By 2018 almost 70% of the world’s mobile traffic will be made up of video content.
This, combined with the fact that the average age of UK first-time buyers is now 31 – a generation which has grown up with technology – suggests estate agents simply cannot afford to ignore the video medium.
That was the clear message coming across from yesterday’s inaugural VidEA (Video in Estate Agency) Conference, whose sponsors included EYE.
Agents arrived from all corners of the country and packed into the British Film Institute on London’s South Bank to listen to the experts.
Organiser and industry trainer Richard Rawlings urged agents to embrace new technology, saying: “The customer didn’t ask for the telephone, they didn’t ask for the TV. These were innovations and it is time for us to be innovators with video.”
Property marketing expert Simon Thomas, from I View Property, explained how fly-through video, allowing potential buyers to imagine they were actually in the house they were ‘viewing’, was now one of the most popular attractions for agents.
He said that research showed there was now around a 30% greater likelihood of a home with video attached to it on an agents’ site selling than one without.
Among the agents who have taken to video are Fine & Country. Although they admit they do charge high prices for video to be attached to a vendor’s property (£750 on top of their 2.5% commission), they say their customers believe it is a price worth paying.
Fine and Country’s John Handford gave the conference an example that a property it had recently taken on which had failed to sell with two nearby agents sold “within six weeks” once Fine and Country took it on and added video.
Increasingly being used in the production of agents’ videos are drones, which can be used to show people not only the location of the house they are buying but the whole area they will be moving into, giving the best overall picture of an area an estate agent has ever been able to provide.
One of Fine and Country’s examples can be seen here.
Drone prices start at around £750 for a full standard kit, but can set you back as much as £6,500. But agents should be warned that they will need to fully train a member of staff to be the drone pilot and there are a number of don’ts when it comes to drones – such as don’t fly them too near to airports or army barracks, or you may receive an unwelcome visit from the counter-terrorist unit like Fine and Country recently did.
Louise Clarke, from video production company Zoipa, urged: “People trust video far more than photographs, so give your customers the medium they want.”
She added that 20% of people believe what they hear, 30% believe what they see, and 70% believe what they see and hear.
And, she added, websites which contain video gain a higher Google ranking than others.
Estate agent website provider Homeflow, urged agents considering using video to go for it wholeheartedly, saying: “If you have videos make sure they are prominent. For example, Bradleys estate agency (South West England) video, where they have it, takes the place of the actual picture.”
An example of Bradleys’ presenter-led videos can be seen here.
Miles Shipside, from Rightmove, said he believed video only worked if everything else, such as pictures and floor plans, were also right.
“It requires time and commitment to watch a video,” he said. “The key is to give people something they cannot find somewhere else.”
The conference was also shown video from the United States and Australia, two of the countries leading the way in estate agency video.
Vendor appraisals are also increasingly being carried-out using video, and one of the companies making big progress in this field is Vox, working with Agent Centric, of which Richard Rawlings is a founder, which allows agents to send a request video to a vendor and the vendor to send a video appraisal back, all within seconds.
Rawlings brought the day to a close by concluding that video was here to stay and agents needed to embrace it to develop their businesses.
He said: “Ultimately it is about the human desire to communicate. We are in the business of engaging with people and video is on track to overtake all other forms of communication in the business environment.”
Comments (14)
I note that people seem to consider £750 expensive. My understanding from the F&C presentation is that the £750 was merely a contribution towards costs from the vendor, not the actual cost of the production. The video they showed at Videa15 involved hiring in props (a helicopter) and a crew of, I think they said 5 or 6 people for the shoot, which included a drone operator (if hired in, they alone could be £600 to £1,500 a day) plus editor, music composer, voice over artist, helicopter hire, horse and rider…. so I suspect the actual price is considerably more. There’s video possible for every property and, I believe, every budget. You can either tell your producer what you want to pay and see what they can offer, or tell them what you want to see and find out what they’ll charge. We have property video packages from £150 to in way excess of £10k. You could be the EA equivalent of Lidl…or Harrods, or somewhere in between, the price you pay has to be based upon the level of work involved in your individual productions and the frequency of work you’re offering. A £150 video is waaaaay different to a £10k video – think local burger shop food ad vs M&S food ad. It’s a question of what your brand, property type and customer (and I mean vendor not buyer) requires and how you want your company to be perceived. Decent videos enable you to charge more in commissions, benefit from better retention and often, swifter sales. In video production, if you want a huge amount of work for peanuts, you’ll probably get a monkey.
smile please…I trialled at £250-£350… there was a novelty factor for sellers and ourselves however the company concerned were hard work to deal with and were inflexible in terms of highlighting key positives like a wonderful sea view!…. barely 2 seconds feature stuck at the end yet 5 seconds wasted panning thru the front door/entrance porch?
Local Agents use them as an Instruction Tool however I do think they have a place within our industry…. it just needs some real estate agents to get properly involved with this particular product.
I may yet find time to get involved as I have yet to find a video company which really understands our industry…. they are more focused on selling agents the product!
Maybe there are a bundle out there hiding?
Thanks GPL.
You confirm my suspicions!
Paying premium as an early adopter and not really fit for purpose (at this stage).
Its the same with Google and PPC – I want local people looking to sell and willing to pay for them. Not getting the result i hoped for so Google advisers tells me to increase area, demographics and up spend.
Yes i can see why that works for you Google but does not work for me, Its not about clicks its about targeted marketing.
Another example of service providers not knowing our industry and selling us what they want not what we need.
That sounds like a poorly produced video by someone who has no idea about marketing a property. Price depends upon the hours involved in filming and editing, and, certainly initially, there should be some production time (the planning) to come up with the right format for your business. A decent company would share their ideas to ensure they met your brief before they even roll.
I have been developing my video’s over the last few months. A great instruction tool but not yet available to view these on the rightmove’s mobile platform. I’m assured it will be on the new website in November though. I make these in house and I’m improving them (or I’m improving) all the time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzydEe5yfEM.
It was a great conference, very informative, with good presentations from all of the speakers, well worth the journey from sunny Aberystwyth, I hope its a regular event, maybe it could replace the “property computer show” that seems to have dissipated into the ether.
I like the videos but looking at previous clients and the amount fine and country charge £750 i am guessing this is not yet mainstream, more for the high end properties.
Anybody able to tell me on here rough costs of producing one? – no need for the sales pitch i like it just wondering costs, ball park.
Hoping you will say £50 but guessing £250 and upwards.
It was great to see such a good turnout for this event and the feedback I have received in the past 24 hours has been incredible. I think the conference clearly showed that those agents who use video, and not just for bog-standard property walkthroughs, are giving their competitors a run for their money in terms of client engagement and brand distinction. Have a great weekend.
Glad that it went well. Really hope to be there next time in one form or another!
@GPL scroll down on this page for a non-Vista Bee example:
http://mount-house.com/
Thanks for the article, i was hoping to attend but had other matters to attend to. Hopefully next time!
Ah Yes…. click on the link and we find Vista Bee.
Hopefully other companies available soon!
@GPL, we’ve been around for 6 years now and produce the presenter-led video tours that you’ll find on the Bradleys link above. We also produce video tours for commercial property, yachts, holiday homes and quite often find ourselves creating company videos for property related businesses.
http://www.propertyvideos.org