Real Estate Industry Taps Technology Via 24/7 Video Tours

Viewing of properties for sale is one of the important steps in real estate transactions. Neither the glossiest sales brochure nor the glowing review of a listed property could substitute for a personal visit to a detached house-and-lot, condo unit or office space to convince the buyer that the purchase is worth his money.

However, in some cases, trips to project sites are not possible or could be too difficult and costly, such as when the property on sale or the potential buyer are too far apart and the buyer would need to take a plane or even a visa to see the place.

While a personal tour is ultimately be needed before a buyer pays for a property, during the house shopping stage, the video technology that a growing number of real estate companies have adapted to has proven useful in cutting the immediate need to physically view the prospective property.

One such firm that has tapped the video technology is Rutherford-based ERA Justin Realty, considered a technology leader in real estate listings and sales and a top 100 ERA real estate company in the US.

Ron Darby, co-owner of ERA Justin Realty, said that video tours offer home sellers several advantages, such as 24/7 opportunities, open house viewings on weekends and homebuyers’ private showings at their convenience.

He explained, “Video tours include both single and multi-scene views of the interiors and exteriors of ERA Justin listed properties. Online visitors can tour properties at any hour, from their home office, or from anywhere in the world. The expectation of todays real estate homebuyers and sellers are high, and as millions of viewers use the Internet to look for a home, it is critical to have the best tools to promote our listings online.”

To help other real estate companies enjoy the advantage that ERA Justin Realty has, RealBiz Media Group, Inc. RBIZ offers a proprietary video processing technology that provides home video tours to the real estate industry.

RealBiz does it through its wholly owned HomeTourNetwork operation in which the company provides a Television video-on-demand network, a growing MicroVideo App network and an existing Virtual Tour network.

Because of RealBiz’s access to the largest realty companies in the US with numerous approved vendors and national contracts and its client base of over 60,000 real estate agents and brokers, upon completion of the digital video network, it can target distribution to over 70 million households and an agent-driven MicroVideo App program.

In a statement at the end of May, RealBiz said that it has seen steady growth over the last 45 days after it rolled out its latest Nestbuild Agent and MVA video platforms.

Among the key indicators of the growth are 15,350 active agents using MVA and Nestbuilder Agent, 24,000 videos published everyday in support of agents’ products for its Video Based Marketing Platforms.

For its Virtual Tour Based Platforms, there are now 24,637 active agents using RealBiz Virtual Tour products and 113,092 total active published listings.

Meanwhile, for its Nestbuilder.com consumer site, there are roughly 1.6 million videos hosted, 6:53 minutes average visit time spent on site, 4.8 pages per visit, 51 percent return visitors, a 195 percent growth in page views over the last month and a jump of over 100,000 positions to 128,061 in Alexa ranking.

Despite the steady growth, RealBiz CEO Steve Marques said, “whilethere is clearly a lot to be done, early indications for adoption of our marketing platforms are very encouraging. We are also optimistic about the prospects of accelerating our products through our recently announced acquisition of ReachFactor and the letter of intent for partnership with zioLogix.”