A Great Web-Based Tool for Marketing your Real Estate Listings
When selling real estate in a buyers’ market of today, the more comprehensive your listing information is, the better. Whether you are a Realtor or an investor, payday comes once the property is sold, therefore it’s best that you do all you can to reduce it’s days-on-market. More is better when it comes to marketing!
A great tool that’s available can be found at FloorPlanner.com, an online application that allows you to create 2D and 3D floor plans complete with textures, floor types, furniture, etc. So, for an out-of-state, foreign or even a local client, the addition of such a rich media component to your property’s marketing package may help seal the deal.
The tool is very intuitive and the floor plans can be made to scale. You can drag-drop a door here, add a garage door there, input the measurements and before you know it you’ll have a complete plan that is visible in 2D and 3D.
How I used FloorPlanner as an Investor:
I personally came across the site about 4 months ago when assisting with the marketing of a property, in effort to build my buyers list. I was brainstorming ways to creatively market the house besides the ordinary methods. For the house, I had pictures, video, a dedicated website, and bandit signs, but I wanted to make sure I exhausted all of my options and took advantage of this opportunity to acquire buyers as best I could. I concluded that the only thing I was missing a floor plan.
I emailed the seller only to find out that he didn’t have a floor plan — I didn’t let that stop me! I rose extra early one Saturday, went to the hardware store and purchased a tape measure and some vitamin water (A/C not turned on), traveled to the house and measured absolutely every nook and cranny. About 4 hours later I had all of the measurements that I needed to make my floor plan to scale. Of course all of that work wasn’t necessary as I didn’t have to make the plan to scale; I just have a habit of going the extra mile.
Once I had my measurements down, I gave myself two options; redraw the sketch on some grid paper and scan it to PDF or use software to create the floor plan. Since we are in the era of web 2.0, I decided to find some software that wouldn’t break my pockets. I Googled “floor plan” and www.floorplanner.com was the first organic search result. I figured that was for good reason so I investigated.
After playing with their demo for a while, I signed-up for a free account. With a free account you are allotted one floor plan. It was very easy to use and before long I had the floor plan complete. I was most impressed by the 3D feature and it’s capability of displaying different views. When viewing in 3D, the viewer can use their mouse to rotate and change the vertical view. Check out my floor plan and see for yourself, you can toggle between 2D and 3D in the upper-right hand corner.
If you have a website dedicated to a property, Floorplanner.com even supplies you with the code to embed a 2D/3D interactive view into your webpage (see below)
Since I was creating a comprehensive video (embedded below) that showed the interior/exterior of the property, Google-earth views, and a PowerPoint presentation disclosing the cash-flow opportunity, after finishing the floor plan I decided to take video of the 3D views of the property. They do not offer this as an option on floorplanner, so what I did is use CamStudio, a desktop recording software, to create a video file (AVI). I then inserted that video into my Windows Movie Maker project which was used to create the video brochure. I also embedded the video into a CraigsList post, by the way.
The Final Result
Overall, Floorplanner is a great tool to add to your arsenal if you are an investor or Realtor. By providing as much property information as possible to your potential buyers, you will reap many benefits. You may sell your property faster, eliminate inquiries and interactions with tire-kickers, enhance your brand quality, and more!
If you found this post helpful, leave your thoughts below!
Article Author:
Justin McClellandJustin has written 11 articles for us.
Visit Justin's Website: http://www.JustinMcClelland.com
Joshua Dorkin
Charles Feldman
Ted Karsch.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
That’s another fantastic post, Justin. Your video brochure is fantastic and I’m sure a lot of people are going to jump on the bandwagon with this!
Fantastic website recommendation. Thanks for sharing this. I would say that this is the next best thing to video. Combining the two would be extremely effective for those on my buyer’s list.
This is another great tool to have in your marketing arsenal.
Great post Justin. That’s why I read this blog, I think it’d be a great service when I wholesale my properties or when we are moving walls for our flips.
Josh thanks for facilitating such a great blog.
Steve´s last blog ..Title Insurance Binder – What is it?
My pleasure Steve, but all the credit on this one needs to go to Justin. I’ve been checking your blog out lately (because of your activity here on our blog) and it is pretty good. Nice work, BTW.
All I can say is “WOW”. You did a wonderful job on the video presentation. The video along with the 3D floor plan is a very powerful marketing tool. Thanks for sharing
Hey Justin, great article!! Thanks
I’m definitely going to check this out.
Shae´s last blog ..All you need to know about wholesaling REOs
Great post. Google has a 2d and 3d floor planner as well, but never thought to use it for this until reading your post.
http://www.mygardenplans.com also has home and landscape design software. It feels a lot like Sketchup, but focus mostly on landscape design.
I will have to look into this more. Thanks Justin!
I’m a little late replying and a bit off topic. But Steve, your blog is indeed awesome. I’m now a subscriber. The progress you show on your blog with your rehabs is great marketing by itself. Floorplanner.com could definitely be an additional weapon.
Justin McClelland´s last blog ..Virtual Numbers, Tax Sale Buyers, Municipal Code