Appointment Dates in Manage Tours

by Kris Cone | Sep 1, 2021 | Real Estate Info, Service Provider

Now your confirmed appointment date and time will show up under Tour Status on the Manage Tours page. In the past, it was only sent via email, and often, people could not find it. When you place an order, your provider will call you to confirm a time and date. If you have a specific time in mind when you place an order, you can add that time by selecting Other and then entering in the exact time for that day.

This goes to the service provider as part of their work order, so they know exactly when you want the appointment. This is not a Confirmed Time until the service provider contacts you to confirm your desired time. Note, we also fixed a bug that did not display the time right on the work order, so we apologize for any past miscommunications as this was recently discovered!

When you and your service provider agree on the exact time and date, the service provider puts that info into our system and it now shows up on the Manage Tours page under Tour Status.If you have a change to the time, it is best to just forward the confirmation email back to support@floorplanonline.com and we can coordinate changes with the service provider. Just provide your new desired time and date and reason for change. Note, changes need to be made outside of 24 hrs of the confirmed appointment to avoid any change fees. At times there may be different things to juggle around and just changing it in the system can be problematic so please reach out to care for changes. .

Virtual Showings in times of Covid, and beyond

by Kris Cone | Aug 15, 2021 | Real Estate Info

The real estate market continues to be on fire across the country. In many cases homes are selling in days, if not hours. So you might be asking…why do I need a virtual tour with advanced content in such a hot market?

Answer: It can help you Win the Listing & Win the Sale.

a video of the matterport and first person walk through.

Win the Listing

99% of sellers think it makes their home more competitive
88% of sellers want agents that offers 3D tours
82% of sellers would switch agents too

Win the Sale

Sell for up to 9% more than the market average
92% of buyers more likely to buy if it had this content
84% of buyers think floor plans online are important
55% of all buyers (64% of Millennials) would buy sight unseen with the right 3D content

See all the Research here.

Win the Listing.

In order to have a listing, you need to get it in the first place. As you see on our Research page, 88% of sellers want to work with agents that offer 3D tours because 99% of them think it makes their home more competitive. Futher, 82% of sellers would even switch agents to one that offered 3D tours. So it stands to reason, if you communicate how you will use technology to create this kind of content at the listing appointment, you will immediately differentiate yourself from most other agents that are only offering photos (and in many cases not very good ones), and get that listing, every time!

So if you’re looking for an edge to get that listing, use our customizable listing presentation template at your next appointment and walk away with the listing. You can even use our sample tour and show the seller in real-time a tour with all the content you can provide for their home. You get a copy of this tour when you sign up to create your free account. It has your branding, including logo, photo and our contact lead form, so you can show prospective sellers how it will work right from your iPad or laptop. It even has an active Matterport 3D Walkthrough experience so you can show them the complete functionality and how it is the safest way to show their home, and much less hassle too. If you have been with FloorPlanOnline for some time, you can add the active Matterport into the sample tour. See our help doc on how to add Matterport to your sample tour. You can even use the sample tour as ad content – post this tour to social media, create an ad (boost the post on your Facebook business page, for example) and show people how you will market their home in real-time.

The Tour can also help get you more listings online by getting you seen in more places, because our patent-pending Brandkeepr process converts the unbranded tour you put into the MLS back to a branded one on sites like Zillow and Realtor.com, for free. We recognize where the user is coming from and automatically convert it on select sites. It helps get you more business, just like it did with Valerie who parlayed one listing into 2 more deals with a gross commission income value of $2.5 million, or around $75,000 in ADDITIONAL commission. This is a FloorPlanOnline exclusive and only available with our tour.

As I can attest, FloorPlanOnline can help you get more business.

I received a call from a potential buyer who saw one of my listings online. While the home sold quickly and she was too late, she was so impressed with my marketing presentation, powered by FloorPlanOnline, she not only hired me to sell her high-end home, but I helped her buy her new one, too. That one listing was responsible for an additional $2.5M in sales.

I would not have gotten the new client by providing just photos. This buyer specifically called me based on my FloorPlanOnline presentation. That’s why the FloorPlanOnline platform is my go-to team for creating amazing content for my sellers, as well as a tool for new buyers through its HomeDiary integration, which can be a channel of new business too.

Valerie MacKnight

Broker/Realtor, Windermere Real Estate

The bottom line is this – your listing gives you a free opportunity to not only market your listing, but yourself, IF you use the FloorPlanOnline Tour, because Brandkeepr shows your brand on the top sites people use most, and it leaves breadcrumbs back to you, just like Valerie experienced.

“Just uploading photos to the MLS does not maximize your potential to get free leads and advertising on sites people actually use most…namely Zillow, Realtor.com and Redfin.”

You never know who might be looking at your listing. It could be someone downsizing, as in Valerie’s case. Or it could be something that lives in a multi million dollar mansion and it looking at rental properties. Each of these touch points is an opportunity for you to showcase how you will market their home when it comes time to sell. I can guarantee Zillow will be marketing to these same people with similar content – they are just going to want them to use the Zillow apps. Look at Zillow’s research – floor plans and 3D tours are highly desired content by buyers, and they can flip that to benefits for the seller. If you use our tour, you provide more and better content, and keep it out of the hands of Zillow.

