MAIN IMAGE: One of the benefits of a walkthrough video is that it is easy to share on social media and compatible with all devices.
Today it is more important than ever to set your online home listing apart from the rest. High-definition (HD) walkthrough videos or 3D virtual tours are both powerful and effective tools to showcase listings. Here’s what you should know.
High-definition walkthrough video gives your users a quick view of the home and it’s layout with the added bonus that you can add music or voice-over to further enhance the user-experience. A 3D virtual tour of a property is shot with a Matterport 3D camera that scans the interior of homes. The software stitches all of the images together and creates a virtual walkthrough experience, a 3D rendering of the home.
Once you determine which market pocket you should “bait” with these strong visual impact products, all the below digital channels have the potential to generate leads for you:
- Own website
- Property listing portals
- YouTube
But now you may wonder when to use 3D virtual tours and when to use HD walkthrough videos?
Let’s take a closer look at the differences:
The time factor
- 3D virtual tours take two to three hours to shoot depending on the house size
- HD walkthrough video tours shoots take 30 – 45 minutes
The amount of coverage
- 3D virtual tours cover the interior of a home very effectively and gives a true sense of scale, depth, and spatial awareness – however, exterior coverage is somewhat limited depending on the property. Also, 3D cameras are not equipped to produce high quality extracted photos – the quality of photos produced from the 3D scan is of inferior quality.
- HD walkthrough videos cover the interior flow and layout and full aerial exterior view, often showing the immediate neighbourhood setting and can also be used to list vacant land for sale. The DSLR camera used to produce the video tour can also produce high quality HD photos.
The user-experience
- 3D virtual tours are an immersive way to experience a property online and enable viewers to feel like they are really inside the home. Digitally ‘native’ first-time buyers do increasingly want to get a real sense of how a home really looks and feels beyond static photography. However, it requires a strong internet line speed and interactive navigation from the user and therefore more patience from house hunters sifting through options.
- The other side of the coin is that walkthrough videos take one click to play as the user sits back and enjoy a walkthrough experience of the property. Navigation on a mobile device is also user-friendly. In addition, HD walkthrough video can also include music or voice-over that builds emotion into the translation of the property.
Online visibility
Google is the first place many a buyer goes to search for their next nesting space. It owns YouTube and rewards video listings with video rankings and videos get indexed by all major search engines.
- 3D virtual tours cannot be uploaded directly on to YouTube – they are hosted on Matterport’s servers by a third party who owns and can control the content.
- HD video walkthrough tours are easier, shareable solutions for social channels like YouTube and also on social media platforms such as Whatsapp, Instagram etc. Videos are very compatible to all devices.
- Both 3D tours and HD walkthrough videos can be integrated on your own website and on property portal websites by directly embedding the video link or the Matterport 3D link to suit your website design.
Christian Fourie, CEO of Capture HD Media, reiterates the potential of video listings as a cost-effective, shareable, lead generating tool. “The added value of video is that it can be used multiple times on multiple digital platforms to draw potential buyers to listings without sacrificing quality and information.”
He adds that Matterport 3D tours as a visually impactful and informative way to present a property is well suited to a very specific buyer, especially for high-end properties.
Before you make your choice, you need to ask yourself how you can best serve and reach your potential buyers? Which format will extract the best results for your hard-earned money?
If your target market is digitally savvy, inclined to spend time on much detail and looking for a luxury home, a 3D Matterport tours will be a good return on investment.
If you target market needs an “all-user-friendly”, sharp look at a property including an aerial view, the walkthrough video tour will hit the sweet spot where buying decisions are made.
