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The Goldberg Test

Let me tell you how and what I did to decide which Virtual Tour Company I would sign up with as a professional virtual tour provider. It was easy and you can do it; all it takes is a little time and a computer connected to the internet. When I started this little research project I had one question in mind – what does a person looking for a home on the internet want from a virtual tour?

First I logged on to Realtor.Com, the big Multiple Listing Service (MLS). I selected my state and my local real estate marketing area. I told the search engine to ‘Add Nearby Areas’ to get a rich mix of properties. I then refined my search to include only single family residential properties for sale. At the time (January, 2006) that brought up 986 properties. I then asked Realtor.com to sort the properties and put the properties with a ‘Featured Tour’ on top of the list. This sifted through the listings and found 91 Featured Tours and placed them ahead of the others which made it easy to do the next step. It also showed me that just under 10% of the residential listings in my general area included some kind of featured tour on that day.

(I did the same search today while I was writing this and found 1905 single family residential listings locally and 371 of them had utilized a Featured Tour. That showed me that about a year and a half after I did the first evaluation the percentage of listings that include some kind of virtual home tour doubled to just under 20%.) That’s a good sign for the virtual tour business; Incorporating a virtual home tour into real estate marketing is catching on!

After I found my target listings I went to each one and viewed the tour. Tours can vary a lot for a number of reasons including brand, features, camera and lens, and the skill and experience of the photographer. Even within the same brand you will notice a difference so, to be fair, I took the time to look at each one. I made a list including these variables: Tour type, Number of tours of that type, Pass/ Fail and MLS #. When I saw a new brand of tour I added it to the list. If a tour got a fail I just added it to the “Number of tours’ column. If a tour got a Pass then I also marked down the MLS number so I could go back to it for a final review.

It soon became very clear based on my empirical data and thorough testing that Real Tour Vision had the nicest looking tours and the best virtual tour software! I rejected the tours that were just still photographs or slide shows that were put in motion as nearly every 360 tour offers a slide show but slide shows did not offer 360 tours. I did not like the way the fish eye tours looked either. Any tour that I got frustrated with because it was hard to use or did not load quickly was disqualified too.

In the end, I looked at the 11 tours that were left and evaluated them from the point of view of my initial question – “what does a person looking for a home on the internet want from a virtual tour?” It seemed to me then and it does now that they want a tour that tells the story of the property and gives them a feel for being there. They want to get a good sense that it will be worth the time to see it in person. They want it to function easily and intuitively, and they want to be able to download and store the home tour for easy reference while they are searching for their new home. The Real Tour Vision virtual tours are easy to use, look great, and put the property into context inside and out. They are feature packed without being complicated and they are easy to download, store and email. I was on the phone to RTV to get more information about becoming a tour provider that same day.

Take the time to evaluate the options available in your area! I believe you will see the value in a real virtual tour and that you will select Real Tour Vision as your virtual tour provider. When you do, if you are in the Portland, Maine area give me a call.

Ross Goldberg
Level Best Interactive Virtual Tours
Scarborough, ME 04074
www.lvlbst.com
[email protected]

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“Success with RTV from a Real Estate Agent’s Point of View
In early 2005 as the real estate market here in the Florida Keys started to slow, I could see I would have to brush up on my marketing skills and find better ways to expose my listings to potential buyers. With so many Florida Keys homes and condos sold as vacation homes, an online presence with great photos and virtual tours becomes essential. A few years earlier I was the first agent in our area to do virtual tours. I had tried the two-shot version but the results were not very good. Then the market got so hot, and properties were selling so fast, there was no real need to have tours. I could see the tide turning and I wanted to add virtual tours back to my listings so I started doing some research to find the best solution. After looking at a lot of low quality tours, I found RTV. Having taken some photography courses in college, and with over 30 years in the real estate business taking photos of houses, I decided to do the tours myself. My first RTV tour was of one of the highest priced homes in Key Largo. Shortly after submitting it, I received a call from a buyer who said his wife had seen a virtual tour on the Internet and she wanted him to take a look at the property while he was in the Keys. During the showing he called his wife at home and told her to look at the virtual tour again. They decided then and there to make an offer. They ended up buying the property. The wife never came to see it until closing. The selling price was $3.7 million.

Since then there have been other situations where a buyer’s partner or family member could not be present but the decision to go forward was based on the virtual tour. Many times in the course of showing one of my listings with an agent from another company, I hear the buyers talking about having seen the virtual tour on the Internet. It seems they find the listings and have their agent make the appointment which results in more showings and sales for my sellers. I have a contract pending on a property which is scheduled to close later this month. The buyers have never been inside the house. Asking price almost $3 million.

In spite of our market being down almost 50% in the number of sales, and the inventory being up almost 50% in the number of listings, this has been my best year ever in real estate with over $12 million in sales so far – and it is only April. Thank you RTV for helping take my career to a new level.”

