When real estate agents use generic video apps, it’s certainly the path of least resistance. But, savvy agents are missing out on a great opportunity to not only improve how they perform virtual showings, but also capture valuable content (showing video, photos) and buyer feedback that can be shared and referenced later.

How to avoid opportunity missed

Apps designed to mirror the experience of an in-person home showing offer a wealth of data capture that has value for both the buyer and the agent. This includes: 

• Buyer contact information (potential lead gen if a new buyer requests a showing)
• Pre-show “checklist” requests that organize what specific items the buyer wants to see during the showing
• The recorded live showing video, which can be replayed and shared
• Still image photos taken by the agent and buyer (apps like HomeRover let the agent and buyer take photos on-the-fly during the live showing experience)
• The post-showing home rating and comments provided by the buyer
• Compare multiple homes from one centralized app/view

The times, they are a-changin

In a post-COVID climate, buyers have acclimated to virtual showings as a valid way to preview and qualify homes of interest. The question for real estate agents is, which option delivers more value during the homebuying process – generic video apps (a.k.a. the path of least resistance) or a dedicated app built for virtual home showings? HomeRover was built to mimic an in-person home showing and has the features you need to make your virtual showings the next best thing to seeing the home in person.

Download our app here and try it for your next virtual home showing!

The post Are your virtual showings “gone with the wind”? appeared first on HomeRover.

If you’ve tested out our app, you know that you can collaborate on a real time virtual showing with your buyer clients: you visit the listing and show them the home via the HomeRover app’s collaborative video features. This is great if you are working with out of town buyers or if your clients’ schedule doesn’t allow them to join you to see it in person.

But some of our savvy agent clients realized that they can tour multiple homes and share the videos with their clients via the app. This ‘shoot and share’ use allows the prospective buyers to watch the showing videos at their convenience. 

“HomeRover is the easiest and quickest way to deliver home showing videos to my buyer clients,” said Andrea Gimblet of the Real Estate Muses in San Antonio, Texas. “While I love that we can pre-schedule, tour together, and have a conversation, it’s also incredibly helpful to be able to record in advance and send it through for them to review at their convenience.”

Agents also reported that the virtual showings they provided gave buyer clients confidence, resulting in many offers written on homes seen via the HomeRover app. 

“Our market has been moving at an incredible pace,” said Danielle Baker, of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices in Atlanta. “My out of town buyer client was able to ‘see’ homes and write offers from watching  video showings in the HomeRover app.”

Recording a virtual home showing to share with your clients is simple:

• Choose the Start an instant showing now! option on the home screen
• Input and confirm the address of the home, and hit the Continue button 
• Tap the Start Showing button and tour the home just as if you were showing it to your buyers! 

After you’ve completed your showing, you will get a notification as soon as the replay is ready. You’ll find it in the Completed showings section of the app. Open the showing and use the Share button to send the video to your clients, and they will be notified that it’s ready for them to view.

You can easily tour and record your showings for numerous listings, and your clients can then enjoy viewing them from the comfort of their own home, on their own schedule. They can even share the showing videos with friends and family, too.

Haven’t downloaded our free HomeRover app yet? You can find it here!

The post ‘Shoot and share’ virtual showings when they can’t be there in person appeared first on HomeRover.

To make sure your clients have the best possible experience, we’ve put together some tips so that your virtual showings will run smoothly and wow your clients.

Planning Makes Perfect

The first step is being ready before you start the showing. Knowing what your buyers are looking for in the home makes it simple to highlight those features as you walk through it.

• If possible, walk the home or look at the floor plans first and consider how you want to proceed through the home. Is there a lot of outdoor space to cover? Do you typically start from the front door and move through the house from there?
• Prepare a checklist of features to cover. You want to make sure all important items are covered during the virtual showing. When you use HomeRover, your buyers can add checklist items themselves to make sure you cover everything they want to see.
• Check your internet coverage: Do you have access to wireless internet, or can you utilize cellular service to power your showing? If the mobile coverage (LTE, 5G) is poor, see if you can access the home’s wifi network. The last thing you want during the showing is choppy video from a bad connection!

Pro gear to up your game

A small investment in hardware can make a big difference in the showing experience you are able to deliver to your clients.

• Using a smartphone grip will eliminate shake and provide a better visual quality
• An external battery pack ensures you have enough power to make it through longer showings or multiple homes
• Adding an external microphone to your smartphone improves the audio quality of your voice during the showing. Another great option is wired or wireless headphones with mics (like Apple Airpods).

