By Kayla O’Brien
RISMEDIA, Oct. 9, 2008-“Sellers are disappointed if their agent doesn’t do everything they can to represent their home in the best light,” says Dan Jacuzzi, president of Select Group Real Estate. “So our strategy is to have a complete virtual tour on every single listing.”
With upwards of 85% of home buyers heading to the Net during the real estate process, intuitive agents have become more conscious to provide as much meaningful detail as possible to prospective home buyers.
One proven method is by creating virtual tours to showcase the home with a series of narrated, moving photographs to help give buyers a true feel for what could be their future home.
On the flip side, virtual tours have also become a sought-after method for marketing homes for sellers, recognizing the importance of a better online home-shopping experience.
“Sellers like to have their homes displayed beautifully on the Internet,” says Jacuzzi, who, upon recognizing this trend, chose the VisualTour Marketing System. VisualTour has developed software and Internet back-end services that enable real estate professionals to create their own rich media virtual tours.
“We chose to work with VisualTour because we wanted to be able to offer our 500 agents a high quality, proven service at a price that made sense; this way they could provide virtual tours on every single listing,” explains Jacuzzi.
VisualTour also equips agents with the ability to provide detailed descriptions of the property, include interactive mapping, a printable flyer, the ability to download the tour for reference when a buyer cannot be connected to the Internet, and immediate contact points so that buyers can reach the listing agent immediately.
According to Jacuzzi, not just any virtual tour will do. VisualTour makes the process user-friendly, empowering the agent to arrange and create the tour with their client in advance. This way, he says, the client can be sure the home is clean and tidy, showing the home in its best element. What’s more, the virtual tours that are best received are those that pay special attention to lighting.
In addition to helping agents create quality virtual tours, VisualTour offers Community Tours, increasing the information provided on a home exponentially.
“For a consumer relocating to a new community, Community VisualTours provide compelling visual information on the community in which the home is located,” says Jacuzzi. “These tours can provide photos and descriptions of anything from recreational opportunities to shopping, to area schools and parks-giving consumers a better flavor of the town.”
Serving the scenic Greater Sacramento region, including Chico, Paradise and the surrounding foothills of California, Jacuzzi says that he plans to continue to grow his company by offering a service that just isn’t being provided by most other real estate companies in the area.
“By using VisualTour, we are able to give the consumer a better online experience when shopping for homes on the Internet,” he says. “In our view, to take a nice listing and have it appear on the Internet with no pictures is a complete dereliction of the agent’s duty to their client.”
For more information, please visit www.visualtour.com.
