High Tech Ways to Sell Your Home

In  this market where sellers have the upper hand because of tight inventory, some new high-tech marketing techniques now making their way into the real estate market might help lucky sellers get even more attention. Here are some new methods sellers are using to attract buyers:

 

Virtual staging

The tried-and-true method of home staging with over-stuffed rental furniture and some carefully-placed candlesticks and wall art has a new partner, or perhaps new competitor—virtual staging. Thanks to Photoshop and other visual effects software, virtual staging companies can take an empty room, or a room with older furniture, and make it contemporary. Even adding light fixtures and different wall colors can be done at the click of a mouse.

Exterior virtual staging is also a growing field, showing how a house looks at twilight, nighttime, or in the daytime, as well as summer, fall and winter. The cost is far less than real staging at about $100 a room, compared to as much as $5,000 a month for staging costs.

A professional virtual stager can make a virtual room layout look imperceptible from an actually staged room, by careful use of shadowing and shading. Virtual staging also allows a room to be recreated for different uses, such as creating an image of a child’s bedroom with toys and bright colors for a family or a study with office furniture for an older couple.

 

Drone Photography

If you’re selling a home and want to show off its surroundings, consider a drone. In real estate, the three most important things are location, location, location. The use of drones is an easy way for properties to show off locations, whether the property is on a beach, near a golf course, or next to some other amenity.

Prices for a drone range from $200 to $500 per shoot and can shoot still photography or full-motion video, said Dan Isaacson, owner of CAVU Aerial Photography, a drone operator for real estate and commercial clients, whose 15-pilot company shoots about 80 to 100 drone videos a week nationwide, with about 80% of the shoots real estate related.

“Every single house has a story to tell that isn’t shown by traditional still photography,” says Dan Isaacson, a drone operator for real estate and commercial clients. Often a drone can help a buyer too, by steering them away from a home where there are visual blights like water towers or electrical pylons. “There’s always something that can be a deal-breaker, like the home is near a freeway or in a cul-de-sac,” said Isaacson “You wouldn’t have known that with just a still photographer.”

Drone operators advise consumers to look at the body of work before you buy. You’re not buying a pilot, you’re buying a visual marketer. Just because they know how to fly it, doesn’t mean they’ll do a good job showing off your house.

 

Virtual Reality Tours

If you don’t want to spend a day in a car going house to house looking at various properties, then virtual reality tours are likely going to be a major boon to buyer, seller and Realtor. Soon, buyers will be able to walk through homes, either from their own home or at an agent’s office.

Realtors, are some of the biggest proponents of virtual reality tours, which can help narrow down homes before they’re ever seen in person. In addition, virtual reality tours can improve safety for Realtors (especially female Realtors), who are often advised never to show a property after dark and always to tell their brokerage where they are and to have them check in regularly.

A virtual reality tour costs about $200, though it can take longer than a regular photo shoot, with about an hour for set-up and camerawork in each room. Turning the raw 360 degree footage into a virtual reality tour takes about another two days.

I hope that this article has inspired you to look into some of this new technology. If you would like to take the first steps in selling your property or are interested in figuring out more creative ways to sell your property don’t hesitate to call, email, or text me today — I can help!