While browsing through the listings in our office earlier this year I noticed that out of 60 listings that our office had at the time only the listings my wife and I had have virtual tours. This was surprising. So I decided to do some more research in the general area we do most of our business.

Here’s what I found:

  • Over all only 8% of the listings had virtual tours that agents had to pay for.
  • In the $300,000 to $600,000 price range 7.5% had tours.
  • In the$600,000 to $1,000,000 price range 4.6% had tours.
  • In the $1,000,000 to $5,000,000 price range 16% had tours.

I’m sure there are several messages in these numbers. But think the main question is “Why do only 8% of listings use tours?” It’s pretty clear that Realtors are not very impressed with what they get for the money. The question is why?

My guess is that part of the reason so few Realtors are willing to spend money for tours is that many tours are not all that breath taking, many take a long time to load and frequently tours use technology (like Java and QuickTime) that is not present on all viewers machines. That is, they are quirky some times they work and some times they don’t. Another reason could be that some broker sites have new features that in some ways provide similar features as tours. Perhaps another reason is tour links are only on the MLS, your brokers site and perhaps your own site. Tour links don’t get passed around to all sites like the listing photos and text do.

In the last year or so there is a developing trend with tours towards using Flash (Flash is on 98% of viewers machines) slideshows with large images and straight forward navigation much like the example above. The example above (click here or on the image above to see the complete tour) is, I think a good example the impression that can be that can be made with a tour. Of course stunning photography is a big factor in creating impact with this and any tour. It takes great images and great presentation. A tour like the one above can go a long ways in setting the home apart from the competition and getting potential buyers to turn out to see the home in person. After all the whole point of using a tour is to go above an beyond and present a home in an extraordinary way.

There are very few Realtors that can shoot images like the ones in the tour above. In some ways this tour may be a little overly dramatic. That aside, I suggest that in the overall scheme of things a tour like the one above is well worth the $185 it costs to have a professional shoot the images and create a stunning tour. I’d come look at this home just to see if it glowed in the dark like this!