Just like real estate photography, video in real estate varies widely in terms of quality. There are plenty of videos out there that could make even the most settled of home owners wonder whether they should consider moving, and plenty more that probably have even the most dedicated home hunter reaching for the pause button.

So which factors make the difference between a video that enhances a listing and one that does it no favours? Is it the vast amount of money spent on a professional video service? Not if you follow these easy tips:

1. Stabilise the camera if at all possible. Even if you don’t have a tripod available, using something to steady your arm as you pan through each room will go a long way towards reducing that seasick feeling in your audience.

2. Practice filming as often as you can and learn from the results. Are you standing too close to your subject? Are you moving the camera around too quickly? Of course, constructive criticism from others is another excellent way to get the answers to these questions.

3. Edit if at all possible. In the interest of getting a video online quickly, many agents forgo the editing process and simply upload as soon as they finish filming. The problem is that these videos would almost always have looked more professional with even a few dissolves between shots or a quick fade-to-black at the end.

4. Explain what we’re looking at. Another trend in real estate videos are those silent videos that simply show the exterior or interior of a property without any explanation. There’s no need to chat the whole way through, but a few details here and there will go a long way towards connecting your viewers with the property.

5. Enhance where you can. Music is an obvious but extremely effective addition to any real estate video as long as it’s kept subtle and unobtrusive. On the topic of sound, if you’re not keen on having your own voice in the video, try highlighting the property’s features by adding subtitles at appropriate points.

For Mac users, a simple program to edit and enhance your videos is iMovie, while PC users can get started with Movie Maker.

Once you’ve mastered the art of the perfect video listing, your next challenge will be video SEO, which you can read more about here.

Leading Dutch property portal funda.nl recently commissioned market research to find out what consumers thought of it. The results are as revealing for agents as they were for the portal itself.

The research, conducted by Heliview, showed just how important video and interactive floor plans are when it comes to listings. 53 percent of respondents said they were more likely to spend time looking at a listing if a floor plan was included, while 61 percent said they were likely to prefer listings if a video was available.

Heliview’s results were also enlightening when it came to public perception of the market-leading portal. A huge 81 percent named funda.nl as their preferred listing location when it came to promoting their house.

So, for Dutch agents at least, it seems skipping the market leader when placing property listings simply isn’t an option. In terms of listing content, the survey confirms what many already know: the more content, the better.

Looking for more ideas on listing content? Click here to see our tips on making your listings stand out.

In Part 1 of Tech Trends from the NAR Conference, we wrote about how more and more web provides are offering realtors with a mobile presence. In this article, we look at video and virtual tours. In the next article (Part 3), we will look at the ridiculously cheap websites being offered to realtors in the US.

Let’s look at virtual and video tours.

Virtual tours seem to have been around forever and a day. Each year at the NAR Conference a new group of businesses emerge offering the latest and greatest in virtual tour technology yet, for some reason, they all appear the same.

When quizzed about what makes them different for the dozen other providers, they all seem to have the same answer – high quality, cheaper price and easier to use. Now I have to admit that the technology is getting better. One provider showed me a downloadable application that sat on my desktop and seamlessly stitched together images that I uploaded – it even balanced the lighting. Virtual tour can now have voice and music overlays making them almost video quality.

These virtual tour providers are also distributing these tours to a number of different websites and are either placing the virtual tour as a listing on sites such as trulia.com and zillow.com, or they are attaching the tours to existing listings.

The one thing about the virtual tour providers that was quite amazing is the extremely low price they are charging – e.g. $29.95 for a YEAR and all the virtual tours you can create. Sure the process is automated and yes they are targeting individual realtors but there cannot be much of a margin in that type of product.

On the other front there are the video tour providers. Once again there seemed to be a dozen or so of these providers at the NAR Conference. The theme is the same as a virtual tour except it seems to cost a little more and requires a little more sophistication to set up and deliver. The prices are still very cheap and the quality seems to be good.

The real question is that having spent money and more importantly time on virtual and video tours, does the realtor actually gain any additional value or is it just a vanity project? My view is that there is a small marginal gain for the agent in attaching video or virtual tours to a listing. The most important thing is to have as many high quality, still images as possible attached to the listing. This will always be the first point of reference for a consumer when looking at a listing. The virtual tour and video tour may enhance the listing but is probably not worth it.

If a realtor does want to add these to a listing, then make sure you go with a quality provider as slow or interrupted presentation of a video or virtual tour will reflect badly on the realtor.

Our next article will look at the ridiculously cheap websites offered to realtors and brokers in the US.

While uploading a video to YouTube is free, paying for a promoted video is sometimes a necessity due to the vast amount of content added to the website every day (YouTube puts the amount at 15 hours worth every minute).

A quick search for “homes for sale Chicago”, for example, brings up around 6,040 results, so it’s understandable some YouTube users would be willing to pay a fee every time a user clicks on their video for the privilege of appearing near the top of the list.

As part of the integration, Google has made promoted videos available in Canada, the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands. Google also says it is looking forward to adding more countries to the list in the coming weeks.

UK based company AudioAgent has released two advertising options it says will increase the chances of turning an online property search into a real life viewing.

AudioAgent takes listing information and images uploaded by an agent and creates online property tours with voiceover, images, copy writing and music within 48 hours.

Their basic property tour option costs £55, while prestige tours are £95.

According to AudioAgent, the tours are already being uploaded to property portals such as rightmove.co.uk and propertyfinder.com, and can also be found via search engines. The tours are agent or portal branded, can be translated into multiple languages, and AudioAgent says it has focused on load time to ensure the tours play “within seconds”.

AudioAgent states that these tours were developed in collaboration with agents over a period of two years, and claims over 100 agents have started using the tours since the product was launched one month ago.