Win the Sale.

The FloorPlanOnline tour not only can help you differentiate at the listing appointment, it can help you differentiate online with our tour, which can also be a source for not only buyer leads, but seller leads, as Valerie experienced. But remember, sellers were once buyers, so what resonates with buyers, also resondates with sellers. According to Zillow research, 84% of buyers think floor plans are important content to have as part of the online search process.

Unfortunately, covid appears to be with us for some time into the future. Covid has shifted the dynamics of home marketing. Over 50% of buyers are leery of in-person home visits. Further, 55% of all buyers, and 64% of Millennial buyers (the largest buying group), say they would be willing to buy a property sight-unseen IF the listing had the right kind of 3D content and floor plans. Let me repeat that:

“55% of all buyers, and 64% of Millennial buyers (the largest buying group), say they would be willing to buy a property sight-unseen IF the listing had the right kind of 3D content and floor plans.”

You can provide safe and effective virtual showing tools that can actually increase the number of people “touring” your listing. All of this technology keeps your sellers safer and it is frankly a lot more convenient for them, and for you. They don’t have to leave their house every time someone wants to see the home, and buyers can use it to tour a home anytime, or use it for potential remodeling projects: to measure for new carpet or hardwoods, to get estimates for painting or wall paper estimates, or to count the number of doorknobs, hinges or even light bulbs for updating. The FloorPlanOnline tour is really the next best thing to being there, and it can pay for itself by capturing just one more deal for you.

Given more and more people are likely coming to your city from out of town, make your listing accessible anytime, anywhere with the 3D Walkthrough Tour. It can increase the demand base to anyone with an Internet connection, and per research, can it increase the final sales price by up to 9% MORE than the market average. So it pays for itself – as we all learned in economics, increased demand drives up prices, and this is how you do it for your listings! This is a win-win for you and your seller.

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HomeDiary for your Clients

by Kris Cone | Jul 28, 2021 | Listing Tools, Real Estate Info, Technology

HomeDiary is a home management system created by FloorPlanOnline. The content created for the listing lives on for both the buyer and the seller, as a management tool, and keepsake, respectively. Each home can be claimed by both the Buyer and the Seller right from the virtual tour.

In this webinar, we do a deep dive into what HomeDiary is and how it can work for you. Did I mention it was free?

How to add documents to a tour

by Kris Cone | Jul 27, 2021 | Real Estate Info

Did you know you can upload documents and show them on the tour itself? They show next to the flyer and printable floor plan files with any name you provide for it. This is great if you need to show listing related documents on your marketing. For example cities like Portland and Austin require some kind of home energy score (“HES”) to sell a listing, and the rules require you to display it as a link on your marketing. You can use our feature to upload your HES and show it as a clickable icon. When clicked, it downloads the PDF of the HES!

you can upload any document to the tour and display it as an available download

We accept Word or PDF attachments as tour documents. Things such as seller’s disclosures, home energy scores, bug inspections or even a pre-sale home inspection report could be added to the tour so potential buyers can see all of the info and help them make a better decision.

To add a document, just go to Manage Tours, then Edit Details to get the the listing page. Scroll down almost to the bottom until you see the Tour Documents section. Enter a display name for the document, find the file on your computer and then upload. You can add more or delete a document too. Just remember to save, and the document then shows up on the tour.

to add a tour document, just select the file on your computer, add a name for it and then save the edits.

How to change the music on your slideshow video

by Kris Cone | Jul 27, 2021 | Help & FAQ, Real Estate Info

Did you know you can change the music on the included slideshow video in just a few clicks? All you need to do is navigate to Manage Tours, then Edit Tour on the right, and go to the Edit Photos/Video tab. Once there, select the Settings icon and you will see a list of music. Select the dropdown and you can see genres and play a snippet of a song to get the right one for you and your listing. Save, then hit the Update Video button, and your video will be updated on the tour with a few minutes typically, and you can download it under Manage Tours if you want to post it to your own website or social media.

this image shows the video editor and how to change music on the slideshow video

If you want to get really creative, check out our webinar on how to create an amazing slideshow video. It goes into detail on how to use the transitions, add your own video clips or use our text explainer slide feature to add explanations or even create custom call to action slides.

How a tour made Valerie an extra $2.5M in Sales

by Kris Cone | Jul 18, 2021 | Listing Tools, Real Estate Info, Testimonies

Are your listings selling you?

In these hot real estate times, people often wonder…why do I need a tour? Just get some photos, put up a sign, and it will sell.

Sure, your listing will likely sell pretty fast. But will it sell you?

