) really, not a joke, that just happened, and without her help I would be lost.
My wife works with me, and it is very helpful in allowing me to handle the "creative" side, while she takes care of the "business" side. She takes care of all the bookkeeping, keeping me (opps, she just interrupted my typing, shouting from the other room to make sure I had written an appointment in for Aug 21st, I hadn't ) really, not a joke, that just happened, and without her help I would be lost.
) really, not a joke, that just happened, and without her help I would be lost.
QuoteWell....... let's see....
To be able to be in this business you have to be a.....:
- Photographer
- Computer graphic artist
- A Sales Man
- Good at accounting
.... and so much more....
Let's face it. It is hard beeing good at everything. So if your wife believe she can sell virtual tours so you can focus og taking the pictures and building the tours?? What's keeping you from doing it? Go for it. Give it a try.
Now comming back to your question. Yes I know a couple business owners who do not do everything them self.
1) mike from http://www.newspin360.net/
He's most of all a sales man. He also takes the pictures, but have someone else process them and build the tours for him.
2) Steve at http://www.vizmark.co.za/
I personally believe that the biggest challenge for most of us is that we aren't sales men. You have to be to survive in this business. So if your wife is up for the challenge you'll have a great advantage.
BEst of luck to you
Regards
Morten
p.s. you should also start a blog about it :)
I am so encouraged by this thread. I've been toying around the idea of having my wife work with me as well. She's a wonderful administrator and she does all the bookkeeping already. She's thinking about taking on more of a sales role.
I like the ideas you are all raising. I mostly do commercial real estate work, but now I'm thinking about doing high-end residential. My main problem though is that I don't understand how the residential real estate end of things work. I looked at Realtor.com for vitual tours, and most of what i see is very bad -- even for multi-million dollar homes. Are realtors just not spending the money or is there just a handful of Virtual Tour companies allowed to create tours for Realtor.com? I looked at there list of providers and there doesn't seem to be anyone in my area (which I think is surprising). How does one break into that market?
I like the ideas you are all raising. I mostly do commercial real estate work, but now I'm thinking about doing high-end residential. My main problem though is that I don't understand how the residential real estate end of things work. I looked at Realtor.com for vitual tours, and most of what i see is very bad -- even for multi-million dollar homes. Are realtors just not spending the money or is there just a handful of Virtual Tour companies allowed to create tours for Realtor.com? I looked at there list of providers and there doesn't seem to be anyone in my area (which I think is surprising). How does one break into that market?
Hi emarts, you will find that most of us Realtors are just cheap 
. I can say that because I are one. But really, most Realtors don't want to put the money out because they don't know if they will ever get the money back in this market. With that said, when the market was booming they didn't need tours because they sold almost as soon as they hit the market.
You can post to Realtor.com for free. All you have to do is apply for authorization and then you post for free IF the Realtor has enhanced listing services. If not it will cost you $19.95 per posting which you pass on to the Realtor Apply here: http://imaging.homestore.com/index.jsp When you post, it will let you know if there is a charge.
If you want to work the high end market the best way to find out who needs a tour is go to Realtor.com and do a search in the area and price range you want to work and contact the agent. If there is no spinning red house then they don't have a tour.
You are correct that most of the tours are crap and most are just slide shows. So you should be prepared to offer stills as well as tours. Keep in mind that with most real estate firms the agents are self employed and have to pay for everything themselves.
Hope this helps and good hunting...
Nikon D300, D3s, Nikon 10.5 lens, RingT105N+Footplate+MrotatorTCPs, Giottos MT9261 Tripod, Manfrotto 410 Jr geared head.
If you know the "secret" then everyday is a good day!
. I can say that because I are one. But really, most Realtors don't want to put the money out because they don't know if they will ever get the money back in this market. With that said, when the market was booming they didn't need tours because they sold almost as soon as they hit the market. You can post to Realtor.com for free. All you have to do is apply for authorization and then you post for free IF the Realtor has enhanced listing services. If not it will cost you $19.95 per posting which you pass on to the Realtor Apply here: http://imaging.homestore.com/index.jsp When you post, it will let you know if there is a charge.
