If you've been thinking of listing your San Francisco home for sale, researching the market and looking for the best San Francisco listing agent, you have likely seen some virtual home tours.
Virtual home tours are the leading form of interactive real estate media. Instead of focusing on a “hard sell,” interactive content combines authenticity and quality content to help you stand out from the crowd. About 81% of marketers agree that interactive content is better at grabbing an audience's attention, and at least 75% of marketers use interactive content to educate their audiences.
In fact, offering virtual home tours is one of the best forms of interactive content you can utilize when selling your property! With COVID-19 quarantines still underway, virtual tours can help you to reach buyers while they remain safe inside. Virtual house tours can attract more potential buyers and give you an advantage in the marketplace.
If you’re still on the fence, take a look at these 10 benefits you can experience by offering house tours online.
Keep reading to learn more about how offering virtual home tours can get you ahead of the curve!
Over 50% of home buyers today find their new homes through the internet. Many of these online homebuyers look for virtual house tours before voicing their interest to an agent. In particular, virtual tours are most important to buyers who fall within the 52 to 71 age range.
By creating virtual home tours, you can reach more potential buyers looking to purchase a home in San Francisco.
With people staying home in response to COVID-19, you can't just wait for them to schedule an in-person tour. Instead, you need other means to attract more people to your property. Adding virtual real estate tours to your listing can help you expand your reach.
As more people stay home, buyers are relying on the internet to research real estate properties. Using virtual tours will help you market your property even while buyers stay on their couch!
Providing beautiful, interactive visuals of your property is a better way to appeal to prospective buyers. Virtual tours offer more details and freedom than simple photos. By providing buyers with online home tours, you can share all the little details of your San Francisco real estate listing that are bound to make an impact.
At the same time, you're providing home buyers with helpful information that will help them make an informed decision.
Virtual house tours help you reach your target audience. You can integrate customized features based on your audience's expectations. Using a customized approach will increase your chance of getting the offers you want.
Listing a new property for sale by conventional means can result in dozens of phone calls from potential buyers. In normal times, your agent will host in-person tours and open houses that may not result in a sale. Meeting each of these potential buyers in person can waste your valuable time and energy.
In many cases, these prospective buyers are simply curious. They may be touring different homes just for fun or to get a feel for what’s on the market. They many not have the intention of actually buying a San Francisco home.
Virtual home tours help buyers to determine their interest without seeing the home in person. They can explore your property straight from their phone or laptop. If they are genuinely interested in your listing, then they can reach out for more information.
Encouraging prospective buyers to explore your online house tours first will help you determine the true buyers. You can focus your time and attention where it counts the most.
In addition to helping you attract more site visitors, virtual home tours can also increase your clickthrough rate. A higher clickthrough rate will increase your listing's buzz on search engines like Google and Zillow.
Virtual house tours encourage people to click around and interact with your content.
Visitors will click around to navigate their way through your virtual real estate tour. If they have questions, your real estate agent can easily respond in real-time.
These instantaneous interactions will help you discover prospective buyers. At the same time, you're increasing your listing's buzz and reaching even more buyers.
A high bounce rate can have a negative impact on your listing's search engine ranking. The bounce rate indicates how many people leave the listing webpage and how long they stay.
Adding virtual tours to your listing can boost engagement and the clickthrough rate, which will decrease the bounce rate.
Search engines like Google will recognize that the listing is keeping visitors engaged and on the page. Google will prioritize your listing over ones with a low clickthrough rate and a high bounce rate.
Most virtual home tours take a few minutes. That's additional time people stay on your listing page. As each visitor's visit time increases, your bounce rate falls.
Remember, the higher you rank on search engines, the more people will visit your listing.
Some real estate agents may not want to spend the time or money to prepare a virtual tour for your home. There are many “discount” agents out there who simply want to churn out as many sales as possible. Since not every listing has a virtual tour, having one gives you an advantage in the San Francisco real estate market.
Buyers appreciate the convenience of a virtual home tour. They'll choose to explore your online home tours instead of touring another property in person. Then, you can get ahead of other sellers in your area by maintaining that advantage.
Failing to offer remote tours, on the other hand, can cause you to fall behind the curve. Get ahead of the curve and start attracting buyers to your property listing!
Once your listing hits the market, you need to generate as much traffic to your listing as possible.
Virtual house tours are eye-catching, engaging, and worthy of sharing. As more people share your online home tours, you'll receive a backlink to your listing.
At the same time, you'll improve your listing's authority, which can further improve your search engine ranking.
The more buzz and backlinks you generate, the better for your listing. Then, you can attract more visitors to your property and generate more interest!
You can also generate more interest by sharing your virtual tours on social media. A high-quality virtual tour can even go viral. The more people you impress with your house tour, the more likely they'll share the tour with their friends and family.
Search engines like Google also use social media signals when determining search rankings. You can ensure your listing generates interest through unique, quality content.
You can also encourage social sharing by using emails. You can share your listing with friends and family, and encourage them to share it with others. As a result, you're also extending your reach and marketing your property to even more potential buyers.
Cleaning and staging virtual house tours can take time and energy. You'll want to make sure the entire house is in pristine condition before scheduling an in-person tour. With virtual home tours, however, you won't have to waste valuable time.
Instead, you'll have the convenience of providing buyers with a tour regardless of the property's actual state.
In fact, virtual tours are one of the best ways to present any property. The listing will look attractive and explorable, even online. You can highlight different spaces, allowing buyers to navigate between one room and the next on their own.
At the same time, you're creating a permanent open house by providing potential buyers with 24/7 hour access to the property. As a result, people will see you're ready with the information they need.
The time homebuyers spend looking for the perfect home has decreased by three days year-over-year. That means you have a short window to make a strong first impression.
Before the online era, a newspaper or magazine listing was enough to grab a homebuyer's attention. Now, real estate agents must to use photography, videos, and walk-throughs to attract buyers.
Today, you can use virtual real estate tours to provide buyers with all the visual information they could possibly need.
You can also customize these tours to highlight specific features for each listing. For example, if you can show off the latest home improvements you've made. Buyers can zoom in, examine details, and explore your properties day or night!
Virtual house tours can increase your sales price and boost your return on investment (ROI). Instead of spending time on in-person tours, you can use virtual tours to pinpoint prospective buyers. A buyer who falls in love with your home will undoubtedly make a higher offer. You can focus on increasing the value of your home, too!
These tours can help you reveal key selling points for your property, increasing your chance of a sale.
Want to sell your home as soon as possible? Experience these benefits of virtual home tours for yourself! With great marketing and a thoughtful strategy, you can attract buyers and sell your property faster and for more money.
We're here to help. Connect with our team today to start the no-pressure conversation.