What I mean by this is your listing is a perfect opportunity to not only market the listing, but yourself. More people are online now more than ever before, and advanced content to sell homes, including floor plans and 3D tours, has proven to increase the ultimate sales price by up to 9% more than the market average, because more and more people can “see it,” either in person, or virtually. This increases the demand pool, and the number of people bidding on your listing! Limitations such as available showing time slots also limit physical visit opportunities. Not to mention over half of buyers are leary of visiting properties due to covid, and what about your seller and their family…they probably do not want a bunch of people walking around their house too. There is a safer, more hassle free alternative. It can also help reduce commission pressure if you can sell the listing for more, which effectively pays for the commission. Finally, in many markets, out of town buyers represent a large portion of those looking for a new home, so make it easy to help them see it virtually with the FloorPlanOnline tour.

After all, according to research, 55% of buyers say they would buy a home sight unseen if it had the right kind of 3D content on the listing.

But the second part of this equation is marketing yourself. Buyers and future sellers will see you and your brand/contact info through FloorPlanOnline’s patent-pending Brandkeepr feature that automatically converts the unbranded virtual tour you put into the MLS into a branded one when the virtual tour link or button is clicked on the top sites people visit most, like Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com and Redfin. We can put your brand on your virtual tour on about 97% of the top 10 websites! So you get seen by more people in more places, complete with your logo, photo and our lead capture form. For free.

Just uploading photos to the MLS does not leverage the ability to sell and market you and your services on websites that get over 300 million monthly visitors!

Does it work? Just look how Valerie, a long time client of FloorPlanOnline, parlayed a listing into two more transactions worth $2.5 million in gross commission income. That’s about $75,000 in commission at 3%! We call this winning the sale.

As I can attest, FloorPlanOnline can help you get more business.

I received a call from a potential buyer who saw one of my listings online. While the home sold quickly and she was too late, she was so impressed with my marketing presentation, powered by FloorPlanOnline, she not only hired me to sell her high-end home, but I helped her buy her new one, too. That one listing was responsible for an additional $2.5M in sales.

I would not have gotten the new client by providing just photos. This buyer specifically called me based on my FloorPlanOnline presentation. That’s why the FloorPlanOnline platform is my go-to team for creating amazing content for my sellers, as well as a tool for new buyers through its HomeDiary integration, which can be a channel of new business too.

Valerie MacKnight

Broker/Realtor, Windermere Real Estate

The whole point of this testimony is you never know who is going to see your listing and what their goal is with a purchase or a sale. It could be someone looking to downsize, as in Valerie’s case, or maybe someone is looking at an investment property, and they have a much larger home to eventually sell. Or, it could even be someone in your sphere of influence that sees your listing, as “casual real estate browsing” is a popular pastime, and these large portals attract a big following of people just looking around. Check out Zillow’s pretty funny take on this topic below from a Saturday Night Live skit.

The FloorPlanOnline Tour creates content to provide to your sphere. 10 to 15% of your sphere of influence (your past clients, friends, neighbors) will move in a typical year, so you never know when the time is right for someone to make a change, and call you based on your listing, and virtual tour. So email them with a link to the tour, create a blog post and embed the tour tour on it, and post your tour in one click to Facebook, Twitter and even upload the slideshow video into Instagram. It is all content, and it can lead people back to you.

How much would it cost you to get this much exposure on Zillow without a listing? Probably over $1,000 a month. So leverage the virtual tour that leaves breadcrumbs back to you with Brandkeepr, an exclusive only available with the FloorPlanOnline virtual tour. Your opportunity cost far outweighs the incremental cost of a virtual tour.

One last point – we can help you win the listing. Sellers were once buyers, so if this content resonates with buyers, it will resonate with sellers too. So at your next listing appointment, use your free demo tour you get when you sign up, complete with an active Matterport 3D experience, or use parts of our customizable listing presentation and show your potential seller how you will market their home using a single property website, complete with a 3D property scan, so anyone can tour the home 24/7 which is safer for them and their family, and much less hassle too, before, during and after the sale the sale, because the tour can be used by the buyer to:

measure for paint, carpet or wallpaper removal estimates
count doors and door hardware for replacement
view layouts of the kitchen or bath for remodeling ideas
and much more – what they can do in person, can be done virtually without having to disturb you or your seller

They will also get 2D/3D floor plans so browsers can virtually remodel by changing flooring, wall colors, adding or removing walls or experimenting with landscaping ideas. They can even drag and drop furniture to see how their favorite rug might fit in a room. Push a button and they can view it in first person or top view 3D, similar to what you see on those HGTV shows. And of course, they will get amazing photos of their home which have been proven to sell properties faster and for more money too according to a Redfin study.

When the sale is done, the buyer gets a copy of the photos and floorplans put into their own private HomeDiary via our Claim Home to HomeDiary integration. And, the seller can claim the home and get a copy too as a keepsake, compliments of you. If they bought a new home, they can also use HomeDiary to manage their new pad. Invite them first and you get free sponsorship! We are working on updating our whole system, so later in 2021 we will have the ability to create a sponsored HomeDiary for your buyers in a much more streamlined process, so stay tuned!

Check out the webinar on HomeDiary here.