fbpx
New Platform Updates for June 2023

New Platform Updates for June 2023

We did a comprehensive development release on June 4, 2023, that added several new features and addons to the HomeDiary Story (i.e. virtual tour) platform, along with some bug fixes, including

  • Drag & drop/reposition the various content sections on the Story to your desired order (see screenshot above)
  • Add branded documents to the branded version of the Story
  • New Addon – Virtual Timelapse video
  • New Addon – Blue Skies through Windows
  • Added Pre-Shoot and Re-Shoot options under No Tour
  • Bugs & Fixes
    • Updated the Social Media video to a 9:16 aspect ratio (portrait orientation) to better fit with Instagram, TikTok and Facebook Reels. The price of this addon remains the same at $25. 
    • Bathrooms now properly account for 3/4 baths on the Hero features
    • Changed “asking” to “price” for the listing price of the property
    • Fixed co-listing display issues on the flyer editor
    • Profile display settings fixed to show correctly on tour
    • Simplified the Matterport links provided to match Matterport’s standard convention

See below for more details on some new items.

Drag & Drop Content Sections on Story 

With this new option, you can change the order of the content displayed on your virtual tour by simply dragging and dropping the content in the desired order.  Save and update, and the tour is updated.  So if you want Matterport, or the Photo Gallery to be at the top of the tour, right below the “Hero” image, you can change the layout.

You can also change the default order in your profile settings, which will apply to all future tours created. So set it once and forget it.  Check out the video on how easy it is to do.

Branded Documents

With this new tour enhancement, you can upload any kind of branded document, and as long as you mark it contains branded content, it will only show on the branded version of the virtual tour.  This is a great option to add a detailed property overview, a sales sheet about you and your brokerage, a custom property brochure and more.  Check out the video on how easy it is to do, and because we can show the branded version of the virtual tour on the top sites like Zillow with our patented Brandkeepr feature, this content will get seen more often than not as well!

Virtual Timelapse Addon

With the Virtual Timelapse addon, priced at $75, we simulate a 24 hour period at the property using just one daytime photo.  The video gets added to your slideshow video (and/or other custom videos) so you can make your content stand out further.  You also get a virtual twilight photo included as a bonus, a $35 value. Just pick the preferred location of the photo and sky for the virtual twilight photo, and we will create the video and image, then add them to your tour.  Check out some of the examples on how cool it looks.

Click here to see a few more examples 

Blue Skies Through Windows

With the Blue Skies through Windows addon, we will add a blue sky to the selected number of window views, starting with the most important view shots.  So, regardless of the day outside, we can always make it a blue sky day!  Priced at $50 for sets of up to 10 photos.  Just select how many photos you want and we will do the PhotoShop editing and deliver the images for download. 

How to Easily Customize your Story

How to Easily Customize your Story

With the new HomeDiary PRO management system, it’s never been easier to customize the look of your tour, or Story, as we like to call it.  Here’s a few things you can do with the Presentation page, our new real-time Story editor.  See below for a video on how you can do these edits.

  • Preview and select different Themes
  • Customize the Hero section (the first thing you see) by adding a title or banner, show/hide the property description or show/hide property features
  • Select a different Hero Image than the first image in your Photo/Video Gallery
  • Customize the Property Description with a basic text editor with Bold, Italics, bullets and numbered lists
  • Show or Hide content sections
  • You can even preview how the Story looks on different devices, including mobile phones

Use the slider to see the before and after view of the tour

See the Video on how easy it is to customize and enhance your Story

You can also see the sample tour I was working on by clicking here.

If you want to customize your tour more with branded content (only on the branded version of the tour), check out our detailed blog post on the topic here.  With our patented Brandkeepr feature, it’s a great way to leverage your tour to get more business, and differentiation, for YOU!

If you want to learn more about our new digital closing gift (and more), the Diary, check out this post.  It’s great for your new buyers, or even long standing clients.

Holiday Special on The Diary

Holiday Special on The Diary

Looking for a meaningful reason to reach out to your top clients this holiday season?  

We have an awesome promotion on our new Diary product that allows you to create a HomeDiary for your client, add content into it, and then invite them to receive the gift of our home management app that will help them increase the value of their home over time, and save a lot of hassles, and money, along the way.  

We are reducing our introductory price for the Diary between now and January 31, 2023, to just a one-time fee of $15, normally $29. No other subscriptions or fees to keep adding to the Diary over the course of homeownership!

The gift of the HomeDiary app is the perfect reason to touch base with your clients this holiday season.  Call them, tell them about the app you’re going to give them, and maybe add in a hand crafted home value estimate as part of the content you add into the Diary.  But first, ask them if they have done any improvements, like a new bath or kitchen.  This will give you extra data to provide a differentiated home value than those automated AVMs. Provide the value estimate as a Timeline entry with the value determined in the amount field and the CMA as a PDF attachment (or if you have a link, add that too).   See our Implementation Guide for how to add these improvement values to your estimate, and other example use cases of what you and your client can do with HomeDiary.

