Creating a Virtual Rental Showing

Virtual tours not only serve the same purpose as a private tour but are also faster, more efficient, more affordable, and make your rental ad more attractive. Virtual tours are a great way to showcase your property without physically going to meet with your potential tenants and are ideal in times of social distancing. Before you start creating a virtual tour, there are a few things you need to do to prepare.

1. You can memorize a few points to talk about an item by taking viewers on a virtual tour for informative purposes and if you choose not to speak, make sure your company description includes all the information you would like to include in a personal demo.

2. Make sure your property has been cleaned and minor maintenance issues have been taken cared of, to make sure that your property looks great in the video.

3. Plan the order of the rooms you will enter and the features of the object you plan to highlight, experiment with different angles to see how to get the best possible lighting of the unit.

4. If the rental units include furniture, or if you have the funds to “stage” your property, this will help improve your video so that tenants get a real picture of what life will look like there.

For a successful staging process consider the following:

Outside:

• Mow the lawn.

• Wash the porch and be sure to remove the cobwebs.

• Collect trash from the yard.

Inside:

• Close the lid of the toilet seat in the bathroom.

• Dust and polish furniture.

• Turn on the lights in your rental home.

• Clean floors, carpet.

• Open the blinds and arrange furniture.

• Set a vase of flowers, kettle, or a plate of cookies, help tenants imagine living there.

• Wash the windows.

If you are familiar with video recording or have a camera that you know how to use, feel free to do it yourself, but if you are looking for a more professional virtual tour, consider using apps that will allow you to capture a 3D representation of your space using your phone or regular camera. Make sure you move very slowly and pan all rooms and areas, to make sure that the video is easy to watch.

Uploading your video.

If you have experience with video editing, you can use software like Adobe Premiere or iMovie, also mobile apps are easy to use and can help you with adding audio, titles, voiceovers, and improve the aesthetics of your video. A great idea is to leverage social media by uploading your virtual tour to YouTube, Vimeo, or other platforms so that you can easily access the link to share with the renters.

Running a live virtual show gives you a more interactive experience and gives you the ability to quickly answer questions a potential tenant might have however, it can be time-consuming, so perhaps reserve a live tour for those who have actually applied for the property.

While the process of creating a virtual overview of your rental property fairly straightforward, it does take time and some skill in the required technology, a simple alternative is that a professional will do it for you and will create virtual step-by-step instructions for you.