UniqueHomeSites-approved Real Estate Photographer featured on Local News

Check out Jack Hillman, owner of Jumber Jack Photography in Ottawa.

He does great work and specializes in real estate.

He was also featured recently on the local news describing his business success as a real estate photographer.

Higher Levels of ‘Walkability’ Linked to Higher Home Values

As reported on BuzzBuzzHome blog (weird name, great blog!), a new study shows that higher levels of ‘walkability’ are directly linked to higher home values.

The report, “Walking the Walk: How Walkability Raises Housing Values in U.S. Cities,” looked at 94,000 real-estate transactions in 15 markets across the U.S.

The report was commissioned by a group called CEO’s for Cities and uses the Walkscore web service that we have integrated within all of our UniqueHomeSites.

WalkScore allows you to view the ‘walkability’ of any known location, drawing in community points of interest from Google’s vast directory of local stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc. to calculate a walking distance score.

You can even interact with Walkscore to improve the walkability of your listings.

To improve your listings’ Walk Score, you can easily add and delete amenities yourself.

1. From the local amenities link on your UniqueHomeSite click on the “bigger map” link in the top right corner of the Walkscore box.

2. On the right, above the list of amenities is a link titled “missing something“. Click on this and follow the instructions to add the missing amenity to Google maps.

For any point of interest, you only have to add it once. It will be available for all your future listings for that neighbourhood. 

Its a great way to provide potential homebuyers with valuable information and perhaps fetch a higher price for your listings!

Property Video Tours Featured on ‘Good Morning America’

With often intense competition for new listings, some real estate agents are looking at the use of video for that added touch when marketing their services to clients.

Once only used by a handful of agents, technology has made it easier for sellers of real estate to capture video and display it for public viewing on the web.

Professional videographers are also popping up, which offer a more polished property video production, usually in High Definition. 

Larry Lohman from Photography for Real Estate blog points us to a recent story on ABC’s Good Morning America, which discusses the power of video in capturing people’s attention. 

You can check out the segment here, or have a look at some tips they offer for creating your own video tour.

• Don’t pan around too quickly. Give the potential buyer time to take in the beauty of your house.
• Use the zoom sparingly. It’s one feature that gets old quickly and, if used too often, will have less and less effect on the viewer.
•  If you’re showing something important, count to 10 in your head with the camera centered on it. Make sure the viewers have plenty of time to take it in.
•  Consider using a tripod. Even the most steady-handed of us tend to wobble from time to time. Your viewers will thank you.

Discover video marketing techniques in the blogosphere!

Peyman Aleagha from GeekEstate blog writes a great posting on the use of online video for real estate marketing.

For those real estate agents considering a video marketing campaign, this is a must read.

Here’s an excerpt:

What percentage of your real estate customers come from out of your area? They need information about the area, attractions, natural beauty, parks, schools and more. But, they also want to SEE what all of this looks like. Photos are great, but video rocks!

Joel Burslem from the Future of Real Estate Marketing blog (who knew he’s Canadian?) also comments on the use of video on his posting entitled Video Isn’t Just About Your Listings.

Introducing Brian Scott as Approved UniqueHomeSites Reseller

Real estate professionals in Gatineau now have the chance to take advantage of Scott Photography’s services with photographer Brian Scott. He is able to photograph homes in the Ottawa area as well.

Brian, as an approved UniqueHomeSites reseller, is able to provide his photographic services package to real estate professionals in the Ottawa and Gatineau area for roughly $130 dollars as an introductory price.

His package includes a visit to the property to take up to 20 web-ready still photos, and 3 panoramic virtual tours, as well as all the features and benefits provided by a UniqueHomeSite, including a unique domain name ( ie, www.123uniquestreet.com) and hosting of the site for one year.

To contact Brian, and to find out more, visit http://www.uniquehomesites.com/photographers

Photography for Real Estate – 10 Essentials on YouTube.com

Need some tips for your real estate photography?

Larry Lohrman has created a series of youtube videos that discuss his 10 essentials.

For those who don’t know, Larry  runs a blog called http://photographyforrealestate.net, which in itself is an essential for all real estate photographers out there.

