Zillow Changes the Value of Their Walkthrough Videos
Zillow's Mobile App Walkthrough Videos no longer place your listing's at the top of the search results
As Zillow Certified Photographers we recently received an email from them and feel we should share this with you.

"At Zillow, it’s our goal to create the best, most vibrant, home shopping experience on the web. In our ongoing pursuit of helping home shoppers quickly find their dream home, we recently made a few updates to how listings are sorted - including those with video and 3D Home. 

We know that video and 3D Home tours are crucial tools to deliver listings that are important to home shoppers. But when we showcase video and 3D Home tour listings exclusively, we compromise our commitment to prioritize listings that are the most relevant to individual home shoppers. Because of this, as of today, while listings will continue to receive improved sort order ranking, they may no longer default to the top of search results. 

Adding a video to a listing will continue to trigger an email notification to interested buyers, driving increased visibility for the listing. We will continue to work with photographers including you to help show your agents how video and 3D Home tours can increase their success. "

Is this really a big deal? Actually we don't think it is. The problem with Zillow Mobile App Videos is that its visual quality is very poor. Today's consumer expect to see High Definition Videos that are at least 1080p. They expect quality and Zillow App Videos have a very low bit rate and low quality, not to mention no sound. To make matters even worse, Realtors could not share those videos on MLS/IDX systems or Realtor.com.

That is why Snap2Close offers two much higher quality video formats.
Do Real Estate Videos Actually Help You?
One study by international listing website Domain.com found that videos increased listing inquiries by 403 percent . That’s inquiries, not just views. In other words, properties listed with some type of video generated four times the number of quality leads.

That’s not surprising, given the information density and memorability of video. You’ve heard that a picture is worth 1,000 words? Well, Forrester Research found that just one minute of video is worth 1.8 million words — that’s the same as roughly 3,600 Web pages of text. And according to the Online Publishers Association, 80 percent of viewers remember what they’ve seen in online videos. Walkthrough Videos and Professional Property Videos factually accomplish that goal.

As a matter of fact, most Realtors now prefer to use high quality videos over panoramas or 3D tours, such as Matterport, because potential home buyers find them to be much more entertaining and easier to tour the home online.
Snap2Close Upgrades Its Video Tools
As real estate videos are begging to gain in popularity, Snap2Close has made some major investments in high quality DJI 4-Gimbal Stabilizers which allow us to use higher quality cameras. The results are beautiful video home tours that are professionally edited with background music, graphics and effects.
Snap2Close Creates New Brochure
We recently completed our new marketing brochure and would like to ask you to share this with your office's internal Facebook page. To download the PDF version of our brochure simply click HERE and to download it.