What do you think of Virtual Tours?

Question

Due to social distancing, we have suspended in-person tours for our occupied apartments.   I still need to make money and get heads in beds.

Has anyone tried virtual tours or videos?  I was going to use an app like movavi or imovie to create a video I could send to the potential applicant.  Matterhorn costs more than I want to spend.

Has anyone had experience with this?  Any tips or tricks?

Nathan Gesner · Answer

@Joe S @Brandon Sowers

I bought the Ricoh Theta V from Best Buy for around $500. There was a shortage of them so that's the only place I could find it at the time.

One thing to note: the camera comes with a monopod that is too short and flimsy. You want one that keeps the camera at eye level to simulate walking through the home. You also want one that doesn't fall over so easily. A good one will cost around $100. It's still not as stable as a tripod but it at least stays up during a slight breeze.

It's very simple. Turn it on, connect to camera via WiFi, open the app, take the picture. Push a button and it switches to video mode. It's a very basic camera and you're really paying for the lens more than anything else. There is an app for basic editing but I haven't used it.

When you take your 360 pictures, you need a place to put them. I'm using Kuula which allows unlimited tours for a year. Since I have a lot of rentals, I anticipate doing 100 - 150 per year so this is well worth the money. I'm just doing basic photos. There's a way to add text, hotspots, or create a walk-through similar to Matterport, but it's time-consuming and doesn't add any value to the viewer.

https://kuula.co/share/collect...

I like the video walk-through. You shoot it, upload it to the computer, do some minor conversion, then upload it to YouTube. It takes about an hour to upload a video but then people really get to see what a rental looks like.

David Bey · Answer

@Tracy Scanlon

360 virtual tours are a good option. Especially with the live tour feature. Once the 360 tour is created you can send a link of the tour to your client and go live with them and show the house all from home or anywhere with a internet connection

Account Closed · Answer

@Tracy Scanlon

I started using both on March. Have successfully brevets units based off these alone

Kenneth Garrett · Answer

@Nathan G.

Thanks for putting out your recommendation.  We were looking at the same camera for our virtual tours.  I have about 20 units nothing compared to what you oversee, but I’m glad it was the same camera.  I believe the virtual tours are here to stay and will probably reduce the number of questions future tenants will have.

Brandon Sowers · Answer

I would love to know what brand of camera you went with as well. I had been considering this for our owners properties even before all this insanity. Is there much of learning curve for someone with plenty of camera/tech experience?

Joe S. · Answer

What brand 360 camera did you go with and where did you buy?

Nathan Gesner · Answer

I'm doing more and more video tours and recently started using my 360 camera for 360 pictures and video. It works well because I have a competitive market and a lot of renters are not able to see in person before renting.

Tracy Scanlon · Answer

Thanks @David Bey! I ended up taking videos, editing them and posting them on Youtube. My business has exploded, and I’m now able to do more tours in an hour than I ever thought possible.  Even through the shelter in place order my vacancy rates have actually gone down.

Aaron K. · Answer

Virtual tours just aren't worth it, I'd take a generic walking video of the unit to send to everyone if you aren't allowing in person tours you could do a live facetime video call so they can request to look at specific things.

Account Closed · Answer

Loving these typos thee days...

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