As a real estate professional, you're always seeking novel methods to enhance your sales strategy and captivate potential clients. One of the most formidable tools at your disposal is the virtual tour. Here are five ways to employ it to augment your business.

1. Conduct Virtual Tours During Property Appraisals 📏

‍Implementing a virtual tour during the property appraisal, especially prior to securing a mandate, offers numerous benefits.

Enhancing Professional Image

‍Arriving equipped for a virtual tour not only establishes your professional image but also asserts your expertise. This reassures sellers of your capability to manage their listing effectively and deploy all necessary resources to valorize their property, ensuring a quicker sale at the best price.

Appraisals Closer to Reality

‍The comprehensive nature of virtual tours, as opposed to mere photographs, allows you to revisit the property in its entirety, capturing every nook and cranny from floor to ceiling. This enables a more detailed appraisal, eliminating potential errors and inaccuracies that might arise from a photo-based estimate.

Additionally, sharing the virtual tour with colleagues back at the agency can garner fresh perspectives on the property, leading to a more accurate appraisal. Thus, it fosters collaboration within your agency and reinforces your professional standing with buyers by providing a realistic estimate based on multiple expert opinions.

In summary, using virtual tours for real estate appraisals can offer significant advantages in terms of accuracy, efficiency, and customer experience, making it an essential tool in your professional toolkit.

2. Integrate Virtual Tours into Property Descriptive Files 📄

‍Towards an Enhanced Client Experience

Prospective buyers often seek more information about properties before visiting them. According to an IFOP study for OptimHome, 85% of buyers prefer to conduct a virtual tour before a physical visit.

Incorporating a virtual tour into a comprehensive descriptive file (including diagnostics, photos, etc.) can provide a more immersive and interactive experience for potential buyers, helping them to visualize the property from all angles and understand its features more fully before visiting.

The descriptive file is also invaluable post-physical visit. As house or apartment purchase decisions are significant and require careful consideration, a complete descriptive file with a virtual tour enables the prospect to review all details at leisure and make an informed choice.

Moreover, such decisions are seldom made alone. Prospects can easily gather opinions from family and friends by sharing the virtual tour of the property.

Time Optimization

Virtual tours save valuable time for potential buyers and real estate agents alike. Those opting for a physical visit will be individuals who have already shown genuine interest through the virtual tour.

3. Document Renovations in Common Areas with Virtual Tours 🔨

‍Virtual tours are typically used to showcase properties for sale, but their application extends far beyond.

For instance, they can be used to document renovations and maintain a record of the state of common areas before and after work. This is beneficial in case of disputes or insurance claims and helps keep a historical record of building maintenance.

Allowing owners and tenants to view the condition of common areas before renovations start can also prevent misunderstandings and potential conflicts. Since common areas are used by multiple parties, ensuring everyone is informed about upcoming works and potential disruptions is crucial.

4. Employ Virtual Tours for Property Inspections 📋

‍Virtual tours can be extremely useful for property owners, tenants, and real estate management professionals, particularly those conducting property inspections.

While not a legal proof, virtual tours can augment the findings of property inspections by providing visual evidence of the property's condition, such as existing damages or wear and tear, before and after tenancy. This can help prevent future disputes and issues related to the security deposit.

A virtual tour allows for a more precise documentation than manual notes and photographs, potentially saving financial losses for the owner in case of tenant-inflicted damages, and protecting the tenant in case of disputes.

5. Create a Portfolio of Your Properties with Virtual Tours 📘

‍Facilitating Mandate Acquisition

You can create a virtual tour for each of your mandates without necessarily publishing them. The goal is to document all the properties you have been entrusted with for sale and compile a portfolio. This can be shared with future clients or kept for internal use.

Demonstrating to sellers that you have previously worked on similar properties can reassure them of your ability to effectively manage the sale of their property and may encourage them to entrust you with their mandate.

Moreover, showcasing your experience and expertise to future sellers can foster confidence. Being able to demonstrate that you possess professional equipment for quality virtual tours helps differentiate you from competitors during mandate negotiations.

Generating Marketing Materials

When conducting shoots, you can export URLs of your most impressive virtual tours and use video editing software to quickly and easily generate content.

You can also provide this portfolio to your marketing agency to format and help energize your communication campaigns, attracting more potential buyers, accelerating property sales, and highlighting your agency's expertise. An agency offering high-quality content that stands out is more likely to attract prospects and become a reference in the field.

In Conclusion 🎯

‍Virtual tours can be a powerful tool for real estate professionals. They aid in documenting property conditions, promoting your business, and reaching a wider market. Creatively using virtual tours can enhance your sales strategy and provide superior service to your clients.

Stay tuned for more use cases for real estate professionals!

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