12 Real Estate Videos Smart Agents Are Using + Examples

For most cultural shifts, it’s not what technology you’re using, but how and where you use it that matters. If you’re a real estate agent, your real estate videos are no different. Everybody’s making them, but almost no one is making them right.

That’s why we’re going to cover some new technology in this article, but for the most part, we’re going to talk about your real estate marketing video strategy and how changing it can help you generate more leads, nurture them better, and keep clients engaged for the long haul. Oh, and don’t worry, we also have plenty of great examples of real estate marketing videos to check out along the way.

Here are the top 12 real estate videos smart agents are making in 2020 and tips to make sure they get the job done.

1. Personalized Email Real Estate Videos

The best videos that you can make as a real estate agent are personalized videos. Sending those personalized videos that answer a question, offer advice, or maybe even personally deliver data from your comparative market analysis (CMA) are going to help take your video marketing to the next level. Here’s a quick rundown of the how and why of sending your sphere emails via video:

Email Killed the YouTube Star (♬♫🎜🎝)

If you’ve been producing videos for YouTube and Facebook only to see your view counts fall off a cliff, don’t worry. You’re not alone.

Overall, web traffic to Facebook is down an astonishing 50% over the last two years, and YouTube’s algorithm has changed into giving people more of what they think they want rather than what’s relevant to the video they’re watching. That’s why you now get suggested videos about gardening when you’re watching a video about real estate.

So where are smart digital marketers reaching the right audience at the right time with the right message?

Email.

Amazingly, video email is not only much more effective than other video sites, but it’s much more effective than email itself:

If you stop and think about it for a minute, the reasons why become obvious. People love stories, and videos tell stories faster and easier. Here’s why:

If 1 Picture = 1,000 Words, How Much Is a Personalized Video Worth?

First, most people these days are hardwired to watch rather than read. Second, it is much easier to convey emotion with video than text. In fact, many people read and interpret text based on what they are currently thinking and feeling.

Think about it. What’s a faster way to make someone happy—a smile or a few sentences on why they should be happy?

2. Listing Walk-through Real Estate Videos: What Your Seller Really Wants

One of the biggest promises of the internet was that it would allow people to experience people and places remotely. Instead of visiting the Met or the Louvre, you could walk through it at your leisure online.

In the world of real estate videos, this concept has driven an entire genre of videos that people obsess over on YouTube, share with friends and family on Zillow, and email on to friends and coworkers:

The Video Walk-through: Gawk at Someone Else’s Kitchen Without Getting Off the Couch

Video still via Compass

Luckily, it’s 2020 and the dream of touring every listing on your website in bed is now a reality for your sphere.

The only question is: Are you going to let them? Are you going to give them what they want?

Of course you are. After all, that’s why you’re reading this article, right?

I thought so. Let’s take a look at some great real estate listing videos and why we think they’re great. Then, we’ll go over a few rules to make your own listing video make your phone ring.

Example Video Walk-through Real Estate Video: 230 Central Park South #PH16—Ryan Serhant

Okay, yes, I’m cheating a little bit here. The guy’s a reality TV star for crying out loud. Well, who better to learn how to be comfortable on camera from? Who better to get pacing lessons from? Who better to figure out how long your listing video should be?

OK, I get it. You don’t have time to watch it. Here’s one solid takeaway from the video. Note how he uses the word “your” instead of “the.” For example, he says, “… and next we come to your library.” Not the library, not the apartment’s library—your library.

A subtle, but effective use of a technique called talking past the sale. Note he doesn’t keep repeating it, he just uses it once or twice.

Example Video Walk-through Real Estate Video 2: Red Oak Realty

So, you’re not a reality TV star like Ryan. Don’t worry. With some creativity and a well-thought-out script, you can create an awesome walk-through video to show off your listing. This walk-through from California’s Red Oak Realty not only came out great, but helped the listing agent score an offer after just 13 days on market.

6626 Potrero Ave | El Cerrito Home Centrally Located Presented by Ana & Pascal Forest from Red Oak Realty on Vimeo

6 Rules for a Video Walk-through That Will Make Your Phone Ring

Sold yet? Let’s take a look at a few rules to making a killer real estate listing video.

Hire a Pro (Even if Only for the Editing)

Yes, your cousin’s nephew’s friend’s girlfriend knows how to make videos, but if you really want to impress your clients, then hiring a professional will have a great return on investment (ROI). While do-it-yourself (DIY) production values can be charming, mistakes are not.

Of course, not all marketing budgets are created equally, so if you can’t quite swing a pro, then at least hire a professional to edit the video and make it look great for Instagram. Surprisingly, you can even hire a pro video editor on Fiverr starting at just $5.

