property showing up under the IDX feeds for brokers other than the listing broker. Many times the brokerage that owned the listing had no serch results on the first page of goole results. If you enter one of my listings like 1107 Mesa Drive Simi Valley into google you will see the whole first page of search results clearly show that this home is for sale, including much more than a Virtual Tour.
To bring Mr Wanamaker’s quote into a full circle where are these Realtors failing?
- It is clear the largest pool of home buyers is found on the Internet
- It is shocking to see that the active Realtors in Simi Valley are clearly unaware of where these buyers are and how to market to them.
- It is easy to see that the majority of these Simi Valley Realtors have no idea where they are wasting their money.
Virtual tours are very inexpensive these days. Tours of much higher quality than circlepix can be put together for as little as $5.00 per listing. Knowing this, it is amazing to see that the Realtors in Simi Valley are including tours on only one out of five listings. Now granted, there are some homes that have conditions that preclude them from a virtual tour, but a 1 out of 5 ratio shows that there are too many listings that are being left behind.
Even looking in the more expensive range there is a home over 5,000,0000 with no virtual tour and no video, just 10 pictures. There are many marketing companies on the Internet where all you have to do is upload the photos for a virtual tour and the cost is small as I mentioned above. Those of us who are embracing the web 2.0 home buyer have moved beyond just a virtual tour and now include a video walk-through.
I just watched a kitchen remodel on the DIY channel a few days ago. The family bought the home off the Internet. Job constraints kept this family from looking at any of the homes in person and they had to do all their shopping online and work with a Realtor online.
The online revolution is here, you need an advocate that can navigate this territory and give you a fighting chance in these tough market conditions.
Timothy,
Thanks for the feedback. Not sure which V-tour you are comenting on. If you are commenting on Animoto.com, yep it’s wierd and different. It is not the only tour I do. My clients get pictures, a v-tour, an animoto teaser and a full motion video as part of the media I provide.
Circlepix is expensive and looks wal-mart-ish. try http://res.realestateshows.com/ or ubuildtours.com, much better quality for a fraction of the cost of circlepix.
Good comments. Web 2.0 is not coming – it’s already here! Jump onboard or get left behind, people. I’m amazed at how many listings I see that DO NOT include even one picture! Unbelievable. Also, just my opinion, but your virtual tour example looks terrible – sorry. It looks like you put nice pictures into clip art. Stick with circle pix or another company.