Real Estate Video

[Nick Griffin]

[Todd Terry] “Oh Nick, the next time you are over here… the pool needs some attention.”

Now that we’ve established in an earlier post that I’m self-educated on pool equipment maintenance. (I’m betting that it would pay better than would videos for individual real estate properties.)

[Todd Terry]

[Nick Griffin] “I’m betting that it would pay better than would videos for individual real estate properties”

Well, Nick… I was planning to offer you a Dr Pepper and a banana sandwich. Maybe I can’t afford you.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Nick Griffin]

[Todd Terry] “a banana sandwich”

Elvis Food! It’s a deal!

[Tom Sefton]

That budget would pay you $18-25 per hour. What about your expenses – the travel, the huge amount of storage needed for each job, the time spent uploading the videos, the probable request for more of your time editing, additional CF or Flash cards, the time your edit suite is tied up doing donkey work while you could be out pitching for profitable work?

[Aaron Cadieux]

Pat,

You’re foolish and dumb. What a dumb idea. Get a life! (haha!)

-Aaron

[Tim Wilson]

Okay, coming in late as usual.

We had a decent run doing real estate video, and I have some observations to add.

At the tippy-top of the list – there’s no way you can pull this off by working with individual realtors on individual properties. You have to work through brokers, who get a slice of EVERY sale that comes through the office.

To put it another way, many realtors have second jobs to make ends meet. NO brokers have second jobs.

The first pitch to the broker can even be a regular old commercial, to sell the entire office. We did one for a Century 21 broker with 5 offices under him, the furthest of which were an hour apart. We had him gather them all to the office in the middle. Then we put 40+ realtors in gold jackets up the stairs leading to the second-floor office and around the balcony.

It was a subtle-ish team-building exercise, reminding them that they all had a stake in the success of the entire company. And when they all saw the response they got to this one ad – hey! I saw you on TV! – they fell over themselves to do individual pieces with us. The broker kicked in to the production cost, since he was of course getting a piece of the eventual sale.

So now, the realtor isn’t resenting the broker – “I put in all the expense and he takes HALF of my money?” Every conversation became MUCH different when *everyone* had skin in the game. The broker became a partner, lowering an individual realtor’s risk. The broker didn’t kick in fully half – I forget, maybe 10-15%, enough so that he could hedge his bets, while realtors understood that he had a lot of bets to hedge.

Second, you have to turn the realtor into your creative partner. One of our first fights was that we would ONLY shoot under blue skies. It took juggling, and the realtors kvetched at first, but when they saw how much better even a marginal property looked in the right light, a whole lot more of our advice got taken without a fight.

Then, we took a lot of their advice on staging, even if we weren’t nuts about it. Still, once I started straightening pillows a little more than THEY had – gently, as in, “The camera sees that wrinkle more than the naked eye does” – it gave us a lot more room to shift discussions our way later. Client Management 101.

Third, think broadly. We got away with doing two different real estate shows, but those days are gone…EXCEPT on local cable channels, where you can buy the spot infomercial-style. Even more common is video on the broker’s website. That money came straight to us from the broker, so we never once had to hustle up collections – occasionally an issue from individual realtors.

(We never went to air with anything that hadn’t been paid for, but we still did the half up front/half on completion thing, and sometimes had to wait longer than we’d been told. Realtors are all about cashflow.)

In fact, we sold a house a couple of months ago with a company that used online video for the majority of their properties. They use an external contractor who handles shooting, editing, VO/music, and compression. By working with the broker, that contractor had dozens of properties to work with.

Which brings me to #3. This is a volume play, and it goes like this. Once you factor in all of the other crap you have to do – answer the phone, go to the bank, read the COW – you’re lucky if you WORK work half the time. So for these projects, cut your hourly rate in half, and work like a demon for a couple of weeks on 15 or 20 pieces at a time. If you plan properly, you’ll actually pocket MORE for those days than you usually do.