Visit Fiverr

Have a Game Plan

Which rooms are you going to talk about? Where are you going to start and end? Think this through before you have your cousin there with the video camera!

Get a Great Microphone

A good microphone is almost as important as your camera. After all, unprofessional-sounding audio will make your whole video worse.

Write a Script

Sure, you know the listing. Sure you know your stuff. That doesn’t mean you can recite what you know with feeling, now does it?

Shoot Some Practice Walk-throughs

Everyone practices. If you think professionals don’t practice, think again.

Schedule Your Video for a Sunny Day

There’s nothing worse than mentioning how great the light is from the living room, then showing people a gray, dreary sky from that same living room.

3. Educational Real Estate Videos: Want a Side of Personality With That Education?

Let’s face it. One of the best ways to nurture leads is to offer them your deep local expertise. After all, this is one of the main reasons they want an agent, right?

However, instead of a dull, dreary, 3,000-word article about closing costs, what if you could explain closing costs in a fun, natural, and conversational way? What if you could include charts, graphics, or even animations from your tablet?

Even better, that article may have taken you an entire day to write, but it’s not really “yours,” is it? Your lead is reading your words, sure, but they’re repeating them in their head, in their voice.

With video, your lead is getting to know YOU. They’re getting used to your speech patterns, your sense of humor, and your ability to make complicated information easy to understand.

Example Educational Real Estate Video: Home Buyer 101 – Session 4, “Making an Offer”

4. Introduction Videos: Make a Memorable First (or Second, or Third) Impression

Even though you may try your best to answer every single new lead with a personal phone call, reality can sometimes get in the way. You could be driving, at a closing, sleeping, or making your daughter breakfast.

Of course, you still want your leads to get to know you, right? “Sorry, I can’t get to the phone right now” or “Please check out my listings on my website” are fine replies, but they’re also easy to dismiss.

How about an introductory video that lets them get to know you? Your personality, your expertise—you know, the reasons they want to work with you instead of the other guy?

Example Real Estate Introduction Video: Monica Fabbio

5. Drip Real Estate Videos: Nurture Leads for Months & Make It Feel PERSONAL

If you’ve been working with email campaigns for more than a few minutes, then you probably guessed this would be the next step.

Yup. When it comes to lead nurturing, you need to hit the right person, with the right message, at the right time.

While a great CRM or email marketing platform can help you with the first and third, the right message is a bit more complicated.

What should that message be?

Well, we could write a book on that, but for now let’s focus on what every message you send to your clients or sphere should have in common. Every video you create for your clients or sphere needs to be:

Coherent

People need to easily digest what you’re talking about. In most cases, this means using simple, direct language, and keeping videos short enough to not overwhelm your audience.

Professional

Many agents hear the word professional and think that means $5,000 cameras and Hollywood quality studios. This is a shame, because it’s a big reason why so many agents ignore video. In reality, professional just means that your video needs to somehow show that you are a professional real estate agent. That could be by showing off your expertise, market knowledge, or even taking the time to fully address your client’s concerns via video.

On Brand

How exactly does your script or editing for your video convey your brand values? Is your brand younger and less formal, or highly data-oriented and stylized? What kind of music fits your brand, if any? These are not easy questions to answer, but keeping your brand in the back of your head while you make videos is crucial.

What Kind of Drip Email Videos to Send

The possibilities here are endless. You can start with making a weekly market wrap-up video for specific neighborhoods and sending them to segments of your list that live there. Or, maybe you can create a series of videos specifically for new buyers.

6. Drone Listing Videos

Every listing agent worth their salt should be investing in high-quality listing videos. Good listing videos are no longer a nice bonus to show off your marketing chops; in many markets, they are now par for the course. If you’re not making listing videos for your clients, you’re probably not getting many clients.

Example Drone Listing Videos: Willis Allen Real Estate

With miles of jaw-dropping coastline, creating beautiful listing videos was a no-brainer for San Diego’s Willis Allen Real Estate. In order to capture some of the magic of living in one of the most beautiful areas of the country, they use drone videos, great music, and professional editing to produce videos that sell their listing and the laid-back lifestyle that comes along with them.

Check out a few of their listing videos to see what I mean. If these videos don’t make you want to move to the beach in California, nothing will.

Nelson Brothers Team – 7400 Vista Del Mar from Spearhead Media on Vimeo

Kristofor Carnegie & Sean Caddell – 664 Rimini Road from Spearhead Media on Vimeo

2 Crucial Tips for Creating Inspiring Drone Listing Videos

Here are a few tips for creating listing videos your homeowner will love and your buyers will bookmark and watch over and over again.

