Reader TTS

Another plus is that sellers who don't want a videographer or agent traipsing through their home to shoot the 3D images can execute a DIY strategy using easy-to-use apps like the Zillow

3D Home app. The app provides instructions on how to shoot the video, best camera angles, lighting tricks and the most efficient way to map out the room-by-room video presentation. The

goal? Tell a home's story without a potential buyer ever stepping inside. VIRTUAL OPEN HOUSE. If you can't draw a crowd to show your home's best-selling points via an

old-style, in-person open house due to social distancing limitations, open up your home to as many buyers as possible by hosting a virtual open house, Seini says. Seini and her team set up

this virtual show-and-tell like this: They create a Facebook page for the home and a virtual open house “event.” They hope to add as many people and eyeballs to the online event as possible.

On the day of the virtual open house, they upload the tour and provide a digital walk-through of the home and property for everyone tuned in online. “In the past, homebuyers may not have

paid attention” to online viewings, says Seini. “Now, people are open to the idea. We walk them through the property as if we were touring with a buyer in person, explaining each perk and

part of the property.” Virtual staging, or using computer-generated images of couches and coffee tables and rugs to dress up a room properly, is another good sales tool, she adds. AGENT-LED

VIDEO TOURS. Online home tours are not new. Doing the tour digitally with a sales agent talking about what makes the house unique, special or perfect for an incoming family is. It's one

thing to view a video that shows an upscale kitchen. It's quite another thing to be able to ask an agent in real time via online video when the chef-quality stove was installed and if

the counter is marble, granite or quartz. In this case, video isn't the only medium to deliver a message; an agent can offer additional content via the spoken word. "Sellers and

their agents are really getting creative to make sure homes are acceptable and viewable even if buyers don't want to, or can't, see them in person,” says Hale of Realtor.com. Also,

just like the quality images shown on TV or in a movie must be first-rate, so do the photos and video that portray the home for sale, she adds. Why? First impressions of a home matter —

even online. “Make sure you're taking great photos to put your house's best foot forward,” Hale says. ONE MORE THING To boost your chances of selling your home in this tough

market, make sure the Realtor you select is video savvy and has successfully sold homes in the past using a virtual marketing campaign, says Zillow's Olsen. Find out “who are the

rock-star agents who know how to sell houses sight unseen,” she says. And don't be surprised if you have to finalize the deal with a so-called drive-through closing, where a

glove-wearing title agent meets you in a parking area and hands you documents through the window that you sign with your own pen.