What do you get?

A sponsored Diary where you can collaborate and curate content for your client’s HomeDiary for the life of the ownership of their home.  Add the closing docs, reminders (like the Closing Statement for tax time), a “To Do” list from the inspection report, or just post a photo of a cool marble slab you know your clients would love for their upcoming kitchen remodel. 

Once you unlock the Diary for collaboration, you can put content in over time for no additional cost for the life of your client’s homeownership!  You are positioned as the default home pro, and your info is just a call, text or email away. 

PS. you also get a free HomeDiary account for your own house.  So add receipts, documents or create a floor plan to show your clients the cool and helpful info that can be part of their Diary.

homediary sponsor

Video on HomeDiary for Homeowners

What does your client get?

A fully functioning HomeDiary, complete with 3D Designer, our drag and drop floor planner and room design tool.  It’s like HGTV, but for their home.  If you have access to a floor plan source, we can convert that into 3D Designer for a one time fee of $30 ($45 total price for the Diary with FloorPlan). Or, you can use our iOS app to scan their home in 5 to 10 minutes and get back a customizable 3D floor plan in 1 to 2 days, priced at $55 until January 31, 2023.  Just ask your client if they have a source they can send you and upload it, and we will convert it into a 3D floor plan. 

Our Holiday Promotion, in summary:

  • Basic Diary – $15
  • Basic Diary+FloorPlan from source – $45
  • Basic Diary+FloorPlan with scan app – $55
There will always be a free version of HomeDiary for a homeowner to use.  It is private and secure by default, but you now have the ability to put content into their HomeDiary with this new feature.  See an idea for a client?  Toggle to their house in the HomeDiary app (or login using your favorite browser) and post an Idea, Reminder or Timeline entry.  Anything you can do for your own home can be done in your client’s home via the app!  All data can be exported out by the homeowner as needed and they can share content cards via the app. 

The Diary opens up new and exciting communication channels between you and your clients. Think of the difference in the relationship created between giving a calendar annually to your clients vs posting a photo of that cool marble slab you found into the Ideas section for your clients’ upcoming kitchen remodel.  It shows you’re invested in their homeownership experience in highly personal and targeted ways, and it keeps you top of mind as their agent who is there to help guide them in their homeownership journey. In other words, it puts you top of mind with your sphere of influence, about 10% of whom will move this year.  That could be 30 to 50 transactions, just by being remembered and present as the person they should be using to sell their home. 

Want this for all of your agents? We do have office and company subscription options where the base Diary is free to the agent, as the company pays a monthly fee on behalf of all agents.  If you are interested in the Office program, please contact us at sales@homediary.com or call 206-384-4400, option 2.

Zillow 3D Home vs Matterport

map of Zillow search

3D this, 3D that.  What’s the difference?

Zillow (along with its subsidiary Trulia) and Redfin are some of the top websites used by consumers.  They both can embed a Matterport or a Zillow 3D Home tour on a listing’s detail page. However, Zillow is kind of dumb when it comes to how it handles virtual tour links – Zillow only looks at virtual tour #1 (currently), all others are ignored.  In the Seattle area, the NWMLS allows up to 3 virtual tour links (a combo virtual tour like FloorPlanOnline’s, a separate Matterport link and say a custom video link).  Other markets may allow for a branded and unbranded tour link.  Unfortunately, as of September of 2022, Zillow will only recognize the first virtual tour put into the MLS.

Thus, we came up with our Zillow 3D Home add-on that gives Zillow enough content for you to “check the box” and get the 3D Home icon (like you see above on the map) but does not give them everything on the home (good from a strategic reason) and still lets you use our virtual tour as a clickable link, which on sites like Zillow, can have automatic rebranding back to the branded virtual tour through our patented Brandkeepr process.

In contrast, Redfin is smart, as they will look at all 3 tour links received, and they will embed Matterport, a video (Vimeo or Youtube), and they can even recognize floor plans from the listing photos, and display them in a separate floor plan tab as well.  We have pointed this out to Zillow and they thought it was a good idea, but it takes time to move a ship.  If they start recognizing all 3 tour links, the need for this separate Zillow 3D Home option is reduced for most use cases since Zillow treats Matterport the same as their own 3D Home app at this point, and your listing gets the 3D Home icon and preferential search treatment if there is a Matterport tour in the data feed.  Better yet, you will not be enabling a competitor by giving them any detailed visual information of the home they can claim exclusive rights to (read their terms of use)….I am sure they have plans to re-market to homeowners down the road with that data, and their terms prevent you and us from using any of it in any manner other than display – so keep it out of their hands!