Focus on Creating Emotional Moments, Not Showing off Details

The key to any successful video is to grab people’s emotions. They can get all the data from the listing. Here’s Willis Allen’s Chief Digital Officer Zane Burnett to explain:

“We believe that it helps bridge the gap within a potential homebuyer that exists between consideration and decision by serving as a vehicle within which the thought of living in a specific home becomes a feeling. If we are able to evoke feeling and desire through video, then we consider much of that campaign a success.”

You can see more examples of great listing videos on Willis Allen’s site here.

Make a Shot List Before the Shoot

There’s nothing worse than real estate videos that go over the same thing a million times in a row. The idea is to show off the best parts of your listing and build some desire, not to beat them over the head with one feature. Making a list of the shots you want to capture will save you from a boring real estate video.

7. Creative Real Estate Property Marketing Videos

When it comes to marketing your listings in 2020, video is quickly transitioning from optional but nice to necessary to even get your foot in the door.

Since marketing listings with video walk-throughs and drone videos seem to be par for the course these days, ambitious agents need to work a little harder. This is especially true in the higher end of the market, where five-figure marketing budgets are easily recouped at the closing table.

On Manhattan’s Upper West Side, Halstead luxury agent Kimberly Hastie came up with a clever and creative way to get her listing videos to stand out in the crowd.

Working with a local music video production company, Kimberly sought out local music students from Juilliard to play live in her listing videos. The results speak for themselves. Instead of a sterile-feeling walk-through with canned music, watching live classical musicians play in a space you can actually live in helps make her listing videos warm, personal, and inviting.

These videos were such a hit that she has nabbed clients who called specifically because of the videos. One closed deal would cover a year’s worth of high-end videos.

Example Creative Real Estate Property Marketing Video: 900 5th Avenue, 8C

8. Facebook Live Real Estate Videos

There’s only one thing more alluring for your sphere than a big play button in their email: being told they’re going to miss out on something.

If you’ve worked as a buyer’s agent in a low-inventory area, then you know exactly what I’m talking about. Nothing will make your buyer want a listing more than being told they can’t have it.

Luckily, you can create marketing material that has urgency and exclusivity. $%^$ IT WE’LL DO IT LIVE!

Lights, Camera, Facebook Live

When it comes to nurturing seller leads or previous listing clients, there is no better social media channel than Facebook.

While millennials are abandoning the site in droves, Gen Xers and Baby Boomers seem to be staying put. After all, how else are they going to see the latest baby pictures?

When you go live on Facebook, it’s an easy choice for your time-rich leads to click play and tune in.

After all, they can now sit back, relax, and let you take control.

Example Facebook Live Real Estate Video: Peter Lorimer

The name of the game here is exclusivity. That means videos behind the scenes at a home staging, a quick walk-through of a pocket listing, an interview with a local decorator or contractor, an incredibly rare and unique mansion, or anything else you think your audience might want to kick back and just watch.

Here’s a great example of a Facebook Live interview from Beverly Hills broker and now reality TV star Peter Lorimer:

9. Instagram Stories Real Estate Videos

Much like Facebook Live, Instagram Stories are quick-hit videos that offer a glimpse behind the scenes. The same content rules apply. People want exclusive access to places you might not ordinarily take them to.

Example Instagram Stories Real Estate Video: Leigh Brown

Unlike Facebook Live though, Instagram Stories are generally short videos. This is not a place for your 45-minute interview with your mortgage broker.

Instead, focus on glitz, glamour, humor, and beauty. Instagram Live is the perfect place to post a quick teaser video of a coming-soon listing, a short video of an amazing sunset from a listing, or even short, fun videos of you and your dog.

Even though she posted it on YouTube, Real Estate Coach Extraordinaire Leigh Brown’s (truly amazing) video “How to Remove Demons From Your Home” is a natural for an Instagram Story!

Why? Just watch it!

10. Neighborhood Tour Videos

Cliches don’t become cliches by accident. When it comes to what buyers want from a new home, location is almost always at the very top of their list. If you need further proof of this trend, consider that the median one-bedroom home in Manhattan is $1.749 million.

That’s why the number one question your buyer will have when you finally get them on the phone will be: What’s the neighborhood like?

Well, why not answer that question once and for all and let them get to know your personality while you’re at it? Even better, if you make a great video, there is a good chance people will share it.

This is what neighborhood video tours exist for. It’s one thing to look at a block or downtown area on Google Street View and quite another to get a personal tour from a knowledgeable local.

Of course, you don’t have to be a wooden Disneyland tour guide in your neighborhood tour video. Instead, why not let them get to know you?

That’s exactly what real estate trainer and Realtor Anne Jones does in her Tour of Tacoma video:

Tips for Making a Locals-only Neighborhood Walk-through Video

Ready to shoot a great real estate neighborhood walk-through video? Check out our five tips below.