Lights, camera, action!

While a virtual showing can live on beyond the actual showing as a video that can be watched again, the showing itself is no different than if you had the buyers there in person. 

• Before you go live, walk the home quickly to make sure the home is presentable and so you are not caught off guard by anything (or anyone) in the home.
• Turn on the lights, open curtains, and open doors throughout the home. This will improve the visual experience for your buyers and also improve the quality of the replay.
• Scan the showing checklist and ensure you are ready to check them off as you walk through the home.
• When you go live, rotate your smartphone to landscape orientation. This gives your buyers the best view of the home. Portrait video does a poor job of representing the home from the viewer’s end. 
• Before you start the showing, consider switching to your front-facing camera so that you can start by saying hello to your buyers.
• As you walk through the home, try your best to hold the smartphone steady and move slowly. This should reduce the amount of shaking and help deliver better visual quality.
• Before you wrap up, make sure to ask the buyer if there is anything else they want to see. Sign off with a warm thanks. You are the host and it’s your show!

Get the right tool (app) for the job

Yes, you could use Zoom or Facetime to virtually bring clients into a home, but neither were designed specifically for real estate professionals to collaborate in real time with their buyer clients. HomeRover was built to mimic an in-person home showing and has the features you need to make your virtual showings the next best thing to seeing the home in person.

Download our app here and try it for your next virtual home showing!

The post Tips and Best Practices for Virtual Home Showings appeared first on HomeRover.

Whether you’re an active user or new to HomeRover, we think you’ll agree that this version is far superior to generic video apps for virtual showings.

Here’s some of the changes we’ve made and features we’ve added:

• A new user experience designed around the unique needs of real estate agents and homebuyers
• An “Instant Showing” feature that makes it easy for on-property agents to quickly jump into a live virtual showing with the remote buyer
• Contact cards that provide easy access to the buyer’s contact information and showing history
• Upcoming and completed showings are organized for easy, quick access
• After the showing, buyers can comment and rate the home – providing critical feedback for the agent
• Agents and buyers can share and download the showing video and photos

Whether you use it for out of town buyers, to work around your local buyer’s availability in a fast moving market, or to have a safer option than meeting new clients in person for the first showing, we are here to help.

HomeRover will always be free to use for your clients. And for now, it’s still free for you! You can download the latest version here.

Questions about the launch? Or are a brokerage, MLS, or association that wants to bring HomeRover to all of your agents? Contact us here.

The post HomeRover 2.0 is Now Live! appeared first on HomeRover.

Do you have an inventory shortage in your market? If so, you already know a sellers’ market makes life harder for buyers’ agents and buyers. Your buyers need eyes on new listings quickly so they can have an opportunity to make an offer. Time is very much of the essence.

If you have covid restrictions, multiple groups of buyers simultaneously in a home isn’t necessarily safe, or allowed. And there are a finite number of showings that can take place over the course of a weekend. Getting into the home in time to write an offer can be challenging when a contract is accepted within hours.

Rewatch the Showing to Review Features

By necessity, agents nationwide now harness technology in ways they never did before to accomplish business. Virtual showings were once just a ‘nice-to-have’ for out of town buyers. Now, they are part of everyday life in a busy market.

“My clients like to use the video recordings of their virtual showings to re-visit the home after the showing is over. They appreciate being able to review the different rooms and features of the house again. This works much better than using apps like FaceTime or WhatsApp, which always cut out and are blurry,” said Lauren Goché of Think Real Estate in Portland, Oregon.

Listings Are Under Contract in Hours

While originally used as a tool for out of town buyers of vacation homes or relocation clients, virtual showings are now by buyers with time or health constraints. And with the market showing no signs of slowing down, agents are getting creative with virtual showings to make sure clients don’t lose out on homes they might want to buy.

Nicole Nicolay, a Realtor with Compass in Livermore, California, is in the middle of a booming real estate market. “Our clients aren’t always available to go visit a home in person as soon as it hits the market. Since our market is so hot now, we can use virtual showings so our buyers can make a confident offer before it goes under contract with someone else.”

The real estate industry is working as a whole to provide a frictionless customer journey. Streamlining and simplifying the showing experience can be a fantastic next step for agents.

We created the HomeRover virtual showing app to reproduce the on-site showing experience for buyers and their agents. You can use it for free with your clients by downloading the app here.

