Benefits

How A Virtual Tour Benefits Realtors:

• Virtual tours have become one of the most important tools for selling a house. 92% of home buyers consider the addition of property photos to an online listing to be very important. (NDP Group, Sept 2000) The average online listing with a virtual tour receives 38% more views than listings without tours. (REALTOR.com® internal logs. July 2001)
• Virtual tours are like having a 24x7 open house – available online without agents or the home seller having to show the property. It’s a tool to help you and consumers pre-qualify properties, saving everyone time.
• The average virtual tour on REALTOR.com® receives an average of 13 hits per day and each scene gets four views per day. (Summary Tour Traffic Report, Internal logs. Nov 2001)
• More than 2 million people per month are using REALTOR.com®, the official site of the NAR. (Jupiter Media Metrix, Dec. 2001)
• Real Tour Vision™ is a PicturePath™ Partner with homestore.com™ which allows virtual tours powered by Real Tour Vision™ to be posted to the #1 real estate Web site – REALTOR.com® with more than 1.7 million listings. (Net Ratings, Sept 2001)
• In December 2001 the Homestore™ Network attracted 8.01 million unique users. Users spent 125.08 million total minutes and approximately 9.1 minutes spent per individual visit on Homestore ™ sites in December. (Jupiter Media Metrix. Dec. 2001)
• Roughly 50% of Homestore™ visitors are “actively shopping”. Of those actively shipping, 94% say they have found a home/homes that they are interested in on REALTOR.com®. (this means that, of our total visitors, just under 50% say they have found a home they are interested in.) (REALTOR.com® Web Site Visitor Survey, November 2001.)
• Internal survey data shows that users are more satisfied with their experience on REALTOR.com® than HomeAdvisor. (REALTOR.com-Homeadvisor Usability Comparison Test, October 2001.)
• Homes/properties are viewed over 400 million times per month on REALTOR.com®. (Jupiter Media Metrix, Dec. 2001)
• Homebuyers are becoming much more Web savvy. 60% of homebuyers are using the Internet to get home buying information. By 2005, Jupiter Research predicts that number will be as high as 80%. (NAR Jupiter Research Oct 23, 2001 Realty Times)
• Internet homebuyers are more educated and invest significant time investigating the housing market and financing options before contacting a Realtor. Internet buyers spend nearly three times as much time investigating real estate markets before contacting a Realtor than traditional homebuyers. By the time Internet buyers contact an agent, they have a good understanding of what they want, where they want to live and what they can afford. (2001 CAR study)
• Internet buyers spend 4.6 weeks investigating homes and neighborhoods before contacting a Realtor as opposed to 1.9 weeks for traditional homebuyers. (2001 CAR Study)
• Most Internet homebuyers (89%) use the Internet in the home buying process before they start to look for a specific home.
• Internet homebuyers start using the Internet very early in the home buying process and before selecting a real estate agent.
• Since Internet buyers typically have a good understanding of what they want, where they want to live, and what they can afford, they tend to look at fewer homes and buy faster.
• Traditional homebuyers spent over three times as much time looking for a home with a real estate agent than Internet buyers do (6.44 weeks versus 2.10 weeks)
• Traditional homebuyers look at nearly twice (15.08) as many homes with a real estate agent prior to purchase as Internet buyers (7.93). (2001 CAR Study)
• By the time Internet buyers contact a real estate agent they have often:
  • Chosen the neighborhood they want to evaluate
• Narrowed their choice of homes
• Come up with a list of homes they want to see
• Understood what they can afford and what their mortgage options are
• 78% of Internet homebuyers found their Realtor on the Internet. By the contrast, most traditional buyers find their real estate agent as a result of farming, referrals, advertising or sign calls and 23% of Internet homebuyers found the type of house they wanted on the Internet.  (2001 CAR study)
• Additionally, Internet homebuyers act quickly and purchase a home in less time than do traditional buyer. (2001 CAR Study)
• Nearly all Internet homebuyers (96%) are very likely to use the Internet the next time they purchase a home. (2001 CAR Study)
• Internet homebuyers on average purchased a more expensive home than traditional homebuyers ($403,752 versus $321,950). (2001 CAR Study)

How A Virtual Tour Benefits Home Sellers:

• Selling your property can be costly and time consuming. Traditional advertising such as newspaper ads, brochures, and open houses have a limited reach. These traditional forms of marketing don’t give buyers a feel for what your property actually looks like.
  
• The Internet is now being used to extend the marketing of your property. As of recent, realtors in the U.S. are now commonly using virtual tours. This now provides sellers with an enormous additional audience. Now buyer’s from all areas of the U.S. and beyond can view the property.
  
• A Premium Audio description of your home allows you to quickly communicate the selling points of your home.
  
• This online service is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week
  
• This means you sell your property faster and will also save you time and money!
  
• Reach more buyers with our Virtual Tours than with any other comparable product or service on the Internet.
  
• With our Virtual Tour, you can avoid the hassles of having strangers visit your property unless they have seen your virtual tour and know they are qualified.
  
• You can also advertise your property through the real estate sections of leading Internet sites in addition to the links we provide.
  
• Email your property tour to prospects anywhere around the country.
  
• Offer people the chance to take a virtual tour from anywhere with Internet access—their home, office or from any remote location.

How A Virtual Tour Benefits Homebuyers:

• Searching for the right property can be time consuming and costly. Countless hours can be spent looking at properties and driving around to open houses. Virtual Tours can now eliminate hours of driving and viewing by optimizing time for both the buyer and their agent.
  
• The Internet is becoming a major factor in searching the majority of properties listed for sale. Rather than merely viewing a small exterior photo and a plain text description, we allow you to see full color 360º views of properties, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
  
• Our Virtual Tours enables out-of-town buyers to make qualified decisions efficiently and conveniently because now they now have the ability to visually walk through the property without having to be there.
  
• Our Tour’s are available 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.
  
• Virtual tours can be taken and viewed from anywhere with Internet access. And all of our tours can be quickly downloaded and burned to a CD to be viewed offline.
  
• Navigate through the tour images without installing software, plug-ins or any long downloads.
  
• Buyers can literally show the property that they are thinking of buying, to family and friends before they make a buying decision.
  
• Use a Virtual Tour to look inside your future property when access to the property is limited -- visualize room sizes and decorating schemes before you move in!