Plan Your Route

This is one video you’re going to want to plan. Trust us, don’t try to wing it.

Don’t Shoot From Your Car

If you can’t even be bothered to step out of your car to shoot a video, what does that say about you as a real estate agent?

Hire a Decent Videographer

Unlike shooting under relatively controlled conditions in your listing, shooting outside can be tricky. Light, wind, and reflections can all wreak havoc on your video.

Make Sure the Sun Is Not Behind You When You Shoot

This one will become obvious once you start shooting.

Use a Professional Microphone With a Wind Deflector

Always remember that great sound is just as important as great video. After all, a lovely video with crackly, low volume sound will come across as unprofessional.

11. Personal Introduction Videos

Another real estate video that seems to be trending this year is the personal introduction video. This is a short, two- to three-minute video that you can use to introduce yourself to your leads.

You can use your introduction videos in welcome emails to people who sign up for your drip campaigns, on your “about me” page on your website, or on your personal page on your brokerage’s website.

Here’s a great example of a personal introduction video from Dusty Baker:

6 Tips for Shooting a Perfect Personal Introduction Video

While many agents find the idea of talking about themselves on camera about as enticing as a root canal, if you plan ahead it can be easy. Here are a few ways to make shooting your introduction video easier.

Write a Script

Like with the other real estate videos we talked about, a script is crucial for your introduction video. Just remember to practice it, and do several takes until you get it right.

Hit Your Career Highlights, But Try Not to Brag

This one can be a bit tricky, but even while talking about your career highlights and approach to sales, try not to brag. No one likes a bragger.

Mention Some Personal Hobbies, Interests & So On

People want to work with agents who are competent, qualified, and more importantly, likable. Mention some hobbies, your family, or another personal attribute in your introduction video.

Decide Whether to Make the Video in the First Person or Third Person

Sometimes it makes more sense to have someone else describe you and your qualifications rather than list your own. Generally speaking, the more accolades you have, the more a third-person narrator will make sense.

Your Introduction Video Is Crucial; Consider Having It Professionally Shot & Edited

If you have the budget to get one video professionally produced, let it be this one. After all, this will be the “first impression” that many important buyers or sellers will have of you. Make it count!

Consider Combining Your Introduction Video With Testimonial Videos

Since most of your leads are looking for social proof, it makes sense to add some video testimonials from happy former clients to your introduction video as well.

12. Client Testimonial Videos

While social proof is an increasingly important way to vet real estate agents, many people take anonymous, written reviews with a grain of salt.

After all, it’s very easy for pretty much anyone to sit down and write a fake review!

While we all know fake reviews in real estate are relatively rare, your potential clients don’t. They’ve been looking at reviews on Amazon and Yelp skeptically for years.

In order to cut through the noise online and provide more direct social proof, you need to start working on client video testimonials.

5 Tips for Capturing Persuasive Client Testimonial Videos

Here are a few ways to think about convincing clients to let you add them to your video, as well as general tips for shooting and editing persuasive client testimonial videos.

Approach Clients for a Video Testimonial a Week or So After Closing

While it makes sense to drop subtle hints to your clients that testimonials are the lifeblood of your business, you need to give them time to get settled after the closing.

One way to ask for a video testimonial is to ask when you give them their closing gift. Explain how important testimonials are to you, and they will likely jump at the opportunity if you’ve done a great job.

Consider Combining Your Introduction Video With Some Client Testimonials

A great one-two marketing punch, adding testimonials to your introduction video can help your leads get to know you, and help prove you’re a skilled real estate agent.

Here’s a great example of an introduction video that incorporates client testimonials from Realtor Christina McDonald:

Try to Shoot All Your Testimonials in the Same Place

While you might think shooting videos in different locations would make your testimonials more believable, it makes your finished video feel haphazard and unfinished. Instead, try to shoot all of your testimonial videos in the same location, with the same lighting and sound.

Give Them a Script to Follow When Writing & Reading Their Testimonials

Even though you want your testimonials to feel conversational and unrehearsed, pointing a camera at someone and saying “go” rarely leads to good video. Instead, offer them a form to fill out going over why they liked working with you and ask the same questions when shooting your video.

Combine 3 or 4 Short Testimonial Videos Into One

While it might seem logical to shoot 10 long testimonial videos, in reality, shorter videos you can combine into one work far better.

Here’s why: Always remember that your lead’s attention span is seconds long. If the odds of someone watching one testimonial are slim, what are the odds of them sitting on your site for half an hour watching nine of them?

Over to You

What real estate videos do you swear by to connect with leads? Let us know in the comments.