Using Video For Real Estate Investors and Growing Your Wealth
Savvy real estate investors are increasingly using video applications to promote their properties and 
investment businesses. Videos – whether simple online videos made up from individual photos or professional-shot HD videos – allow professionals to target Gen X and Gen Y customers and provide lots of marketing options as well.
If you want to sell or rent your investment properties to the new Gen X and Gen Y markets, you need to start using video applications in order to market your real estate.
Many real estate agents are already creating listings that feature virtual tours of apartments or homes for rent. Others are getting more creative, using videos to create commercials or marketing messages for their real estate businesses.
Real Estate Investors… Are You Using Video?
If you want to start using video applications to promote your own properties, you can spend very few dollars or thousands. You can make a very simple 30 to 60 second virtual tour commercial of your property using software or a special design service. A number of companies have sprouted up that offer video production services specifically to real estate agents. These companies are a great place to start.
The least expensive options involve using multiple pictures of your property and stringing them together to create a video. In many cases, you can use a service or program that lets you upload pictures, and the program or service takes care of the details, converting those pictures into a smooth video stream. I’ve personally used Microsoft Powerpoint and simply placed the pictures of the properties on a powerpoint presentation cued to music… and it took me all of 30 minutes to create.
Many of these services provide a panning technology that gives the impression that your photos are actually video. Some services add music as well, providing a multimedia experience.
Some services and programs allow you to upload voiceovers as well as videos in order to create a more customized video tour or commercial of your investment properties. Some services will even hire a professional actor to create a voiceover that uses specific key words. Some allow you to use your own voiceover in your marketing message.
If you have real estate that really deserves the best treatment , you can create a high quality video by going to a professional production company with real estate experience. These companies can produce television-quality video spots, virtual tours, and commercials. In many cases, you may not need television quality, since most applications where you would publish videos on the Internet do not require very high quality images. However, if you plan on using your commercial and virtual tour on the local real estate channel as well, a professional shoot is necessary for the quality you need. Today, many real estate investors take advantage of HD, or high definition, when shooting virtual tours or commercials. It’s an ideal technology for those customers with big-screen televisions.
When marketing your investment properties, you’re not just limited to online video tours.
Online video messaging platforms allow you to create and send video messages as simply as you now compose emails. Simply use a webcam to record a message. These services are great for sending virtual tours or personalized messages to clients online. If you routinely work with tenants or buyers from outside your area, online video messaging is a great option.
All in all… just get out there and start using video if you are a real estate investor or realtor to sell your properties. This is the "video age" and if you aren’t using video… your competition is and you’re being left behind.
*** REI Brain Editor Added the Resources Below***
Video Resources You Can Put To Use Today…
Here are a few great resources you can use for using video in your real estate investing business.
The Flip Camera – The "Flip" is a very affordable, portable, and quality video camera that I personally use myself when I need to take a quick and easy video to put on the internet. It’s less than $150… and well worth the investment. The best part is that ANYONE can use it… I mean anyone! I saw it over at amazon.com for about $110 recently.
Microsoft Powerpoint – If you need to make simple and effective property videos… just get some pictures of the property, put them in a powerpoint presentation… and use a software like Camtasia or something to record the presentation to a video. I personally use Camtasia for a lot of things for marketing properties and my websites online… it’s not cheap… but well worth it in my opinion. Here’s an example of a video I’ve done with this exact method.
Tubemogul – A great way to get your videos out to the world very effeciently and cheaply (free!). Just sign up for a free account and blast your videos out to the world to get good search engine rankings. This site sends to about 15 different video sharing websites.
Traffic Geyser – Like Tubemogul… but sends to about 50 different video sharing sites and has waaaayyyy more features than Tubemogul. But… this is a paid monthly service that’ll run you about $50 a month. I personally use this service and it’s well worth the small expense in the time you save and the better search engine rankings you’ll get.
Really… those resources are all you’ll need to create winning and selling videos online for your real estate investment business… and it’s pretty darn cheap too!
Get out there… make some videos… and stop making excuses why you’re not making as much money as you want to in real estate… it’s out there… you just need to work hard and smart to get it.
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Hey, my name is Trevor and I'm the founder of The REI Brain and a real estate investor since the age of 21. Right now, my focus in real estate investing is multi-family income properties and I have plans on moving more into the commercial real estate investment world in 2008 and beyond. 
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