How to make your home stand out during a virtual or video tour

Virtual and video tours are especially beneficial for buying a house remotely. After all, if a potential new home is far away, there is hardly a better way to experience it. Also, purchasing a new home remotely allows a buyer to save some time and money on traveling.

Steps to making your home stand out during a tour

 When used correctly, virtual or video tours can be an excellent tool for home promotion. They offer an immersive way to showcase your home, which can be quite refreshing compared to standard pictures or diagrams. However, like any other tool, home tours are useless if you don’t know how to use them properly. You need to adhere to certain basics and consider some artistic choices if your tour is to be worthwhile.

Clean your home

 While this may seem obvious to some of you, we still feel the need to mention that decluttering your home before making a home tour is necessary. Know that there is a difference between cleaning your home for a shoot and tidying up. When cleaning up your home for a tour, you need to make it look spotless. Cleaning, dusting, rearranging items, everything needs to be in perfect order. If there are any visible issues with the floor or roof, you will need to repair them. Ideally, your home should look like a show home.

Tell a visual story

 Once your home is clean, there is an essential principle that we would like for you to keep in mind. A home tour will only work if you manage to tell a story with it. There is more to it than only going around your home and explaining which room serves which purpose. Instead, you need to consider who you are selling to and then orient your presentation to fit them.

For instance, say that you are selling a family home. After consulting with an agent, you decide that your target buyers should be young families looking for a quiet place to settle down. Your goal then should be to make your home as family friendly as possible. Warm lighting, comfortable furniture, cosy colours, ease of use… All of these give the impression that your home is suitable for a family. So, the more you emphasise all these aspects to tell a unified, visual story, the easier it will be to sell your home.

Using the right lighting and colours

The first thing to note when it comes to lighting is that you should use natural light. Artificial light sources don’t look nice on camera. And, more importantly, they tend to make the whole room look subpar. So, stick with natural light.

The question now becomes when to shoot. Well, this is where the storytelling element comes into play. If you are trying to present your home as a modern, well-situated living space for a young professional, use early morning. Early morning light is bright, which will give your home the feeling of energy and aliveness. On the other hand, if you are selling a family home, the afternoon is your best option. Afternoon light gives the feeling of comfort and homeyness that you can hardly mimic with artificial lights.

Similar ideas apply to colours. If you are catering towards young professionals, use colder colours like blue or green. These give the feeling of openness while providing a certain sense of calm. For a family home, warmer colours like yellow or dark orange are better choices since they are cosier. Of course, these are just examples, and you need to see what works with your home instead of blindingly following them. But they do give you a good idea of how to think.

Highlight the best features

 One of the mistakes that people often make is that they try to highlight everything about their home. The bathroom, the bedroom, the living room… Everything is showcased to its fullest potential. Unfortunately, this often proves counterproductive. This is because if everything is emphasised, nothing is. Again, you need to consider your home carefully and decide what its best aspects are. If everything is good, that’s fantastic. But still, try to see what the best feature is. Then proceed to highlight it.

Consult with professionals

 The final way to make your home stand out during a virtual or video tour is to talk to a professional. Even now, you probably realise that there are many aspects here to consider, especially if you genuinely want your home tour to tell a story. Reach out to people who do them all the time if you feel you need the extra knowledge!

Get in touch if you have any questions about virtual/video home tours and how to correctly use them to sell your home!