Why Selling a Home on YouTube is Impossible.
However, using YouTube Can Sell Your Home.
While selling a home using YouTube sounds sexy and trendy, you will not find a buyer on the site. Sure it is will sound great and make you think that something could happen. But it will not. Read this example of what an agent did and then I will tell you the trick that can you can do to sell your home using YouTube.
“I was thinking about that somebody who’s just scrolling through [video sites] late at night and types in the words ‘real estate’ and ‘Chicago’ and says, ‘Let’s see what pops up,’” said Dina Davis, a Coldwell Banker agent in Evanston, Ill., who made a video of a Rogers Park townhouse listing and stuck it on YouTube.com.
After two months and a paltry 45 viewings, the townhouse is still available.
“I didn’t think we’d get tons of business from it,” Davis said. “It’s another avenue, another option for marketing . I just hoped to pique someone’s interest.”
Still, the experience has whet her appetite and she’s preparing another video tour of an Evanston condo. via Technology News: E-Commerce
So this real estate put a home up on YouTube amongst the millions of videos thinking that the few who would search Chicago and real estate would be looking for the exact model and neighborhood that she was selling into. As they say, ain’t going to happen.
However, if you want to sell a home using YouTube could be a great benefit for you.
You see, YouTube the destination is not a great thing for realtors or homesellers. YouTube the embedded video is however. When you look at a YouTube video on their site, there are two links that you can copy and use on your site, the URL and the EMBED.
- The URL allows you to link to the video from another site. So if you put the home on a listing service or website that allows links all of a sudden people who are interested in the home have another way to see it.
- Here is an example of the YouTube URL code: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgl9M8O_PEQ
- Here is an example of the YouTube EMBED code: <object width=”425″ height=”350″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/xgl9M8O_PEQ”></param><param name=”wmode” value=”transparent”></param><embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/xgl9M8O_PEQ” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” wmode=”transparent” width=”425″ height=”350″></embed></object>
So using these two tools, the URL or the EMBED, will allow you to use YouTube to sell a home. However, never expect putting a video up on YouTube will allow you to sell a home as a primary marketing tool.
Over the next few days we will explain how to use YouTube to sell a home.
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Comment by Saverio R. Pellicano on 16 March 2007:
I agree. YouTube is not appropriately categorized YET for real estate buyers to search for properties.
I have been producing real estate videopodcasts for about five years now. They are primarily broadcast from my own website RealEstateTVshowcase.Com in a higher quality Windows Media Format (wmv).
While I do also upload them to YouTube (It can’t hurt), I have found that the best apporach is to provide a link to my website video from wherever on the Internet thatI advertise my listings, usually with the link tag saying somtehing like
“See Video of this Home At RealEstateTVshowecase.Com”. These real estate related public websites like Realtor.Com etc. are where the real buyers go to look for properties. I also use sign riders at the property with the video link to direct drive-by buyers to the videopodcast of the property.
I now host the videos on a dedicated video server which allows them to be podcast in a higher quality than what I have seen on YouTube.
Saverio R. Pellicano
Alternatives Real Estate Services
Pleasant Hill, Ca
Comment by Fred on 21 March 2007:
I have been doing real estate videos for a year and a half, and have uploaded hundreds to about a half dozen video websites. The main benefit is that the YouTube listings getting indexed in search engines, where people DO search for real estate. I have, at times, occupied 4-5 search results on page ONE of Google… all with videos.
Comment by Carl Ringwall on 5 May 2007:
We decided to just take the YouTube method and apply it to my wife’s real estate site, ReelTours.biz. We use the same type of FLV encoded videos, and couple the videos with other property info and Yahoo! interactive maps. We are now experimenting with uploading the vids to YouTube as well. Also, it helps to export your listings to Google Base if your broker doesn’t already.