The post Hot Market? Get Your Buyers In Before It’s Gone! appeared first on HomeRover.

September used to be designated by NAR as Agent Safety Month. However, they decided recently the topic warrants a year-round effort. NAR’s goal is “to reduce the number of safety incidents that occur in the industry, so that every REALTOR comes home safely to his or her family every night.” They suggest creating a safety strategy and offer tips and best practices, along with a list of resources and training videos.

How Do Brokerages Keep Agents Safe?

There is no standard solution or practice for agent safety in the real estate industry. Some brokerages built systems for agents to check in or team up for first meetings. Others require first meetings to take place in the office before visiting listings. Agents may use identity apps to verify a consumer’s identity. Also, technology vendors have crafted devices to give agents an ability to summon help. However, each solution tiptoes around minimizing friction for the consumer. Often, agents compromise their safety so they don’t lose a potential deal.

Virtual Showings are Safer

While we can’t solve all safety issues, we may be able to help in one small, but important way. We realized that our virtual showing app could provide a measure of safety for agents. Hosting a virtual showing for the first meeting offers an alternative to the face-to-face appointment while still providing a chance to safely get to know a new customer.

The next time you have a new customer who insists on seeing homes before meeting you in the office, think about offering a virtual showing instead. You can follow our best practices to create a great showing experience while still giving you a chance to get to know them.

Try out the HomeRover virtual showing app by downloading it here.

The post Can Virtual Showings Help Keep Agents Safe? appeared first on HomeRover.

A Missing Piece of the Latte Vision

Back in 2013 at Inman Connect San Francisco, Brad Inman dropped an 8-inch thick packet of documents on the stage with an audible thud. The papers were from his recent home purchase. He questioned why buying a home couldn’t happen as simply as buying a latte. While many of the tools were available at the time, market conditions weren’t pushing buyer and agent behavior in that direction. (We are largely still waiting for the mortgage portion of the process to catch up.) Brad still holds hope for the ‘latte vision,’ and the events of this year have been a true catalyst to move the industry in that direction.

Paperless transactions and e-signatures are standard operating procedure. But the home search process has remained stubbornly non-virtual. Before 2020, it was unthinkable that buyers would purchase a home without the usual tour of homes to prompt their final choice. But lockdowns and stay-at-home orders changed everything. Agents had to figure out how to help their buyers effectively assess and decide on homes when visiting in person was difficult or impossible. Limiting risk meant limiting showings, and in some areas where real estate was considered non-essential, owners were sometimes tasked with conducting virtual showings.

Seeing Homes While Staying Home

The button to ‘request a virtual showing’ was already coded into many home search websites, but suddenly agents across the country saw a sharp rise in those requests. Prior to the pandemic, virtual showings were typically reserved for second home purchasers, relocation clients, and out of town buyers. Now, everyday clients were asking to see listings through the eyes of their agent first rather than leaving the safety of their home.

What agents found through necessity was virtual showings didn’t inhibit the process but actually made it easier and safer. Buyers could preview homes and narrow their search from the comfort of their couch. Sellers were able to limit foot traffic in their home, reducing their risks as well. And agents could, if they recorded the showings, have a record that both they and their clients could return to as their home search progressed.

Virtual Showings are Here to Stay

The benefits of virtual home showings during the pandemic are obvious. But will this carry over after the threat has passed? We think so. Virtual showings can provide an enhanced consumer home search experience while providing many practical benefits, too. The first time an agent meets a potential can be risky, if they are unsure of the consumer’s intentions. Scheduling a virtual showing lets an agent move that initial meeting online, get to know their new client safely. Sellers, meanwhile, will enjoy having fewer strangers coming into their home.

Providing a better home buying experience for the consumer is the most important use case. Agents can deliver a true concierge experience, giving buyers the option of seeing homes and narrowing their search without ever leaving the comfort of their home. This is something the industry has not delivered on before this year.

Most home buyers will, of course, view homes in person before making a final decision to purchase. However, we are finally moving towards making that experience simple, safe, and enjoyable for consumers.

Looking for a professional way to conduct virtual showings? Download the HomeRover virtual showing app.

The post Are We Close to Achieving the Latte Vision? appeared first on HomeRover.

When health and safety are a high priority, business practices need to be adjusted. Ideally, we can make changes without having to compromise on the level of service we provide. Currently, the biggest sticking point for real estate is home showings. If you are a buyers agent, you are probably thinking about how to minimize the number of homes that your clients need to see in person. The solution: virtual showings.