Here they are:

10 Essentials introduction

Wide-angle lens

Burned out windows

Render rooms light and bright

Understand the purpose of the photo

Front exterior is the most important photo

Render straight lines straight

Simplify images

Don’t let color casts distract

Render verticals vertical

 

Introducing Alex Lukey as Approved UniqueHomeSites Photographer

Ottawa-area real estate professionals can now benefit from having a UniqueHomeSites single property website, complete with the professional real estate photography services of Alex Lukey Photography.

As an approved vendor for UniqueHomeSites, Alex is able to provide his photographic services package to real estate professionals in the Ottawa area for a competitive price.

This includes a visit to the property to capture up to 20 web-ready still photos, and 3 panoramic images, and all the features and benefits associated with a UniqueHomeSite, including a unique domain name (i.e.www.123UniqueStreet.com) and hosting of the site for one year.

Educated consumers = less work, more money for Canadian real estate professionals

Lloyd Frink, president of Zillow.com, posted an interesting article on RISMedia.com, entitled ‘For Tech-Savvy Consumers, Real Estate Agents are Still the Experts’.

The article discusses the recent phenomenon of websites (including Zillow.com) offering consumers easy access to a wealth of information on local housing market conditions, neighbourhood information, and other homebuying tips.

This is a drastic change from the pre-Internet days when real estate agents were the gate-keepers of this type of information.

Should real estate professionals be concerned?

Not so, explains Mr. Frink: 

“A recent study by the California Association of Realtors reported that home buyers who used the Internet as a significant portion of their home-buying experience spent an average of two weeks with a Realtor looking at homes, compared to those who did not use the Internet, who spent an average of seven weeks looking for their home.

The wealth of tools and information available online takes away a lot of the “hand holding” traditionally expected of real estate agents, which allows them to take on a higher volume of clients, and ultimately, make more money.”

In fact, single property websites from UniqueHomeSites.com offer Canadian real estate professionals the ability to harness the power of the Internet by automatically ‘pulling’ together relevant information from a variety of sources into a neatly packaged website, dedicated to a single listing.

With a UniqueHomeSite, consumers can browse everything related to a specific property, including photos, property descriptions, video, local schools, neighbourhood demographics, plus much more.

Not only do consumers benefit from the wealth of information available on the site, recipricol links back to the agents website makes it easy for them to make contact when they are ready to engage the agent to start a transaction.

Web services allow for easy distribution of real estate video podcasts

Real estate professionals who produce video for their property listings can now benefit from a FREE video podcasting service offered by TubeMogul.com.

For those who don’t know, a podcast is a collection of digital files which are distributed over the Internet, often using syndication feeds, for playback on portable media players and personal computers.   

The TubeMogul web service provides its user with a single point for deploying uploads to the top video sharing sites such as YouTube.com, Google Video, and Yahoo Video.

TubeMogul’s analytic technology also aggregates video-viewing data from multiple sources to give publishers improved understanding of when, where and how often videos are watched to effectively measure the impact of their marketing campaigns.

According to a recent RISMedia.com article, video has moved online in a big way and it’s use can be a huge differentiator for real estate professionals, helping build trust among existing and future clientele, as well as create a strong brand impression.

“Video can make a big impact on your marketing program, and of course, the Internet is where the buyers are. A big advantage of video over fixed content is that video involves more of the senses; it sells you and your service using sight, sound and emotion. When you communicate with your prospects through more of their senses, they become more engaged, and therefore, more likely to understand your message.”

Another popular video podcasting service is available at MLBroadcast.com, which is designed specifically for real estate professionals.

Michael Price, Co-Founder and President of MLBroadcast.com, was quoted as saying;

“Our service was designed to help real estate professionals take advantage of syndication technologies to distribute their listings and community content. Video sharing sites have matured into syndication destinations that provide not only additional traffic, but vast improvements in the ability for listings to be found in organic searches.”

Do quality real estate photographs help sell a home?

As an extreme (and hilarious) example of why good photography is important in marketing a property for sale on the Internet, here are a couple of YouTube videos showcasing some of the worst real estate photographs ever.

Amazingly Bad Videos of Homes For Sale

Unbelievably Bad Real Estate Photo Hall of Fame