Virtual Tours and Pictures

[Mysonne Johnson]

I'm looking to using a app or something reliable to send to cash buyers, contractors, and appraisals pictures and a virtual tour of the property after I get it under contract.

Do you guys have any recommendations on apps you guys use? I was going to use picasa but it's retired. Kind of thinking of doing iMovie but I dont know.

[Alan Feldman]

I see a lot of wholesalers share images and files through google drive or dropbox. Free accounts work fine when you are starting out. I'm sure there are others too. Maybe also try OneDrive, it's a Microsoft Office365 product, but they have personal/free versions as well. 

[Mysonne Johnson]

@Alan Feldman I will thank you!

[Cliff H.]

Hey @Mysonne Johnson I just went through this myself on a FSBO I was putting together and ended up getting it under contract in 5 days. I used Zillow’s new 3D home app to create a virtual tour, but that was more to get the ranking optimized on their platform. The more important piece was, as you allude to, just walking through the property with an iPhone 11 widescreen camera, doing some quick edits in iMovie, and posting that up to YouTube to link back to in the listing. All told about 3 hours of work, but I’ve been using iMovie for years and am (more importantly) quite versed in how to capture video of a space by planning an intentional walk through of the property. I see far too many folks posting property videos that don’t think about how and where they’re pointing the camera before starting the walkthrough. That’s a recipe for failure.

In short, if all you need is something quick and slightly better than pictures only, go with the 3D Home app. If you want to really give folks a sense of “space,” plan your walk through, grab a newer iPhone with the wide angle lens, and add a few quick titles/captions in iMovie to help folks know what they’re looking at while walking through. I’ve also found that iMovie’s ability to 2x the playback or using cut frames to skip over the transition from one area to another to be a great way to keep length under the 60-90 seconds you need to actually get folks watching the whole thing. 

Hope this helps!

[Mysonne Johnson]

@Cliff H. Thank you my man. So basically people shoot videos just to shoot? Without any details on the pictures of tour they post on?

I’ll definitely would have a brief description on what they are looking at.

[Cliff H.]

Not so much shooting to shoot, more so walking around aimlessly and taking the camera along for the ride. I’d argue that’s worse. No one wants to “ride the bull” or get motion sickness from someone darting the camera from one room to another when walking through a prospective property. Walk like you’re one of those big honking TV studio camera operators: slow, steady, and intentional and the rest will fall into place. 

Good luck!