by Kris Cone | Mar 29, 2022 | Real Estate Info, Service Provider, What's New
Welcome to the Spring 2022 Listing Season
As we begin our 17th year serving you, we are recommitting that we will provide the BEST customer service and home-related platform in the world, offering you features and functionality you will not find anywhere else, including:
- Brandkeepr – our patented process that keeps YOUR brand on YOUR tour on the top sites like Zillow, Realtor.com and Trulia. In fact, 98% of the Top 10 real estate search sites can display your brand on our tour. This leaves “breadcrumbs” back to you, and has proven to get agents more business, both on the sell and buy side.
- Real-time editing tools to configure your tour, edit your flyer, sequence/enhance your video and even edit/enhance your floor plans on demand. No other tour provider has their own floor plan tool because they all use a 3rd party to create just a floor plan image or PDF file. We create a true 3D model that can be used by you and the owner throughout the whole ownership lifecycle, including on our tour with the drag and drop furniture planner and in HomeDiary as a management tool for the owner, or keepsake for the seller. Coming soon – Gross living area calculations for each property that adds wall factors in addition to the internal area, so you will have a more comparable result against the tax records or appraisals (which can, and often, are not correct).
- HomeDiary integration that lets the content live on post sale – through our “Claim Home” menu option, the photos and the 3D floor plan model are copied to the buyer and seller’s private HomeDiary account upon request (and your approval). Soon, we will also have ways you can create a digital closing gift and more on the buy and living side with our transition to HomeDiary PRO. This will keep you in front of your clients by enabling you to add relevant content into your client’s HomeDiary accounts for their lifetime of ownership.
You can see the full list of the value of our tour , platform and the various services we provide in our feature list below.
We want your feedback.
We want to be your go to provider for all your property needs. So we have implemented a new quick feedback mechanism. Please submit your feeback here.
Check Out Our New or Coming Soon Value Adds:
- BLUE SKY GUARANTEE. Weather less than desirable? We have you covered. Starting now, we will replace those gray skies with pretty blue ones for NO CHARGE for all exterior photos. Other companies charge extra for this included service.
- LIVE: Beta Testing of the new Order Management System with new features for HomeDiary PRO, an industry first platform that not only allows you to create tours, or Stories, for your listings, but you can curate content for the buy or living side with our Sponsored Diaries option. Over the past year plus, we completely recoded our whole system we spent the last 17 years building, with new functionality you will not find anywhere else in the world. So stay relevant by populating the Diary with closing docs, a recommended “To Do’s” list from the inspection report and more. You can even add quarterly or annual professional CMA’s right into a user’s HomeDiary, compliments of, and branded by, you as a way to stay relevent with your key clients over time.
- The best floor plan tool will get even better in 2022 with gross living area (“GLA“) calculations in addition to the internal measured area, so you can corroborate the county tax records or the calculations of an appraisal. Stay tuned for this in the coming months.
- Added a Voiceover Service starting at $25 that can be ordered on any of our video services
- Added a Matterport Walkthrough Video add-on service for just $50 when you order a 3D Walkthrough Tour
- Added Virtual Staging Service with the ability to add similar furniture to the space on the floor plan tool, starting at just $65 per image. We can even convert an unfinished basement into a finished space for $20 more.
- Added a new Custom Brochure process – We are now leveraging Canva to create custom flyers that you can then edit and get printed at your local FedEx store for cheaper and faster turn around. We also created an editable handout using Canva you can provide your prospective sellers – Download it here.
- We are working to update the social media videos to a “story” format that is portrait sized so it matches Facebook, Instagram and TikTok specs for story videos.
Pricing Updates for 2022
As of April 1, we have adjusted our pricing in various markets. Please use our price calculator to estimate a price for your area. Just note the calculator does not reflect any custom pricing that may be in place for your company (login to your account to see custom pricing in effect).
Costs have gone up significantly – from gas, to food, to people costs. We have not increased our prices in over two years, so we will be increasing prices in most markets to ensure continued excellent service for you by our collective team. We pay our service providers much more than most other national competitors, in some cases 2 times as much. Why? Because we believe having a quality individual to service your needs year in, year out, is more important than squeezing as much money out of people as possible (which causes high churn of photographers in other companies). In addition our proprietary photo process is more detailed and time consuming, but the end result really beats the competition in terms of a superior quality photo. Our production team spends upwards of 5 hours per tour producing the best content for your listing.