This video goes through how each site handles the content.

A side by side comparison

Redfin and Zillow highlight listings with “3D” tour content on the map based search results, and they both embed the content on a pop up media window.  Whether your listing has Matterport or Zillow’s 3D Home tour (which is really a 360 tour), they both treat it the same. Redfin calls it a 3D Walkthrough, Zillow calls it a 3D Tour.  Both embed the content, meaning a window pops up and the user stays on the media page where they can also see photos, videos and floor plans (if applicable).

If you do opt for the Zillow 3D Home addon, we will ONLY show it on Zillow.  Unfortunately there is a setting that must be selected every time we do this to NOT distribute it to other brokerage websites.  If this does not get switched off, then if your tour includes both Matterport and a Zillow 3D Home tour, the Zillow tour currently will overwrite the Matterport on Redfin.  We have brought this up with Redfin, as I do not think that is what Redfin would want, so lets hope they fix this, but we can fix it after the fact, just let our support team know and we can reach back out to the service provider, as needed, and the switch will be made within a few hours.  Some of this is a bit our of our control but we do have some ways to work around some of the issues. Again, if Zillow starts recognizing multiple virtual tour links provided in the data feed, the need for the Zillow 3D Home tour add-on will be decreased.  You still may want this if your market only has one virtual tour spot, or if you have a photo tour.  It’s a great way to bump your listing up for more exposure on Zillow and Redfin for not that much money.

The images below show view for the map search and then the listing page and embedded media pages. 

Redfin map search result
redfin 3d walkthrough
image showing pop up content
Zillow map search
Zillow 3d home
image showing a 3D tour on Zillow

AI-based Professional Voiceover

AI-based Professional Voiceover

Introducing Professional Video VoiceOvers.

We can now create a professional sounding voice over for any of your selected videos using a text script either you, or we, write.  Starting at just $50, you get up to 3 minutes of audio for your video.  You can also add the audio to multiple videos we create, including the free Slideshow Video.

Just listen to the professional narration for this 3D Walkthrough Video below created with our VoiceOver Service.

The cool part is you can listen to one of 8 available voice avatar voices and then select the right voice for you and your listing.  Just click the Play button under each person below to preview the available voices speaking the same marketing text.  You will notice some speak things just a little bit differently, and you can’t tell this is not a real human speaking!  The magic is in the artificial intelligence text -to-speech processing engine that converts that text script into a professional voice over.

Just read and listen to this paragraph at the same time, as narrated by Jeremy, to see how we bring text to speech!

Or listen to all of our available voices.

Don’t have time to write the script?

We added an option where we write the script for you based on your key talking points and other info from the tour.  It’s just $50 extra for us to write the script for you, up to 3 minutes of total audio created.  Even with this, our voice over service is much more cost effective than other options that start at $150-$200 and take 3 days to complete.  We will turn around a first draft within 24 hours or less, and you get 2 free edit opportunities.  So save some money and write the script yourself, or save some time, and have us write it.

To add a voice over to one of your videos, just visit our VoiceOver Service page by clicking below and complete the form to add the voice over script or key talking points, and we will get started enhancing your video!

VoiceOver Service

Enhance any of your videos with a narrated professional voice over

VoiceOvers add value

A voice over helps communicate far more information beyond what the media or text can show

Zillow’s Consumer Report for 2021 Summary

Zillow’s Consumer Report for 2021 Summary

Zillow just released an update to their consumer report they do annually in the first part of September of 2021.  Here is a quick summary as it related to products and services FloorPlanOnline provides.

  • 81% of buyers were more likely to view a listing if it had a floor plan they liked
  • 56% stated they wasted their time with a floor plan layout of the home they did not like
  • 74% think dynamic floor plans (interactive plans like what we offer where you click to see the photo of the space) helps buyers screen homes.
  • 68% think 3D tours help them get a better feel for the space.
  • 61% wish more listings had 3D tours
  • 38% even said they prefer 3D tours over in-person visits and
  • up to 59% would buy sight unseen.  This closely matches what 1000Watt found with the Millennial buyer at 64% willing to buy sight unseen.

With covid, providing as much content as possible online really is in the best interests for your sellers as it is less hassle but more importantly, it is the safest way to show a home, and it can increase the demand pool, and therefore the price (by up to 9% more than market average according to Matterport). Matterport has done their own research – 88% of sellers want to work with agents that offer 3D tours, and 82% would switch agents.

Zillow in past research also found that 84% of buyers think having floor plans as part of an online listing is more important than photos and a video, by almost a 2 to 1 margin. This is why Zillow is pushing their 3D Home app as it attracts more and more users to their site.  Redfin understands this as well.  So, if you want to compete, you really need a 3D Walkthrough Tour, and you need to make sure it is on your website!