WellcomeMat, a website that could be described as the YouTube of real estate video, is now offering an iPhone application it claims will make it “easier to post a video for a property that it is to post photos”.

The new application allows users to post videos straight from their iPhone to WellcomeMat along with YouTube, Twitter and Facebook without cords, format changes or compression.

In a review on inman.com, Joel Burslem called Wellcome Mat’s offering “a phenomenal step forward for real estate video”, pointing out that the application allows any iPhone user to create “on-the-spot, near-real-time video assessments of properties”.

But what about those agents who don’t use an iPhone, and can’t or don’t want to make the switch? WellcomeMat blogger Christain A. Sterner responded to their concerns with this encouraging comment: “WellcomeMat has significant plans for mobile video. iPhone is the start.”

And if you’re concerned about the quality of your videos, check out propertyadguru.com’s Top 10 Tips for Making a Successful Video for some ideas.

So unlike other portals which include video alongside text and images to add another dimension, homeonthetube.com focuses purely on video as a means of showing the property listing to prospective buyers. Its like being given a mini tour by the advertiser.

The video listings are searchable by the usual criteria like city, price, bedrooms and bathrooms, under the categories of for sale, rent and vacation rental.

Users can shortlist favourites, and contact the advertisers. At the moment the site lists properties in the US only, with a strong emphasis on California.

The site is currently offering free uploads, requiring only a short signup/login process. A premium account will be needed for multiple uploads and cost approximately $19.95.

And there’s even a video to show agents and homeowners how to list their properties on the website.

Users will be able to search and view property videos on the main website, and eventually also on a yet-to-be-released mobile website and iPhone® App with GPS features.

According to For Rent Media Solutions, owner of US apartment search website forrent.com and a division of Dominion Enterprises, property managers who incorporate video into their marketing initiatives see a significant increase in lead generation.

By monitoring marketing activity in its LEADS Dashboard, For Rent says that it has observed that advertisers who add online video to their marketing initiatives increase lead generation by an average of 30 percent and by as much as 309 percent in some markets.

In Denver, two For Rent Media Solutions properties that incorporated the Community Theater video product into their advertising efforts saw an increase in leads of more than 309 percent. Community Theater allows property managers to put their communities on display through an online video commercial. The jump in leads that advertisers are experiencing nationwide has been credited to these videos.

Terry Slattery, president of For Rent Media Solutions, said:

“Audiences across the nation are attracted to online video. With leads increasing by more than 200 percent in some markets, it is evident our online video product Community Theater is generating the leads that deliver leases for property managers.”

According to Omniture SiteCatalyst, more than 80.7 percent of mobile users coming to the forrent.com mobile website can view video, and For Rent also quote comScore Media Metrix data showing that 81.2 percent of the total US Internet audience viewed online video in June 2009, while the average online video viewer watched 453 minutes of video, or nearly 7.6 hours.

In its support of using online video, the company also quotes a recent survey of more than 400 senior-level decision makers, conducted by PermissionTV, which showed online video is the top priority for digital marketing budgets. Nearly 64 percent use online video for branded content and video destination and more than two thirds of respondents reported that strengthening relationships with existing customers and prospects is the primary goal of online video initiatives.

Online video production company TurnHere has started making neighbourhood “vignettes” for its partner Weichert Realtors. The company says it has created over 50 of these online video neighbourhood profiles, which are embedded in the Weichert Realtors website to complement its real estate search.

In promoting the use of online video, TurnHere cites National Association of Realtors findings that 87 percent of real estate searches begin online. In a company statement, TurnHere’s chief operating officer John McWeeny explained his view of the importance of online video for Weichert:

“Weichert understands that prospective home buyers aren’t just considering bathroom fixtures, roofs, or lot sizes. They’re also looking for a neighbourhood for their family and a new place to call home.

Through these powerful neighbourhood vignettes, Weichert is able to position themselves as experts in a particular area and convey their associate’s personal connection with the businesses, schools, nature, and people that make up each unique community.”

TurnHere is owned by inman.com founder Brad Inman and states that it uses a network of more than 8,000 filmmakers across 70 countriesto create its online videos.

Another player has emerged in the growing online video for real estate market: Real Estate Shows allows agents to create their own internet commercials using digital photos.

The US-based company allows users to subscribe for $125 and create unlimited shows for one year. Users can create 30, 60 or 90 second videos which are hosted on realestateshows.com with links supplied to embed them into their website or marketing material.

The company says that any decent digital camera will produce photos good enough to create excellent shows at realestateshows.com, but advises that a wide angle lens and good lighting will provide the best results.

Real Estate Shows claims their site is so easy to use that it only takes 5 minutes to create a video.

A product review by Inman News confirmed this, giving the site a rating for ease of 92, value 93, and power 87 (on scale of zero to 100 – 100 is best).

Inman News says that while the product was not unique, it had many benefits including being scaleable and of use to a sole practitioner or larger office. Taking an average of the reviewers’ ratings, Real Estate Shows scored the highest (93) for value, a measure of how helpful the product is for real estate professionals and consumers alike, and the overall cost vs. benefits of the product.

Real Estate Shows are currently offering a 14 day trial of the service.

They offer creative suggestions on ways agents can use videos including:

• Make A “Just Moved ” Show For Your Buyer Clients
• Showcase Homes You’ve Sold
• Become A Category Expert
• Market Yourself As A Neighborhood Expert
• Sell The Common Areas Of Communities
• Commemorate A Special Event
• Highlight Local Attractions
• Better Service Long Distance Buyers
• Prospecting “For Sale By Owners”
• Promote Your Accomplishments

Read more about the growing field of online real estate video in propertyadguru.com’s article A Closer Look: Using Online Video.