Why our Platform, and Service, is the Best
All Tours include:
- Fast loading, optimized tours hosted for up to 1 year on Amazon Web Services with CDN content cashing for the optimial user experience (see below for Matterport hosting)
- HD sized Photo gallery for big, full screen viewing of the photos, optimized with a scroll view on mobile
- Downloadable photos with on demand custom sizing to fit every upload need
- Editable & downloadable slideshow video with text explainer slides and floor plans sync’d and built-in (if applicable)*
- Editable & downloadable flyers, with floor plans built-in (if applicable)
- Embeddable code to post on your website or blog
- Branded and unbranded versions for the MLS and beyond with auto linking of the virtual tour (and sometimes photos) for select MLS platforms
- Brandkeepr* – our patented process that keeps your brand on your tour on the top sites like Zillow for free leads from the websites people actually use most
- Claim Home to HomeDiary* – the buyer and seller can claim the home right from the tour and get a copy of the photos and floor plans (including our 3D Designer tool) put into their private HomeDiary, and you get attribution on the content provided (note you are NOT the “official sponsor” by default so there should be no “anit-competitive” issue here).
- HomeDiary Sponsorship* – invite your clients first to HomeDiary to become the Sponsored agent when they claim the home, or invite all past clients using your HD invite code, and give each client a free HomeDiary account, a benefit of your free FloorPlanOnline account membership
- Mobile responsive on any device – everything works, including the interactive floor plan* (unlike the competition)
- Unlimited customer support, 8 am to 8 pm EST
* features you will not find on ANY other virtual tour platform
The Feartures aross the Ownership Lifecycle can be summarized in this table
We also put a lot of work into the production of a tour. Here are things we do.
Photo Editing. Premium HDR Photography that uses a proprietary process to blend 2 flash and 5 ambient images into one crisp and stunning HDR (“high dynamic range”) image. All HDR is NOT created equal so don’t be fooled by claims of automated tech or cheap pricing – you get what you pay for… We take the HDR image and finish it with our standard editing processes done at no extra cost (whereas competitors charge extra for some of these tasks):
- window replacement for clear views
- exterior sky replacement – blue skies guaranteed!
- TV black outs
- fire in fireplaces
- lighting and color adjustment
- straightening and perspective correction
- cloning out small imperfections such as dangling power cords or flash reflections
- Blurring Agent Sign info, license plate numbers, pictures of children
Additional editing available for an extra free per photo
- grass replacement/green grass
- Recolor of skies, water, etc.
- Blue skies through interior windows
- Images on TV screens
- cloning out larger items
- removing items or other advanced Photoshop work
- Aerial Property boundary lines/point of interest callouts
FloorPlan Production. We draw the floor plan based on the source file and add basic details such as windows, doors, bath and kitchen layout. We provide the total interior measured and drawn area, with gross living area (“GLA”) square footage coming in 2022 using a standard wall thickness of 6.5 inches, but we CAN adjust for wall thickness, so if a property does have thicker walls, it can be taken into account. Standard output is a black and white plan in jpeg and PDF format with an included 3D model and 3D Designer, our drag and drop furniture planner/designer that brings an HGTV-like floor planning tool to every listing, and home. You can also edit the floor plan in real-time, enhance it on your own with flooring details or furniture, and even create unlimited 3D snapshot photos of the 2D and 3D views.
Additional enhancements for an extra fee include:
- Colored FloorPlans – we add a color scheme to the standard black and white floor plan
- 3D Enhanced FloorPlan – we match flooring and wall colors of the property, add more detail to kitchen and bath layouts
- Coming in 2022 – 3D Enhanched FloorPlan with Furniture – we virtually stage the floor plan with furniture to provide more perspective and show the layout to help people visualize the space more
Matterport/3D Walkthrough Production. We sequence the walkthrough of the property based on how a user would conduct an actual physical visit of the home – starting at the front door and going through the whole house, top to bottom. Most providers do nothing other than give you a link. With the push of the Play button, users are taken through a typical home in around 2-3 minutes, saving them and you time and simplifying the 3D Matterport experience.
Additional enhancements for an extra fee include
- Walkthrough Video – a recorded video of the walkthrough with floor plan overlays that can be separately downloaded and embedded, shown on social media, etc.
- Separate downloads available for the Matterpak or E57 file on request and based on camera used for an extra fee
Matterport Hosting. Please note the active Matterport portion of your tour is hosted for the shorter of the active listing period OR 12 months. The Matterport does not need to be active on the tour after a short period of time post close, so in order to control your costs, and for the privacy of the new owner, we archive the Matterport portion of the tour once the property is marked either sold or off market.
FYI, most homeowners do not want their tour visible on the Internet once closed. We receive requests weekly to remove tour and videos on sold properties. So, please, if you have a special need to keep a Matterport active after the property is off market, contact us for options in those unique cases.
Want to showcase a virtual tour with an active Matterport to show prospective sellers to win the listing? No problem. Each account has a free “Demo House” tour included, that is basically this virtual tour but with your branding. It includes an active Matterport, so you can show people how you will market their home on your laptop or iPad in real-time, and “wow” them with the custom home website and all of the tools you will provide. It is certainly a way to differentiate at the listing appointment, as well as online, and since we can show your brand and contact info on your tour (using Brandkeepr) on the top sites, it is a great way to get more business and win that silent interview with both sellers and buyers that go online first.
