Jorgen Poulsen
Posts: 227
Location: France
Registered: 30 Apr 2008
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Value proposition
Posted: 3 Sep 2009 at 18:32 GMT
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Most estate agents etc. love virtual tours when they see them but much less when you tell them how much they cost.
Like anything else it's an investment for which you expect a higher payback.
So here is the question. Does anybody have any concrete statistics showing how sales have increased after the buyer has started to use virtual tours?
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Guest
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Re: Value proposition
Posted: 3 Sep 2009 at 20:20 GMT
updated: 14 Mar 2011 at 16:13 GMT
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For what it's worth, I know there are statistics floating around, showing increased online bookings for a large hotel chain that had (badly done one shot) panoramas made for the whole chain a few years back. If I remember correctly, the online booking increased with around 65% after implementation of the tours.
I am sure someone here can find the link... it's a long time since I came across it, and don't even remember the name of the chain in question. ... maybe something starting with "W" (Western or Windsor or Waldorf... something like that... or not... )
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Dan Moylan
Posts: 31
Location: Australia
Registered: 22 Aug 2008
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Dan Moylan
Posts: 31
Location: Australia
Registered: 22 Aug 2008
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Ranjan Pano
Posts: 145
Location:
Registered: 20 Jun 2006
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Re: Value proposition
Posted: 4 Sep 2009 at 2:31 GMT
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Jorgen,
I suggest that instead of selling them the tour you rent/lease the tours on monthly /yearly basis.
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Re: Value proposition
Posted: 4 Sep 2009 at 3:03 GMT
updated: 14 Mar 2011 at 16:13 GMT
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Ranjan Pano said: Jorgen,
I suggest that instead of selling them the tour you rent/lease the tours on monthly /yearly basis.
That's my model... but I can't see how it could be profitable when selling/renting a house. You can not have a contract for a minimum of "X" months when putting a house for sale/rent, because a client might have bought the property within an hour after the tour was published online. You as the creator of the tour, would like to get the tour paid in full... but having only had the tour online for one hour, and after that there is no "need" for the tour to stay online... then what? Is the realtor going to pay you for the tour, just to please you? No. Realtors are normally very ... eh... let's just say ... greedy, and they don't want to spend money on ANYTHING if they can get away with it.
For a big project where the images can be rented out to competing businesses (tourist sites for tourism related businesses), renting the images is justified. The rent would not stop just because one client came and bought a trip through the agency (as it would be in the Realtors case) A contract can be made to run over several months, or even years.... which can not be done in the Realtor case. Having some binding wording in the contract, about the client who rented or bought the house, confirming that he reacted because of the panorama tour... well, that's not going to be of any benefit for the creator of the tour, since you as a panorama maker, are not going to be in any contact with the renting/buying client at all.
Maybe I am too narrow-minded when viewing the venue of renting panoramas to Realtors, but that being said, I hope you understand my reasoning, and more hopefully I wish to see your reasoning for such a model being possible and profitable.
Trausti
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Ranjan Pano
Posts: 145
Location:
Registered: 20 Jun 2006
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Re: Value proposition
Posted: 4 Sep 2009 at 3:39 GMT
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If its a single high end property then yes selling it outright is most logical & yes the VT might sell it within an hour (great achievement which you can en-cash with other clients) but if its some kind of multiple apartments in 100s only then renting of VT will be workable.
If its high end property then discuss the terms with client before shooting so they don't find it later that its expensive.
Value Proposition is more a mental game, some clients are in habit of finding everything at any price EXPENSIVE, even when you offer them free they would find that too as expensive, cant help in those cases.
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Re: Value proposition
Posted: 4 Sep 2009 at 4:24 GMT
updated: 14 Mar 2011 at 16:13 GMT
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Ranjan Pano said: if its some kind of multiple apartments in 100s only then renting of VT will be workable.
Makes perfect sense, I did not wrap my thoughts around that corner before. As I understand it from Jorgen, he is in the business of making tours for high end properties. One of a kind properties, where the panos are only applicable to that one property, and no more... so that's where my thought pattern got locked up.
Ranjan Pano said: ...even when you offer them free they would find that too as expensive, cant help in those cases.
Oh... so you have been dealing with some of my previous contacts 
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Jorgen Poulsen
Posts: 227
Location: France
Registered: 30 Apr 2008
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Re: Value proposition
Posted: 4 Sep 2009 at 8:44 GMT
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Well I once offers a virtual tour for FREE to an estate agent to put on his website so that he could see how it worked and get some feedback from clients etc.
He said 'No thank you'.
When I asked why he said 'I don't want to be different from anybody else'
Needless to say that I left very shortly after.
Anyway, if anybody have anymore stats that would be greatly appreciated.
ps. as for renting/leasing the tour even for sales or rental properties it's not impossible at all. The contract would simply state the number of months and the monthly payment. There would be an early termination clause which would allow the estate agent to get out early (for whatever reason) at a discount. The issue is much more the paperwork, bad payers and potential issues of non-compliance with applicable laws. Just way too cumbersome for a few tours.
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Re: Value proposition
Posted: 4 Sep 2009 at 10:50 GMT
updated: 14 Mar 2011 at 16:13 GMT
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Jorgen Poulsen said: He said 'No thank you'.
When I asked why he said 'I don't want to be different from anybody else'
Has the "Jantelov" been exported to other countries?
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Tactus 360
Posts: 1245
Location: Tynset, Norway
Registered: 2 Sep 2010
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Re: Value proposition
Posted: 4 Sep 2009 at 11:14 GMT
updated: 2 Sep 2010 at 20:27 GMT
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Janteloven finns verden rundt . . . Spoken like a true Scandinavian.
