The whole idea of using videos to lease apartments came about
when I came across the well known blogger and social media guru Chris
Brogan. Chris created a “what if”
situation. This was “what if he were in real estate”. Moving forward, he
suggested a video walk through as a tool for selling houses, apartment
buildings, any other type of real property.
This is nothing new. Realtors around the globe continue to create fancy
“virtual tours” all the time. But this costs money, sometimes lots of money.
The large cost is in creating the flash of the virtual tour. Flash is one of
those pieces of software that is only understood by a few. What we are talking
about here is a REAL virtual tour without the fancy flash. We are talking about
the owner who wishes to lease his 1,000 square foot apartment by showing the
apartment as if he/she were walking a prospect through it. This could also work
for the owner who
has 100, 1200 sq ft apartments in a single building. Anyone who has ever lived
in an apartment building knows that most every apartment looks the same and has
a few different floor plans. The beauty of the REAL video walk through is that is
raw, not airbrushed…the prospect sees the real thing. Of course we make the
video well. It is steady, pre-planned, and choreographed. Rarely will a
prospect rent the unit off the video. The tenant will more than likely want to
come see it for their self.
With the video tactic I describe above, we put the vacant unit’s best foot
forward and also eliminate surprises for the prospect. In doing this, we
increase our chances of leasing the property after the prospect sees it. For
what potential renter drives all the way across town unless they are really
interested? We increase our chances of closing the deal and making our clients
more money, quickly.
Try it and let us know your
experience. I will talk about a few avenues of video distribution in the
next and final post.
_TH