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. .
by Kris Cone | Sep 19, 2016 | Listing Tools, Service Provider, Technology
This is an update to my original post back in 2017.
Drone photo and video footage can add some cool and interesting views to real estate listings. But to create them for real estate purposes, which is considered a commercial use, the person controlling the drone (the “Pilot in Command”) must be legal, which means they should have an FAA issued Remove Pilot certificate (small UAV license). Failure to do so can mean fines as well as possible jail time. To get a certificate, you must pass the remote pilot knowledge test, which asks questions about airspace, weather, who qualifies, airport operations, emergency procedures and pre-flight/flight procedures, to name a few. just because you do have a license does not mean you can fly everywhere. Many areas around larger cities do have airspace class restrictions and if you do not know what they are or how to get approval, you are putting your client, and yourself at huge risk, by not only fines by the FAA, but possibly personal liability if something bad happened.
I passed my test in 2017, so I am a sUAV pilot! I thought I would pass along my experience if you are interested. I will say, I think it is a good idea that people have to go through this whole process, and in fact, I would almost suggest a hobbyist have to go though it as well, given the consequences of someone doing something stupid with another plane in the sky….but that is for another day. I did learn a lot and have a good appreciation for why there is a need for this process.
Studying. I started to read some different documents (like the Pilots Handbook), but could barely keep myself awake. So I finally broke down and bought access to a video tutorial site. I used these guys. http://remotepilot101.com Jason does a great job going through the material and emphasizing what is important and what is likely to be on the test. It is $149 and well worth it because you will need to retake the test every 2 years and your initial purchase covers you for future years. After each section there are sample questions, that look very similar to the real test questions. There is a final exam at the end as well. Here is my drone tutorial I created. But to get the full effect you need to buy the video course and then you can understand what these are all about.
This is all I did. I would suggest reading at least the summary to the Part 107 rules & regulations. There are a few questions about eligibility. Here are some helpful resources:
Taking the test. You need to go to an official testing station to take the computer test.
- Need to schedule the test first. There is a list of testing centers below but I was told you have to call PSI to schedule it. 800-211-2754 – It costs $150. They also said you need to be a member of www.aopa.org and you get $10 off if you are member too. I signed up for the free student membership. see the test centers here
- The Test. It was pretty much like the sample questions in the RemotePilot101. They had some images as part of the questions. Note…I was provided a test supplement, but I thought it was really more for a real pilot’s test as the lady also gave me some other measuring tools and she did not mention that the images ARE IN THE BOOK…so I did not even use it…but the images in the test questions ARE in the book, and this makes answering the questions a lot easier, as I could not really read some of the details on the computer. So, while I did pass, I probably would have gotten at least 3 or 4 questions right had I just looked in the book! It took me about 45 minutes. I answered most questions, I flagged a few and then went back through each question using the 1990’s style navigation…so you do have an opportunity to go revisit any question again. When you are done, close out and the testing person gets your results, and then prints your certificate if you pass!
Getting the Remote Pilot License. Register and then go through the process here iacra.faa.gov. Note – you need the Knowledge Test ID and this is not available until 48 hours after your test…I guess someone needs to put in a punch card or something into the old government computers…
I finalized my application at iacra.faa.gov. The process was a little clunky, but it found my test and you digitally sign the documents. So, I believe at this point I am an official Drone Pilot! Not that I will be doing a lot, but given I run the company I thought it would be good to have the knowledge and capability…and hey, I have to admit, it is fun (except when there is a fly away…which I did experience playing around at Weatherby Lake). Remember the return to home button.
After a few days you can log back in and print off your temporary certificate! You do not need to wait to fly to get yours in the mail.
One last thing I thought was funny. One of the test questions involved my home town in Iowa – Onawa. Population 3000. What are the odds of that??? I thought it was destiny that I should become a Drone Pilot, aka DronebyCone.
Getting a Drone. In the Seattle area, we have 4 different drones. Two DJI Phantom 3 Advanced and two DJI Mavic Pros. Based on my experience, the Mavic is easier to use and there is less risk of it losing connection and having the drone go crazy. DJI is to come out with an update to the Mavic soon (as of April 2018), so I may get one of those. DJI, Amazon or eBay are good sources to buy. If you buy the drone other than from the DJI website, you can still buy the DJI Care, which is crash protection but you need to activate it BEFORE you ever fly. Check our their service options here. I am not sure you really need 4K video since most computers are NOT 4K and 60% of users are on mobile anyway. But the Mavic does shoot in 4K video and good photo size.