I think the problem is that estate agents see their profits going down as soon as they start investing in such unnecessay luxuries as virtual tours! I am being a little tongue in cheek here, and have thought that the best approach would be to contact sellers directly with a proposition, put it on a dedicated website with references to the handling agent. That cuts him out of the scenario altogether.
This means quite a lot of extra work for the photographer, however, and possibly the need to do several tours free for people in the first instance, so that there is a portfolio of work available for future clients. It also means direct selling of the product, which can be a little daunting.
But most of us are cheeky enough to be able to get into some near impossible places, so I cannot see a problem with putting on a shirt and tie and cold selling to house owners whose properties you know are on the market.
Jon
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Panoramix NO
Posts: 64
Location: Tromso, Norway
Registered: 17 Jul 2008
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Re: Value proposition
Posted: 4 Sep 2009 at 11:18 GMT
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i had same situation as you Jorgen, and
unfortunately i exposed to experience Jantelov empirically on daily basis...
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gus
Posts: 574
Location: United Kingdom
Registered: 19 Jun 2007
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Tactus 360
Posts: 1245
Location: Tynset, Norway
Registered: 2 Sep 2010
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Re: Value proposition
Posted: 4 Sep 2009 at 16:04 GMT
updated: 2 Sep 2010 at 20:27 GMT
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And in Tromsø, a big city in comparison with my home out in the sticks (and I really mean in the sticks), janteloven is not quite as apparent.
As a matter of fact (and I know this is not the forum for such comments), it has been so bad here, coupled with another Norwegian country trait of xenophobia and insularity, that I have put my house on the market and am moving to somewehere a little more cosmopolitan. (Sorry Panoramix NO, I was offered a job once working in Kroken, but I was there on interview in the middle of the winter and knew that I would end up with a bottle of pills and a pint of whiskey, to be followed with a single bell ringing as they carried me away in a white box!)
But for the record, here Janteloven was the creation of a Norwegian/Danish author, Aksel Sandemose in his novel En flyktning krysser sitt spor (A fugitive covers his tracks). He portrays the small Danish town Jante, modelled upon his native town Nykøbing Mors as it was in the beginning of the 20th century, but typical of all very small towns, where nobody is anonymous. Here, one finds ten different rules, but they are all variations on a single theme and are usually referred to as a homogeneous unit: Don't think you're anyone special or that you're better than us.
These are the rules:
Don't think that you are special.
Don't think that you are of the same standing as us.
Don't think that you are smarter than us.
Don't fancy yourself as being better than us.
Don't think that you know more than us.
Don't think that you are more important than us.
Don't think that you are good at anything.
Don't laugh at us.
Don't think that anyone of us cares about you.
Don't think that you can teach us anything.
There is another later in the book that is even more sinister: Don't think that there is something we don't know about you.
In the book, those Janters who transgress these 'laws' are regarded with suspicion and some hostility, as it goes against communal desire in the town, which is to preserve social stability and uniformity.
Sadly, this is still the case in small, isolated areas of Norway, something that Panoramix and myself, as both have said, is something we come across all the time.
Nothing to do with panoramas, I know, but interesting all the same.
The moral: Norway is a lovely place; it has high mountains and deep fjords. (It also has a high suicide rate, with over 3000 people dying from overdoses since 1998). A panographer's dreamland. But don't think you can come here and take panos that are perfect, because Society will hate you! You will only succeed with bad stitching, poor white balance and half someone's face appearing on the arse of someone else in this or that image.
Jon
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Doug Aurand
Posts: 3282
Location: Albuquerque, NM, United States
Registered: 2 Jan 2008
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Re: Value proposition
Posted: 6 Sep 2009 at 14:19 GMT
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Jorgen
I've heard the same from some Realtors. One said the only reason they were having a virtual tour done on a US$1 Million listing was because the seller insisted and if they didn't do it they wouldn't have gotten the listing.
There are almost no statics linking virtual tours to home sales and even less to rentals.
The only one I recall that Move/Homestore.com, who run Realtor.com, ever had was that in an earlier design of Realtor.com that let the house hunter have the homes with multiple still photos or virtual tours displayed first.
After the web surfing home shopper selected area, bedrooms, price, baths, etc, and clicked Search, they got a "sort screen" that asked;
Do you want to see homes with virtual tours listed first?Y/N
Do you want to see homes with multiple photos listed first? Y/N
According to Homestore/Move, the house hunters clicked Y for virtual tours 92% of the time
I got similar stories to the Realtor mentioned above from relocatiing sellers as I was shooting their home, about how they were only looking at homes with virtual tours and multiple photos in their destination city
What I'm considering is running an ad in one of the local real estate magazines about my Second Generation Virtual Tours with Full-Screen Viewing. with a screen capture of a particularly nice scene.
Instead of "selling" the real estate agents, I've found selling the "sellers" works better.
With home sales down because of the recession, the idea behind the ad will be something like; With slow home sales, don't you need a better way to get your home noticed? Take a look at a Second Generation Virtual Tour with Full-Screen Viewing at MySampleTour.com (not a real website).
The idea will to be to sell the home sellers and landlords.
The downside is that mass media advertising like real estate magazines aren't cheap. A half page color ad will cost me US$500
If I recall, you were setting up a website that would have tours of these homes/estates for rent or sale. Why not run an ad in some regionally appropriate magazine that will drive traffic to your virtual tours. What the real estate agents and sellers/landlords will pay for is "eyes on their house."
Its like American television, if you have a popular TV show, selling ads during that show isn't a problem.
Just throwing a virtual tour on the web doesn't mean it will get seen and the real estate agents know it.
Doug Aurand
Albuquerque, NM
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