Real Estate Video is NOT the consumer choice.

I hope this real estate video works...hope the lighting is ok...it costs a lot...

where does it go?...who is seeing it?...does this really work?

(clipart courtesy of clipartheaven.com)

Sellsius offers up a late serving of turkey with a video from Brian Copeland , a Realtor in Nashville. (His blog, Nashville and Beyond, has decent content and some pretty funny and fun things things to know about the area.)

Even though the market forces have virtual tours as the leading form of RE marketing-over a million buyers a month visit Obeo-once more we have to hear how RE web video is the way to go.

My reply at Sellsius:

Brian,

Virtual tours are the most widely used form of web RE marketing; this is what the consumer wants because this is where the consumer money is being spent.

Video tours do not work for most listings because:

-Video tours are not aggregated or distributed effectively on the web.
-Video tours lack visual quality: most RE video is poor to average.
-Video tours are not cost effective for most listings.

Obeoman
steven.stearns@obeo.com

Virtual tours are the leading form of marketing properties on the web:
Sellers list with Realtors who sell,and Realtors who sell are using millions-perhaps billions, worldwide - virtual tours to market listings.

Because it is cost and labor intensive, RE web video remains a niche tool for luxury listings, unique locations and as a marketing tool for funny, charismatic or extremely dynamic Relators or agencies.

By the way, keep an eye on the blog here - in the coming weeks, Obeo will be showing you why virtual tours are and will remain the best way to market any property on line or anywhere. How buyers love virtual tours, and sellers love them, too.

Buyers want to own their home when they see it on line.

Obeo will help them do that, and more.


I gotta go sell something!

Obeoman

steven.stearns@obeo.com

Top 12 Real Estate Predictions for 2008

TOP 12 REAL ESTATE PREDICTIONS FOR 2008:

1.) Google corporate jets will feature scrolling AdSense banners on their sides, or tow signs behind them as they fly over beaches.

By the way, you won't need a crystal ball for your sellers

with

Obeo HomeSite and Obeo StyleDesigner.

(Available after January 21st)

2.) Redfin will give away Snoopy Catch-'Em kits to each lister, with free linkbait.

3.) ActiveRain will provide free umbrellas to each Realtor at its site to protect them from getting soaked by falling prices.

4.) Pat Kitano at Transparent RE will move into a new glass headquarters in Pomona, CA. To stimulate the local economy and discourage the proverbial rock throwing, Pat will hire displaced mortgage brokers to police the grounds for any other offending projectiles.

5.) RISMedia’s Annual Leadership Conference will undergo a format change, a cross between Big Brother and Survivor. Hosted by David Hasselhoff, it will only be available by satellite subscription service.

6.) Zillow will use street teams to meme their brand and have street team members carry bells and buckets to enhance cash flow.

7.) The crew at Sellsius, inspired by their successful '08 nationwide blogging tour, will form a Band of Bloggers - like Brian Setzer's, only bigger and more verbose-and go on tour to over 1,500 real estate brokerages, playing at lunchtime in the parking lot.

8.) Inman TV will host a reality series of the Sellsius tour, partnering with Teresa Boardman to vlog and blog the performances.

9.) Trulia Voices, not to be outdone, will go out on a choral tour featuring songs with lyrics based on answers to questions posted at the site. Performance MP3s will be posted free at their site and will also be available as ring tones.

10.) NAR CEO Dale Stinton will go on a consumer-based diet including non-fat technology commodities.

11.) Upstart on line real estate community Wannanetwork will be bought by Donald Trump and leased to AT&T, forming a worldwide network of networks.

12.) Obeo and Krispy-Kreme form a strategic alliance to enhance delivery of its donut-on-a-stick incentive to all eligible-and hungry-Realtors attending their sales presentations.

Obeoair is at NAR this week, so check us out or email me for details!

...what we got, you want!

Obeoman

steven.stearns@obeo.com

Sexy Crazy Photo of Statistics for Real Estate Marketing !

