Premium Video Available in Central & Eastern Virginia House Sales
- Adam Garrett
- Apr 9
- 4 min read
Updated: Oct 14
After years of accumulating area photos, Central & Eastern VA area resources, and area video, I recently introduced options for premium video packages for Central & Eastern Virginia house sales in my coverage area which includes Hampton Roads, Greater Richmond, the Middle Peninsula, & the Northern Neck. All my listings come standard with Matterport virtual tours, aerials, professional photos, and much more.
Impact of Video on Sale
Some of the top websites for hosting homes for sale, like Homes.com (#4 as of March 2025 per Semrush by web traffic) have a video filter, so anyone using the filter won't even see your house if you don't have any form of video as long as the buyer is using the filter:
Redfin (#3 per Semrush as of March 2025) has an option to select only those with a 3D walkthrough &/or a video tour:
Good video has a positive impact on the views, saves, and shares of listings. The more exposure you have, and the higher save-to-view ratio you have on sites like Zillow, the better your listing will be in algorithms on sites like Zillow, pushing your listing closer to the top. Here is some of the data from Zillow on the impact of favorites on listings:
I compared some searches on Realtor.com and those with video, a 3D tour, or another virtual tour consistently had significantly more properties on the 1st full page of properties than on the second to last full page of properties (the last page was never full). Here are the numbers from when I checked, demonstrating the better performance of those properties with videos in terms of the visibility they have to prospective buyers:
23451 basic search: 18 vs 7 (157% more)
Chesapeake 3+ yrs old: 15 vs 7 (114% more)
Newport News 3+ yrs old: 9 vs 6 (50% more)
Since the numbers went down as I performed this search, I also wonder if the default is closer to 157% and if the fact that I was rapidly going through them impacted the percentages.
A video can impact a sale in numerous ways, but the video quality, link compatibility, & where it's hosted can play a significant role on the effectiveness of that impact. On the minimal end, a listing agent may share that he plans to do video, only to include a slide show of the house auto-populated into a link that doesn't work on a number of sites via a program.
With 3-D Matterport tours, even with a sequence of views selected where the buyer selects the guided tour option, it won't be the same quality as a good video of some of the same areas, that can express details in audio and more that a Matterport guided tour can't at the same level, highlighting positive elements of the house.
What's Missing from Many House Videos?
While some videos in real estate can be as little as a slide show put to music, significantly superior options are available that integrate a number of resources & options to market properties. Here's what's too often missing from real estate videos among the videos that do more than just showing a slideshow:
Link compatability was one of the biggest problems I saw with videos. There are a limited number of platforms that are compatible with some of the major sites where people are looking at homes outside of the multiple listing service, and if you're not compatible, the majority of an agent's efforts or money spent on a video could go down the drain. At the time of this edit, one of the top 3 active listings on the market in Hampton Roads (over $10,000,000) has a video compatibility issue where it isn't showing on Redfin nor on Homes.com (the #3 & #4 public sites in the US where buyers look at homes as of March 2025) because they used the wrong link type. One of the reasons why that's important is that Zillow & Trulia (#1 & #5) have de-emphasized video on the listing itself where you need to hunt to find it, so #3 and #4 are pretty important since they have video front and center like #2, Realtor.com, while 3 and 4 combined exceed the monthly visits vs #2.
More than 1 video form, including videos compliant with MLS (i.e. no people's faces clearly shown) & those that are more engaging (i.e. w the agent showing a house & area themselves) that are not MLS-compliant, listed in such a way to capture a broad audience w/ knowledge of compability requirements with MLS.
Area showcase including aerial photos/videos of the area & area amenities
Videos posted on more than one platform beyond MLS (i.e. social media platforms like Facebook, Tik Tok, & Instagram)
Effective means of sharing videos beyond MLS & a single social media post including by the agent and options provided to individual owners
Aerial video of the home
Google Earth & data-based brief integrations selling the area & the home
Optimized viewing dimensions on the platforms where it's posted
Where Available in VA
Adam's coverage area includes the following:
Hampton Roads
Greater Richmond
The Middle Peninsula
The southern part of the Northern Neck
While there are some exceptions listed in the link above, here's how that is typically in map form based on the house value:
What do These Videos Cost?
Cost to the Agent:
These videos require a heavy investment of time and the financial cost is significantly more than typical videos of agents. That's the top reason why most agents won't do them.
Cost to the Seller:
I use a very competitive graduated scale of marketing package options. These videos are available with my higher-tier marketing packages, and also available as an a la carte add-on with my lower-tier and mid-tier packages as well as higher-tier packages at lower price points.
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