The good news is that you are now able to harness technology to provide a professional virtual showing option for your buyer clients. If you aren’t familiar with virtual showings, it’s when you take your buyer on a personalized showing of the home they are interested in while they follow along on a live stream. In the past, agents have used tools like Facetime, Skype, or Zoom to facilitate virtual showings. Now, agents can use the HomeRover app for virtual showings and better collaborate with clients before, during, and after their home showings.

Best Practices for Virtual Showings

So how can you help keep your clients safe and still give them a high touch, customized showing experience? Here are our virtual showing best practices:

• Identify the homes they are most interested in and plan a schedule of the homes you will be showing them virtually.
• Plan ahead to be sure you will have WiFi or cellular coverage.
• Schedule the showing times within the HomeRover app and invite your clients to join.
• Work with your clients to create a checklist of items and features they want to make sure are part of the showing, and add that list to the scheduled showings in HomeRover.
• Would your clients like to include anyone else on their showings? Do they want friends or family to join in? You can add them to the scheduled showing times as well.
• Make sure your clients know they can snap their own photos in the app as the showing progresses. The photos will be available post-showing along with the recorded video of the home.
• When it’s time to show the home, start the showing on the app and proceed through the home just as if your clients were with you. Start from outside the front door, and move through the home.
• Encourage them to interact with you and ask questions as if they were in the home. You can explore the listing together.
• Use the checklist to mark off the features and areas as you get to them. This will create markers in the video playback that let your clients jump straight to the parts that are important to them.
• After they have finished seeing the home, encourage them to include a rating and notes within the app, so they don’t forget what they thought after viewing a few different homes in the same day.

Post-Showing Playback

Once you have finished showing your clients all the homes on their list, they can easily refer back to the showing video as well as their photos, notes, and ratings within the HomeRover app. They can even share the showing video with friends and family. While some buyers may still want to visit homes in person, using virtual showings first can help them narrow their choices, saving time and keeping them safe.

If you would like to try out the HomeRover App for your virtual showings, click here to download.

The post Want To Keep Your Clients Safe? Go Virtual For Showings appeared first on HomeRover.

However, stay at home orders and other precautions meant agents had to adjust. They were forced to bring their everyday clients into homes virtually because they were unable to see them in person. Finding a way to do this effectively became a priority.

What’s a Virtual Showing?

Virtual tours and virtual showings are not one and the same. Virtual tours are listing marketing, created on behalf of the sellers to portray their home favorably. Whether made with 3D technology like Matterport or a video walk through, a virtual tour shows the home in it’s perfectly staged glory. They are great for creating buyer interest but they don’t necessarily convey the true picture of a home.

Virtual showings, on the other hand, are an interactive experience for buyers. The buyer’s agent walks through the home while their clients watch via live streaming video. Buyers ask questions and look around the home as if they were there in person. Until now, agents used apps like Facetime, Skype, or Zoom to accomplish their showings. Information gleaned through the showing was typically lost after the showing was completed.

How Does HomeRover Help?

The HomeRover app allows agents to schedule and conduct professional virtual showings. The app retains all home showings for the consumer in one place for easy reference. It also stores all photos snapped during the showings. Buyers can watch the recorded showing videos to help narrow their list of homes. Agents, meanwhile, can virtually collaborate with buyers and also retain a visual record of the home’s condition at the time of the showing.

Homebuyers can see homes right from their living room couch. Interested in learning more? Download the HomeRover app here.

The post What’s the Difference Between a Virtual Showing and a Virtual Tour? appeared first on HomeRover.

Like everyone else in the real estate community, we’ve been thinking about how we can help agents and buyers navigate the challenges of showing homes during a global pandemic. The answer, it turns out, was sitting right in our hands: Make HomeRover a FREE service. Get even more agents shooting, showing and selling. Now, HomeRover is completely free for both agents and buyers. Try out the HomeRover virtual showing app by downloading it here.

A note for existing users & subscribers

To convert to the free version, simply update your app to the latest release (1.3). Then, you can host showings and will not receive the in-app subscription prompt. If you’re a current HomeRover subscriber on iOS (Apple), no action is necessary. Your current subscription plan will be removed and you will not be billed going forward. For current Android (Google Play) subscribers, you will need to visit the Play Store app on your device, select Subscriptions from the menu options and tap the Cancel Subscription option under the HomeRover subscription plan.

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