While the header here may have you chuckling: I never really liked math until I had an algebra teacher tell me statistics are like bikinis: what they reveal is interesting. The inspiration for this post came from the crew at Sellsius !

Obeo can - and does - the job twice as good as our closest competitor.

...and that is something you can take through the fan and to the bank!

I gotta go...call me!

Obeoman

steven.stearns@obeo.com

Internet Real Estate Video-a short course:

Quality comes before content.
Content must follow marketing.
Consumers follow aggregation.
Marketing is not activity, it is achievement.
You cannot make chicken salad out of chicken guano.
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.

more later...

Steve

SexySEO to guest blog...hopefully...

Greetings, fellow blogging weenies on the roller grill.

I have succumbed.

Because my blog is already worth 2,600 some - odd dollars according to the Grand Algorithm and no one has ponied up to keep my countenance off of the Sellsius bus, I have changed my font to Verdana per the advisement of REBloGirl. Also, I have invited SexySEO to guest blog.

Pull up a keyboard, and let's see what happens.

Maxima Mea Culpa,

Obeoman

Mhaaaaa..the mAgicK BuS!..and a thank you across the bow.

...Real work has been interfering with my blogging, but not my desire to blog. I apologize again to all my readers and 5-second looky-loos (according to Google analytics) for my absence, the topics that never were covered or properly expanded on and the generally lame attempts at being a bad real estate blog.

Meanwhile, back at the blog:

...I would love to be on the Sellsius bus, so to speak - the requisition has been made through the proper channels and a response is forthcoming in the next 24-36 hours.

...of course, if Teresa Boardman, Pat Kitano, JimmyZ, ZIllow, niknik, Joel Burlsem, REBlogGirl, JeffX, MaureenFrancis and Inmannews would offer me $300 dollars not to place my face on the bus..., well?????

By the way:...Joel has been a busy man lately pushing web RE video. He looked really Gen-Neutral during his Inman interview. His is a worthy cause for those selling digital video equipment - but likely not a great marketing solution for most single listings for Realtors.

Here is why:

Video Tours Lack Traffic and Aggregation: If you Alexa the companies that are doing RE video and stack them up, the traffic pile is not as deep as you-know-who-E-O. Video works great for building affinity for a community, a charismatic Real Estate agent/team or for showcase properties where the money is there to support video production values.

Video Tours are Tooooo Linear: They drag you though a property like a bull with a ring through its nose. Plus you usually have to look at some broker or agent hind quarters, making you feel like a sled dog.

Video Tours Lack Production Values: As a photographic mentor once told me, you cannot make chicken salad out of chicken guano. Find me ten RE video tours - done by agents or brokers at any site anywhere on the web that have any production values at all and I will eat this blog. The vast majority of RE video tours are so poorly executed with lousy lighting, fuzzy focus, shaky shooting, poor panning and awful audio it really isn't any wonder why this hot new trend is flailing to sizzle-yes, flailing.

EXTRA SPECIAL THANKS:

... to Voyager International, a kind-of competitor: Hey! You spelled Obeo right! And it's great to know our name leads on your web page presentation. Just so you happy-go-lucky gang of marketing mash-ups know:

-We are tops with Realtors in the NAR Vertical Metrix : money follows market leaders, and Realtors know their money works hardest with us.

-Obeo posts the vast majority of its tours on 4 days.

-And sorry about your traffic accident: One of my current clients has had a tour with you at Kayyah and the listing has been viewed 38 times since 09/06/2006. Get well soon !

More later, if you can stand it...

Steve

Zill-OW-OW-0W!...and: road blogging, road construction and flooding.

...with its most recent improvements, Zillow has accomplished what it set out to do: see if others would write more about what it is doing than it is actually doing - the discourse at Sellsius is well worth the read - the very immediate and real issues of transparency, liability, and accuracy are all in the soup. My take - as I predicted last week - Zillow could be moving toward Zill-0w! - …this whole situation with Zillow reminds me of kids telling ghost stories around the campfire, and everybody screaming bloody murder at the end of the tale - but nobody is dead.