If you want to work the high end market the best way to find out who needs a tour is go to Realtor.com and do a search in the area and price range you want to work and contact the agent. If there is no spinning red house then they don't have a tour.
You are correct that most of the tours are crap and most are just slide shows. So you should be prepared to offer stills as well as tours. Keep in mind that with most real estate firms the agents are self employed and have to pay for everything themselves.
Hope this helps and good hunting...
Nikon D300, D3s, Nikon 10.5 lens, RingT105N+Footplate+MrotatorTCPs, Giottos MT9261 Tripod, Manfrotto 410 Jr geared head.
If you know the "secret" then everyday is a good day!
Hmmm Im not a realtor.
But over the years I have bought and sold a few homes through an agent. I had to sign exclusively with the agent, and then they took their 6% (or shared 3%) when the property actually sold. Lets say the property was $200,000. 6% x 200,000 = $12,000. I suspect if you are an agent you have to split this with real estate company owner.
My panorama experience with real estate is they wanted the pano's yesterday, and would not pay for the work until the property was sold... which was a very long time. Maybe we were working with the wrong real estate group.
We learned very soon to find other markets with larger advertising budgets. That were willing to pay a 30% no refund deposit, and immediately pay the balance of the project price upon final approval and acceptance.
/s/
Dave
Forum Moderator for
EasyPano - Panoweaver
Pano2VR
Visit 360texas.com
You must have been working with the wrong group Dave. I get paid as soon as the work is done and they are satisfied.
Nikon D300, D3s, Nikon 10.5 lens, RingT105N+Footplate+MrotatorTCPs, Giottos MT9261 Tripod, Manfrotto 410 Jr geared head.
If you know the "secret" then everyday is a good day!
Nikon D300, D3s, Nikon 10.5 lens, RingT105N+Footplate+MrotatorTCPs, Giottos MT9261 Tripod, Manfrotto 410 Jr geared head.
If you know the "secret" then everyday is a good day!
Glad you like the thread emarts 
First things first to answer your question "how does one break into that market". My answer is to simply RUN as fast as you can from this market. Jerry has said it best himself "most of us Realtors are just cheap" Take a look at THIS THREAD for more information on the real estate industry and market.
While Jerry is a great guy and contributes to this forum with a lot of useful information there are areas that we just don't agree on, this being one of them.
Real estate agents want the tour yesterday and they want it for free. They also want stills along with a mls compliant tour(no branding). This means you produce two tours of the home, one branded with realtor info and the other with no visable contact of the realtor. Have I mentioned that they want it all done yesterday for a grand total of around $100.00 (some much less than that 
)
So with that said we have chosen to RUN from real estate all together. We are setting up our buisness model similiar to THIS
Smooth said it best with "
The best piece of advise I can offer and not to undersell your product, service or most importantly yourself."
This is the route we have decided to take. It has been very, very slow starting out. People right now are just not spending anything. We hope this turns around a bit at the begining of the year. Some of our targeted clients in the upcoming year will be Hospitals, Church's, Air Craft Sales, Day Care Centers(child & pet), Hotels...etc.
Most of what I just listed will have their tour created for a premium price and use it over a long period of time. In real estate the realtor is out of pocket for the tour on a home sale that is used once. We would much rather spend our time marketing and selling a quality product and shoot one high end tour per month than to run ragged chasing a $100.00 sale.
I hope that this helps and makes sense. Once again to Jerry, sorry bud 
Yeah, I've been hesitant to go after residential too. But I thought I'd give the high-end market a try as well as construction companies. I do pretty well with commercial real estate and I'm keeping that as my core business.
There is such a huge difference between what commercial real estate will pay versus residential. If any of my commercial clients hear of me selling similar services to residential at greatly reduced pricing, that would be suicide. So I could never offer $100.00 tours.
It's funny that you posted a link to Virtually-Anywhere. I was thinking the same thing.
There is such a huge difference between what commercial real estate will pay versus residential. If any of my commercial clients hear of me selling similar services to residential at greatly reduced pricing, that would be suicide. So I could never offer $100.00 tours.
It's funny that you posted a link to Virtually-Anywhere. I was thinking the same thing.