Sharon Nyman

Virtual Tour Provider

Feature List

  • 100% Your Brand & White Label
  • Advanced Customer Storefront
  • Advanced Photo & 4K Streaming Video Delivery
  • Automated Weekly Traffic Reports
  • Built-in 360 Virtual Tour Software
  • Calendar Integration & Job Scheduling System
  • Create Interactive Floor Plans with Hot Spots
  • Custom 360 Virtual Tour Layouts
  • Discounted Virtual Staging Services
  • Easy-to-Use Secure Client Portal
  • Invoice, Prepay, & Pay-To-Download
  • Jobs from RTV’s National Hotel Accounts
  • Photographer Management System
  • Secure HTTPS Links
  • Six Elegant Property Website Layouts
  • Stripe, PayPal, Square, & QuickBooks Integration
  • Unlimited Hosting
  • Unlimited Phone Training & Technical Support
  • Works with ANY 3D–360 Camera
  • Zillow, Matterport, & iGuide Compatible

“RTV, Best Service, Great Products!!!
We opened Photos Sell, real estate photography in January 2015. I found RTV during a search for a portal site so I could send high res images over the internet to my customers. When I called this company I was greeted by the owner himself. Jason LaVanture. Jason explained what RTV was about and what they can do for my new business. Great customer service, training, high res Virtual Tours and much, much more. After I signed up I got all of the above and much, much more. I received excellent training on the system. Instant help from customer support almost never got a voice mail and when I did they always got right back to me ASAP. The product is like nothing else, it set me apart from my competition. Look if your pictures are not good, they will no look good on any medium. I now work for 35 agents and exclusive with two large Brokers in our area. I am busy as hell. I read the complaints on this company and my response to those who complained is: you can’t make a living off the leads you get for RTV. You need to market you self, have a great product and provide great customer service. Look, I am no one special to RTV, just a customer and I have received outstanding service, their web portal works flawlessly and is easy to use and navigate. I can pickup the phone and speak to the Owner any time, he is a great resource and can be depended upon should you have a problem!! Thank you RTV. I prefer not be anonymizes: George Pulizzano, Photos Sell, Tampa, Florida.”

George Pulizzano

George Pulizzano Photography

“I became a RTV Full Service Provider after I researched many different virtual tour software solutions and purchased several different packages from virtual tour companies in the industry. RTV wins hands down! Their tours are truly INTERACTIVE and professional quality. Unlike other software that can distort images and give the ‘fishbowl’ effect, RTV offers a superior software solution that forgives even the most amateur of photographers and allows professional photographers to REALLY show off their work. In the last year my company has produced more than 170 tours for both commercial and real estate applications and that number is growing daily. On top of our own marketing efforts, RTV has sent us MANY qualified leads! 95% of all the leads that they send us result in an immediate order! To top the cake, their support staff is ON THE BALL!! A BIG thank you to Torie, Jon, Jacque (tour track), Ben and especially Jason for all of their training, support and attention to detail. I have been known to be a little ‘fiery’ and passionate about my business, but they have always answered my support requests promptly and professionally! I highly recommend their software to anyone who is even considering doing their own tours in-house OR starting a virtual tour company. You simply CANNOT beat the level of support or quality of software.”

Cheryl Waller

Virtual Tour Provider

“Success with RTV from a Real Estate Agent’s Point of View
In early 2005 as the real estate market here in the Florida Keys started to slow, I could see I would have to brush up on my marketing skills and find better ways to expose my listings to potential buyers. With so many Florida Keys homes and condos sold as vacation homes, an online presence with great photos and virtual tours becomes essential. A few years earlier I was the first agent in our area to do virtual tours. I had tried the two-shot version but the results were not very good. Then the market got so hot, and properties were selling so fast, there was no real need to have tours. I could see the tide turning and I wanted to add virtual tours back to my listings so I started doing some research to find the best solution. After looking at a lot of low quality tours, I found RTV. Having taken some photography courses in college, and with over 30 years in the real estate business taking photos of houses, I decided to do the tours myself. My first RTV tour was of one of the highest priced homes in Key Largo. Shortly after submitting it, I received a call from a buyer who said his wife had seen a virtual tour on the Internet and she wanted him to take a look at the property while he was in the Keys. During the showing he called his wife at home and told her to look at the virtual tour again. They decided then and there to make an offer. They ended up buying the property. The wife never came to see it until closing. The selling price was $3.7 million.

Since then there have been other situations where a buyer’s partner or family member could not be present but the decision to go forward was based on the virtual tour. Many times in the course of showing one of my listings with an agent from another company, I hear the buyers talking about having seen the virtual tour on the Internet. It seems they find the listings and have their agent make the appointment which results in more showings and sales for my sellers. I have a contract pending on a property which is scheduled to close later this month. The buyers have never been inside the house. Asking price almost $3 million.

In spite of our market being down almost 50% in the number of sales, and the inventory being up almost 50% in the number of listings, this has been my best year ever in real estate with over $12 million in sales so far – and it is only April. Thank you RTV for helping take my career to a new level.”

Sharon Nyman

Virtual Tour Provider