Saratoga News

Photograph by Robert Scheer

David Rapp plans the route he'll take while videotaping a Cupertino home that recently went on the market. The footage will be placed on the Internet, and interested home buyers will be able to point to options they like--like a fireplace or staircase--and then zoom in on the object and print out an image.

Real estate buyers walk through homes virtually

By Sarah Lombardo

Plenty of home buyers have felt the urge to stroll alone through a house for sale, snapping pictures of features they like and taking their time. Now, via the Internet, home buyers can come pretty close to doing that.

Alain Pinel Realtors and a Fremont-based Internet video company have introduced video tours of homes for sale on the real estate firm's Web site, which let buyers take a virtual "walk" through other homes in the privacy of their own.

"It allows you, in the comfort of your own home, to preview properties without any pressure," Carole Rodoni, president of Alain Pinel Realtors, said.

Narayanan Ram, president of NetXL, said it took the company about nine months to develop the technology to create a relatively smooth video. With a patent pending, NetXL Internet Photography approached Alain Pinel earlier this year with the idea to create home tours.

The initial cost for the home tours was close to $200 per home. Alain Pinel then approached Norwest Mortgage, which agreed to subsidize the feature in exchange for a link from the Alain Pinel Web site by which prospective home buyers can apply for a home loan. The agreement brought the cost down to $99 per home to be posted on the site for 60 days. If a homeowner would like the home to appear longer, it costs $25 per month.

Alain Pinel Realtors has an exclusive on the feature, "for as long as they keep using it," Ram said.

The feature provides a four-minute walk-through tour of a home from the front yard to the back. Visitors to the Alain Pinel Web site simply click on the homes they want to tour. If viewers see something during the tour they like or want to look at again, they can take "snapshots" to download or print out and then continue the tour. And the feature offers the tour in streaming video form, at about six or seven frames per second.

"It really gives you the flow of the home," Ram said.

According to Rodoni, it also saves time. "You'll know right away from the video if the home's for you," she said. Rodoni said most home buyers have an idea of what floor plan they want in a future home, and the video lets buyers get a feel for the floor plan without having to actually drive to the home.

But the video tour doesn't benefit just the home buyer. The tour also offers home sellers the prospect of having only serious buyers visit the home, buyers who have already "walked" through the home and are genuinely interested in taking a better look.

Rodoni said the tour also gives homes better exposure compared with homes that only have a few pictures on real estate Web sites. After all, she said, if you had the chance to look at a few pictures or take a four-minute virtual home tour, which would you choose?

According to Skip Levens, Alain Pinel's marketing director, about 20 homes are available to view, and about 50 more are scheduled to be videotaped and posted on the company's site. Rodoni stressed that home sellers' privacy is taken into account when homes are videotaped; she said sellers can choose to exclude their home address on the listing or remove valuables before the video cameras arrive.

[ Back to Contents Page | Saratoga News Home Page | Archives ]