Although I get slammed for this every time I mention it in this forum, a flat rate is far, far, far more effective and efficient, and a far easier sell. I found that realtors are much more comfortable with flat rates, and flipping to that from hourly actually took away the last obstacles for the last holdouts.

It still helps to base your flat rate on around half of your hourly rate. Trust me. If you stay on top of this, you’ll wind up making more than you could ever get away with if you quoted hourly.

To that end, yes, templates are critical. If you treat these as one-off, standalone gigs, you are doomed. Doing it that way, the more you do, the less you make. You’re DOOMED, I say.

3a. Use the realtor’s resources. If they have stills, use ’em. It’s not an either or. Get really good at the animated still thing, create templates, and scream through ’em.

Last thing – if you don’t have an insanely killer demo reel, this will never get off the ground. Realtors are the most ego-driven clients you’ll work with. Everything they’re taught is that they need to promote themselves above their products – hence the pictures of themselves on their cars, business cards, signs, and everywhere else they can.

I don’t say this as a criticism. It’s a good principle when they are themselves are the brand. That’s why you MUST build reels and full-length demos after you get a nibble that make them ACHE to put their faces in your work. Wow them with your prowess. You have to make them feel bad about THEMSELVES if they DON’T do a video with you.

Best place to start with a demo of a video to sell a house? Your own house. Doesn’t matter that it’s not a glamorous showcase. Most houses aren’t. Show these realtors that you know how to make a comfy, regular house — flaws and all — look like a movie star. Then use yourself, your spouse, or any other normal-looking person to play the part of the realtor, and show that you know how to make an everyday person look like a movie star, and you’re in.

The last last last bit of advice is to really steep yourself in this stuff. My wife and I have a peripatetic streak, and have moved around a lot more than most people. We pore over those real estate magazines on every vacation. We pore over things like the NY Times real estate slideshows (a total trip) and HGTV. (Don’t overlook the chance to sell your shows direct to them. A lot of the ones you see are produced by shops that are smaller than you think.)

As a result of looking at so many houses, and working with dozens of realtors on our own househunting and selling, we look at the world the same way these guys do. Show the broker that you get what they’re doing, including the part about showcasing the PEOPLE and not the properties. That and a killer reel make all the difference.

You also have to pay attention to micro-trends. Condos get hit hardest, first, during downturns, but can be the first to come back. Some neighborhoods are hotter than others. Zillow.com makes this stuff a piece of cake to find out. Whatever it is you find, TELL the broker what you know. If a particular neighborhood is tracking up, and the broker has properties in that area, make that your opening gambit. “You guys are clearly paying attention to the market. Hyde Park is hot, and you guys are all over it. You’re working smart, maximizing every opportunity, and that’s why I want to show you how to raise your profile even higher,” blah blah blah.

Again, you’re making this pitch to the broker, not the realtor (yet). Specifically, you’re pitching to the broker’s ego. They’ll know you’re full of poo, just like they know that they themselves are full of poo, but they’ll bite for the reason that every buyer bites – you’ve helped them articulate their own desires, and helped them feel better about themselves for buying.

Which begs the question – do you want to work this hard?

If so, then you’ll have a gas. I confess that we bought a couple of houses at choice rates because, doing the videos, we got to see them before they went on sale. Like I said, we moved a lot.

The bottom line is that these are guys are playing a high stakes game. To win their business, you have to play for keeps too.

[Doug Pederson]

Real Estate is a hard nut to crack. There are some very good points here. Every agency I see has their windows plastered with pictures of the various for sale properties.

My idea is to do quick shoots of the property and include LARGE font text detailing the price, features and the video clips that follows. None of this requires any editing and can be done with little effort.

This runs as a RANDOM screen saver on a computer hooked up to a large screen TV 24X7

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzULqlf8598
Here is a mix of video and the 48 point text explanation

Digital video enthusiast
AKA SpectateSwamp