It could also remind you of “People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.”
Reliability and liability - this is why Realtors have E&O coverage.
This is also why Zillow goes out of their way to wrangle their content on the World Wild Web - to shed the liability back onto the parties doing business. And to have Realtors work harder, of course - at being local experts and working with their sellers and buyers -which isn’t a bad thing at all.
Remember, Zillow was founded to flatten the market, generate ad revenue, make aggregation easy by having volunteers give up their information for whatever motivation and - just like Expedia - raise the question of why somebody is getting paid "all that money" to do something you think you can do yourself.

Meanwhile, the road calls: the blog is going on the road this week through Thursday!

SHAMELESS CORPORATE PLUG: ReMax North Central and Obeo will be on the road in Wisconsin April 10-12, visiting those Badger RE agents in Neenah, Waukesha and Wisconsin Dells showing off Obeos' new products, ObeoConnect-NEVER miss a buyer!-and Obeo HomeSite. A full slate of top technology trends and savvy speakers from ReMax, as well.

...and a great way to get a finger on the pulse of what is going on out there, RE-wise.

Stay tuned - we promise no further commerical interruption.

...and what else has been going on the past few days?

Minor flooding, in our back yard along the Rock River. BFFL Theresa and wonder dog, Bear, assure us all is well.

...and of course, the OTHER season:
This will likely be the scene in front our home until November of this year.

(Thank you,Wisconsin Department of Transportation.)

...and over at WannaNetwork, one of the meatiest discussions on Illegal Aliens housing ordinances is proving that once people start talking and thinking global, networking takes on a whole new meaning.

...something else missed last week due to the wind howling through the Zillows: RISMedia is out there ready to bleed:from Stefan Swanepoel -"...the real estate industry is still marketing all over the board and really doesn't understand the online marketing channel, says the report's author and trend expert, Swanepoel." This discussion of the Foreign Born Opportunity-the demand in the U.S. for immigrant housing is something ALL Realtors should have on their READ-IT-NOW list. I've been yammering about this global trend to anyone who didn't openly laugh at me for months.-MORE on this later!

Happy-post Hippity-Hoppity to all.

I'm outta here.

Steve

steven.stearns@obeo.com

Ideas are like compost...

...but they don't usually look like this:

(Mulch in my driveway awaiting composting stuff. )

...but are these good ideas? Like compost, it depends on what you mix in.

...Yeah, and bring a large cheese pizza... - Eppraisal. Drive-by. Ok. Are there going to be so many of these companies popping up that competing drive-by appraisals clogging the quiet neighborhood streets will become the norm? Sounds like an opportunity for Progressive, not the banks or home owners...Pass me the Parmesan.

One fish, two fish, Redfin, blue fish... - The Big Red Fish gives us its continuing take on flat fees, commission refunds and all the joys of a transparent market: they bring us a Real Estate Consumer's Bill Of Rights. Hey -don't we already have the Realtor Code of Ethics ? FHA? And all the state and federal fiduciary finery that comes with the career? I mean benevolent is good but who is going to sit on the Committee to Review Redundant Ethical Practices ? This is a watchdog chasing its tail.

Don't hesitate-aggregate: Zillow throws caution to the wind with its plan to be number one in the 2.0 world with consumer-owner-be-a-neighborhood-expert-faced-self-regulated-information-posted-by-the-homeowner-or-listing-agent-information-aggregation-location on the web. w0w. Can I borrow a cup of keywords, neighbor?

The Show That Never ENDS! - Even the folks at Sellsius missed this obvious match-up; they must still be recovering from the ProBlogger par-tay in the Big Apple:

Justin

Justin, who is currently lifecasting to the web and reality show Real Estate Confidential :Duh.
Give this guy his RE license and turn him loose on the real estate scene. Anywhere. Throw in a sub-prime lender backstory and use spare Fannie Mae workers for walk-ons. Now there is some emo-content for ALL of us.

Thanks for stopping by.
I gotta go compost.

Steve
steven.stearns@obeo.com