A Virtual Tour After The Purchase
November 7, 2008
Post Tags: dream home finder , relocation specialists , virtual tour
Service Above The Norm
The other day we were at a home inspection for our Buyers who are out of state. Actually out of the country at the time of the home inspection. The home inspector is one we have known for years and often sees me going around during a home inspection taking photos. I take a lot of photos.
He asked me what I was doing with all the photos I take all the time. He understood the reasons a listing agent would take photos of a property but didn’t grasp why I would be needing or wanting photos when we represent the buyers. “I’m make a virtual tour for our buyers. I do it all the time.” “Really, Why?”
Virtual Tour For The Buyer
Why would the buyers want a virtual tour?
We work with a lot of out of town buyers. We are “Relocation Specialists“. One of the services we provide for our buyers is the building of virtual tours so they can show their friends and family the home they are purchasing. Granted I don’t take as much time photographing and putting together a buyer virtual tour as I would a listing tour. These tours aren’t to sell a property, they are a service and courtesy to our buyers. But, what if the offer falls through? It doesn’t matter. It is part of our service to our clients. Sometimes we create them before our clients make an offer.
Over the past couple of years I’ve built virtual tours for our clients of homes they want to see but can’t physically be in Tucson. Some of those homes had virtual tours already, other didn’t. There were specific things the buyers wanted to see;, maybe it was the garage or the inside of the kitchen cabinets; these thing often are not in a listing virtual tour. So we (I) shoot and build a custom virtual tour and make it available for them to see and share with their friends and family.
Sometimes our clients don’t find what they are looking for when they are here. However, they continued to receive Dream Home Finder Matches by email. This often leads to a request for more information and the building of a virtual tour. If they made an offer and it was accepted they would drive or fly to Tucson during the inspection period. In a couple of cases this wasn’t possible, but they knew from the virtual tour they wanted to purchase the home. (I know you are saying “I would never buy a home I hadn’t seen.” I’m with you on that one. But there are people that can make that decision without ever seeing the home in person.)
Sometimes the virtual tour provided them the information they needed NOT to make an offer. Isn’t that a lot of work? Yes, but that is what we do. It is the kind of service we appreciate when we receive it and it is the kind of service we offer our buyers above and beyond the norm.
It is also good practice for building professional high quality virtual tours for our listings : ) But I don’t stop there, I build entire websites for our listings including documents, (SPDS) photos, information and virtual tours. (Self promotion concluded at this time, thanks for reading).
November 24th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
[...] wrote this post on A Virtual Tour After the Purchase on Nov. 7th. In that post I explained using the Web, in this instance not to market the property, [...]