Innovative website enables agents to show properties around the clock
Mario Toneguzzi
Sun
Re/Max agent Don Onda says a new concept in real estate marketing in which potential buyers can view properties online will save purchasers time. Photograph by : Lorraine Hjalte, CanWest News
CALGARY — It is being hailed as “cutting-edge technology” that will revolutionize real estate marketing throughout the country.
The Calgary Real Estate Board has unveiled what it is calling the “next generation in real estate marketing” as it has developed a program “that will transform the way houses are exposed and sold through open houses.”
Web Open Houses, offering virtual tours and video open houses, has been developed to help people sell their homes in Calgary’s competitive real estate market and make it easier for buyers to view the homes. Calgary’s is the first real estate board in Canada to offer an array of these products.
Included in the marketing package is a two-minute movie video of a property, which is a virtual online open house.
Don Onda, an agent with Re/Max Central in Calgary, called the concept “cutting-edge technology.”
“It’s an open house online. People can go right to MLS.ca or my website, which I promote from my bus benches and my marketing,” said Onda. “They can see a two-minute video of the property and a description by the realtor. It gives me a chance to present my listing and sell it. I’m just thrilled by it.
“I can have an open house 24/7 online. A two-minute video. It just helps me immensely, to be able to show all my listings. It’s just a tremendous selling tool and a tremendous benefit to the consumer to see a movie of the house.”
Brian McAsey, vice-president of White Rabbit Pictures, which is producing the videos, said the videos can be viewed through a wide assortment of media from websites to e-mails to cellphones and iPods.
“It seems to be a very popular sort of new way — revolutionary way — of doing this,” said McAsey.
“We hope it’s a new way of being able to show off a listing and being able to sit down and see something on a phone or a realtor being able to show off an iPod. . . . It’s only available right now in Calgary. We’re going national in a short while.”
© The Vancouver Sun 2007