Inspiration Videos – 5 Ways to Use Video for Real Estate

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Obviously the last couple of years have been tough for most Realtors and Estate Agents across the globe. In some markets things are picking up slightly, while in others (like Ireland), the market has remained challenging. To help their clients sell properties and to sign up new clients, realtors are looking at new ways of using technology, in particular video. Below, we have listed 5 easy, but innovative ways you can use video to enhance your Real Estate business.

1. Create a Video Tour of your Properties.

Creating a video tour of the property is much easier than you may have imagined. Looking at the video above, they have kept things simple – nice shots of the property with a recorded voiceover. The voiceover means you can write a detailed script and don’t have to worry about your presence front of camera. Be sure you have a tripod (shaky video will just look unprofessional) and that each room is well lit and turned out.

What you’ll need:

A Microphone to record your voiceover.
A tripod – see here for a selection of affordable tripods
A Camcorder - Flip Camcorders and Kodak Zi8 camcorders are available from $120
trakAxPC – Buy now for $24.95

2. Create a Slideshow Tour of the Property

This option is even quicker – if you are commissioning professional photos of your property, why not make a video slideshow to bring the photos to life. Quickly add some text to highlight some important points of the property and you’re done. To achieve a similar effect to the video above, add some “Zoom” effects and keep your font choice crisp and simple (see here for more ideas on fonts). What makes this video so successful is the actual photos themselves – the lighting is immaculate, so push your photographer to make the most of lighting available on the property.

What you’ll need:

trakAxPC – Buy now for $24.95
Photos

3. Give Sellers / Buyers Useful Advice

Pamela Liebman , CEO of the Corcoran Group is one of the most famous faces on the New York Real Estate scene. On the Corcoran Group Real Estate YouTube Channel, Ms. Liebman gives practical advice to sellers and buyers in bite-sized videos. Often less than 1 minute long, Liebman covers questions such as “How do I make an offer on an Apartment I Like?” or “How do I determine my price range for Buying a Home?” as well as questions that are very particular to New York.

As a real-estate agent, you know your city or neighbourhood probably better than anyone else – what questions do new buyers always ask? Create short videos that you can share on YouTube and your website that answer these common queries and highlight the positive aspects of the neighbourhoods where you sell – not only should it help traffic by covering keywords that buyers may be searching for, but also build your reputation as a “Trust Agent”.

What you’ll need:

A Microphone
A tripod – see here for a selection of affordable tripods
A Camcorder - Flip Camcorders and Kodak Zi8 camcorders are available from $120 (note, the Flip does not support an external mic)
trakAxPC – Buy now for $24.95

4. Explain Complicated Technical Information

Buying, renting and leasing are often complicated processes and buyers/ sellers can be intimidated by legal requirements and the complicated form-filling that accompanies any property transaction. Why not create short videos (they can be 1 minute or less) clearly explaining some of the legal jargon that is part of the rental / lease / buying process in your jurisdiction.

I recently read that more new businesses were started in Ireland this year than in any previous year and I am sure this trend is reflected in many countries. The international down turn, has meant more and more people have become entrepreneurs and are starting their own businesses. If you are running a Commercial Property business, these potential clients may be completely new to their commercial renting and leasing market. Videos explaining important information that these users need to know could be a valuable tool to small businesses and portray your Real Estate business as the “human face” of commercial property.

What you’ll need:

A Microphone
A tripod – see here for a selection of affordable tripods
A Camcorder - Flip Camcorders and Kodak Zi8 camcorders are available from $120 (note, the Flip does not support an external mic)
trakAxPC – Buy now for $24.95

5. Market your Real Estate Business

Obviously to maintain a healthy real estate business, you need a combination of new and satisfied clients who are buyers and sellers. Often estate agents can get a bad rep, so reverse this preconception with a video showing your offices, your staff and maybe even some happy customers.

What you’ll need:

A Microphone
A tripod – see here for a selection of affordable tripods
A Camcorder - Flip Camcorders and Kodak Zi8 camcorders are available from $120 (note, the Flip does not support an external mic)
trakAxPC – Buy now for $24.95

Some other videos you may find useful –

Remember trakAxPC can be used for all your video editing needs. Take advantage of our special price - buy trakAxPC today for just $24.95.

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Posted by SysAdmin in Tips for Small Business | 1 comment line

Universitat Oberta de Catalunya uses trakAxPC

Thursday, August 12, 2010

We are completely delighted to announce that the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) have chosen trakAxPC as their preferred media editor for the upcoming academic year. I asked the BA Media Programme Director, Antoni Roig Telo, why he chose trakAxPC as their software of choice:

“As a media programme director in an online University, I’m constantly looking for video tools that might be useful for our students in our virtual courses. For me, an ideal tool should meet at least the following principles: be affordable (we need a license for every single student and main information centres), with a slight learning curve, be easily accessible, be supported, be self-contained (demos or commercial-oriented limited products are not useful for us), be powerful and aimed to professional practice. Up to now, video editing software has been elusive; there are certainly free good tools around, and even some of them online (which is great for beginners and short projects), but none has filled our needs as Trakax, which provides the experience of working in a professional video editing environment in a matter of minutes. We asked our video editing professor, who is used to work in Final Cut and didn’t know about TrakAx to make some tests and arrange a little workshop: he was pleasantly surprised and agreed immediately that this was what we were looking for. A definitive great find for us.”
Antoni Roig Telo
Estudis de Ciències de la Informació i de la Comunicació
[Director del programa de Comunicació Audiovisual]
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya

What is interesting about trakAxPC, is that educators of all levels have embraced it - from primary schools (10 - 12 year olds) right through to third level, as seen above with UOC. If you are an educator, you may be interested in our special education pricing on volume purchases of trakAxPC. We have also just announced our new dedicated Teachers’ Resource Area - http://www.trakax.com/software/trakaxpcEducation/. Sample lessons have all the resources educators will need to map out stimulating classes for a wide range of subjects. Lessons are composed of sample projects and activities that aim to improve IT skills, encourage team-work, assist goal-setting and planning, help organisational skills as well as highlighting students’ natural talents (eg. writing, researching, directing, performing, editing etc.). If you would like further information on purchasing trakAxPC for your education, please see our Education page or contact me directly -

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Lighting your Video - Tips for Small Businesses

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

When you are creating a video for your small business (or any video for that matter), a key element of the recording will be you or a staff member speaking to the camera explaining your products and services. One of the easiest and cheapest ways to help your video look professional is the lighting. You don’t have to spend any money, just use what is available to you - overhead lights, natural light from windows, lamps etc. What’s more, once you get the set up you are happy with, you can use it over and over again for video blogs, product announcements etc.

Professionals often talk about “Three-Point Lighting” - which is a pretty simple theory. It involves a key light, a fill and a rim or back light. They often add a fourth point, which is a background light. As the name would suggest the Key Light is usually the most important source of light - in your video, you could try and use a large window or a strong lamp.

Play around with some lamps for the Back Light until you get the look you want - if the back light is too strong, your face may go into the shadows, so change the position (or lamp) until you get an even light. The Fill light is normally softer than the key and back light, so you could try a lamp with a lower wattage bulb or even some foam board from a Art and Hobby shop. Lastly you may want to turn on the overhead lights as a background light to brighten up the whole picture.

You’ll be surprised what a difference a little bit of time spent on the lighting will do for your video - as always, the more professional you look, the more trustworthy your business will appear.

The video below from Videomaker also gives some great tips of improving your lighting (especially if you decide to record outdoors):

Remember trakAxPC can be used for all your video editing needs. Take advantage of our special price - buy trakAxPC today for just $24.95.

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Posted by Catriona in Tips & Tricks Tips for Small Business | Leave a comment line

New trakAxPC Video

Saturday, August 07, 2010

We created the two minute video below to show hopefully show all the features of trakAxPC quickly and concisely - all the editing was done with the software.

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trakAxPC Video Tutorials Now with Closed Captions

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Over the last few weeks, we have added Closed Captions to our Video Support Tutorials. What is really interesting about adding Closed Captions to YouTube Videos is that is allows people to translate these videos into the language of their choice.

I have attached an example video below:

We would love to hear from users how they find the translations - are the translations clunky or are they actually really useful?

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NEW - Dedicated Teachers’ Resource Area for trakAxPC in the Classroom

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

We realise that teachers at all levels are continually trying to find new and imaginative ways to foster students’ creativity, awaken their interest in subjects and teach basic real-world skills, whilst always keeping an eye on the budget.

The team at trakAx.com are excited to announce our new dedicated Teachers’ Resource Area. We hope these resources will make teachers’ lives easier, especially teachers who are new to multimedia but are curious as to how they could incorporate it into their curriculum. Our sample lessons have all the resources you’ll need to map out stimulating classes for a wide range of subjects. Lessons are composed of sample projects and activities that aim to improve IT skills, encourage team-work, assist goal-setting and planning, help organisational skills as well as highlighting students’ natural talents (eg. writing, researching, directing, performing, editing etc.).

Including detailed instructions and a wide range of supporting documentation, sample lessons include “Podcasting”, “Making a Newscast”, “Creating a Public Service Announcement”, “Making a Mini Documentary” to name a few. Each lesson can be easily tailored to fit into the curriculum of subjects such as languages, history, geography, the sciences, music, civic studies, social studies, religious studies and more.

A single copy of trakAxPC costs just $24.95 and we offer generous discounts for volume purchases for educational institutions - please see here for more information. Built for Windows XP ®, Vista ® and Windows 7 ®, the goal of traxAxPC Pro is to empower users of all skill levels to create near-professional multimedia content with little or no previous experience. Building on the popularity of our free to use trakAxPC application, trakAxPC Pro introduces a huge range of new features and functionality, including one-click upload to YouTube (with support for YouTube HD), instant file conversion, Video Credits and Text, automatic crossfading for quick mixes, collaging (Picture-in-Picture), and support for all popular file formats (MPEG-4 / H.264, AAC, MP3 etc.).

For more information or for a tailored quote, please contact Catriona Barry.

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20 Great Resources for Making Better Videos

Tuesday, July 06, 2010

We have put together a list of some really great resources to help you create better videos. Some of the tips are super simple, while others will take your skills to the next level. If you have any tips or resources that you'd like to share, please drop us a comment.