Insurance. To work with FloorPlanOnline, you need insurance. I would imagine the larger brokerages will require some kind of coverage as well. I am investigating options, including a possibility to have an overall umbrella policy to cover all activities within our network. I was told this group www.modelaircraft.org comes with $2.5 million of liability insurance, but when you look at the details, it DOES NOT cover business pursuits. So investigating other options. I found an app called Verifly where you can buy insurance on demand for $10-$25 for 1 hour within 1/2 mile radius of your flight (price varies based on where you are and the risk to them). So this might be a good option starting out. I have read some other posts that insurance can run $800 to $1000 per year and one of our providers mentioned a renewal bill for $1500! So, price accordingly! Your break even on number of jobs at $10 each for insurance is 120 or so…
Preflight Checklist. As I am helping out as the PIC before our Seattle provider Christine gets certified, my first job was to be today. Well, like a good certified PIC, I first checked the airspace, and low and behold, the area I was going to shoot in is a class D space that is controlled from the ground to 2500 feet! So, I had to refresh myself on the process AND get approval from the Renton ATC. Note…the new process is you have to submit an airspace authorization through the FAA’s website. There is a small UAV button on the main page that takes you to this form https://www.faa.gov/uas/request_waiver/ you have to fill out IF you need airspace authorization. So I thought I would just include this in a checklist that could be used every time. See my Checklist. Feel free to print it out or request a copy.
If the first item comes back you will be in a class G, then you can stop and go shoot after checking the Notams/weather, but otherwise, you need to get clearance. It turns out a lot of high priced property (like all of Mercer Island, WA) is included in Class D airspace in the Seattle area as you can see. The dashed blue line means Class D airspace and the [25] means it is from the surface to 2500 feet. So to fly in these areas you must get clearance to be legal. It is a good idea to go to Skyvector and just look around the areas you normally will serve to get a feel for what kind of airspace you will be dealing with. If we do a lot of Mercer Island stuff, it will become a pain in the butt fast having to call every time…and the 90 days in advance thing does not fly with real estate, so warn your clients of the possibility of reshoots! But hey…we are being legal and I know I do not look good in an orange jump suit.
That is about it. I think there is lots of opportunity to provide some cool aerial images, videos and even expand the services of what we do and who we work with. So get going, start studying and get your remote pilot license!
How to sell it. We are rolling out a new order from that can merchandise anything you might want to sell. We are experimenting in Seattle with some custom videos. You can see some examples of the videos on our Vimeo channel: https://vimeo.com/floorplanonline If you want to provide this kind of content we can leverage our production group, and when the new order from comes to your market, it will be part of the order flow. Contact us for questions there.
Cheers,
Kris Cone
Drone Pilot, FloorPlanOnline jack of all trades.
by chrisdrayer | Oct 1, 2010 | Listing Tools, Real Estate Info, Service Provider, Technology, What's New
FloorPlanOnline is excited to announce expanded FloorPlan Creation service in many major metropolitan markets across the United States.
Tampa, Nashville, New Orleans, Austin, Houston, Albuquerque, & San Diego homes, and many more places in between, can now be measured and floor plans created by our authorized FloorPlanOnline service providers. More than 20,000 new zip codes nationwide are included in our new “on site” FloorPlan service provider coverage area.
This means we will come to you and draw your floor plan. This material will be used to create a virtual tour complete with branded and unbranded tour links that can be posted to the MLS, Realtor.com, your website, Facebook, Twitter and now, even YouTube!
If you take your own photos (or use your own photographer) and would like to use them in conjunction with our floor plan service, you can order the Partial Service-FloorPlan Creation option. Our production team will integrate your pictures into the floor plan to create an Interactive FloorPlan Tour!
The FloorPlan rendering will show interior walls and room dimensions, as well as door & window locations. When the Virtual Tour is complete, home buyers can click the kitchen, and see the kitchen. The photos are embedded in the floor plan.
Plus, each Partial Service order includes our popular RoomPlanner feature, where prospective buyers can drag and drop furniture, beds, rugs and more onto the floor plan to experiment with room placement. Its a virtual staging tool, included at no additional cost as part of the premium Interactive FloorPlan Virtual Tour.
Coverage Map. The map below shows our total service area. We can always create a tour on a self service basis from any location around the world, but if you want us to visit the property, we’ve got you covered in the U.S.! The Red areas are Full Service Photo and FloorPlan coverage. The Green areas are Partial Service – FloorPlan Creation. Just add your photos to make an Interactive FloorPlan. And remember, you get the RoomPlanner included at no additional cost with every Interactive FloorPlan Tour, regardless of the service level!
Red-Full Service Photo & FloorPlan coverage | Green-Partial Service – FloorPlan Creation
You can also use our price calculator to see if Full or Partial Service is available for your listing, and get an estimate on the price.
Or call us at 866-81-3816 option 2 for sales or option 3 for customer care, or use the form below to email us for more information. To see samples of our tours, please visit www.floorplanonline.com today!
