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
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.
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 of $135.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
An article appeared on the Winnipeg Free Press website last week, discussing how the Internet has changed the way consumers shop for real estate.
The author, Deborah Bowers, draws interesting comparisons with other consumer market segments such as electronics, music, and books.
Real estate is a market segment in which the Web is having significant impact. In the past, interested customers would phone a Realtor’s paging service, leave their phone number, and wait in trepidation for real or perceived pressure to buy, sell or at least set up a meeting.
Today, the Internet has given even tire-kickers the expectation of being able to find out what they want, when they want it — in virtual anonymity.
To help Canadian real estate professionals cope with an increasing demand for more information, UniqueHomeSites.com packages information from a variety of sources into a content-rich single property website, offering a ‘unique’ online experience for homebuyers.
Hiring a professional photographer will not only save you time, but will enhance your listing presentation on the Internet - something both sellers and buyers will appreciate.
Larry has an extensive directory of photographers from all over the world who specialize photographing in real estate.
Although, the list of Canadian’s is limited to a select number of cities, the directory will most certainly grow as this blog is a great resource for photographers.
Here is a list of Canadian’s currently listed in the directory.
For those photographers who wish to be included in Larry’s directory, $20 will get you a lifetime listing.
Also, for a limited time he will throw in a copy of his Photography for Real Estate e-book with registration if you ask for one in the comments part of the sign up page.
Not a bad deal given that his blog has #1 google ranking for the search terms “real estate photography” and “real estate photographer”.
As an added bonus, the results can be fully integrated within our UniqueHomeSites.com single property websites.
Here’s how it works - First, register your contact information (inc. logo and profile pic) with WhatIWantRealEstate.com. Second, upload your property photos and enter a text description of the listing.
The rest is taken care of by the folks at WhatIWantRealEstate.com. What they do is take the listing information that you supply and develop it into a video. Then, they distribute it to a wide variety of search engines - all for a one-time fee of $50 per property.
According to CEO and Founder Ryan Hoback, ”We place your video on Google, Yahoo, YouTube, Itunes, and many other directories to maximize the visibility. Our optimization strategies target viewers by geographic and keyword specific searches, so each viewing is highly targeted to localized areas.”
We have noticed that it’s something not many real estate professionals do, even though prospective buyers who surf the net truly value these types of photos.
It gives internet buyers an additional flavour of what the neighbourhood has to offer in terms of services and amenities.
To give you a good example, Stevie Crawford of Royal Lepage Real Estate Services in Toronto recently created a UniqueHomeSite for a condo he is currently listing, where he included a number of neighbourhood photos, such as that of a nearby park, transit station, shopping, and the neighbourhood LCBO.
You can check out his listing here for inspiration! (Click on the Photos link)