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Virtual and video tours have given real estate shoppers the ability to get a pretty good feel for a property without leaving their homes. VuPod promises to bring the consumer back into the storefront by providing a 360-degree, surround theater, life-like walk-through.

It won’t replace the stay-at-home version (virtual video tours) or actually walking-through a listing (though I imagine there will be more “sight unseen” offers), but it will significantly curtail a lot of wasted time on the road viewing properties that are not a fit for the buyer. That means that perhaps shoppers get to salvage a little more of their weekends, and agents are able to work much more efficiently.

This should be a killer app for the large chains, as I should be able to walk into a Century 21 office in Miami, and in the matter of a few hours, find a cabin in Aspen I’d like to make an offer on.

I think the challenge for most real estate companies will be the up-front costs and at least around here, finding an office large enough to host this thing.

Recently I encountered a situation with a cabin being sold as furnished. Generally, if a cabin is marketed as furnished the Buyer receives all of the furnishings in the cabin minus the owners personal items. Examples of personal items should basically include the obvious toothbrush, robe, slippers, and sometimes Grandma’s antique dresser or other personal heirlooms.

Well evidently everything in this “furnished” cabin fell under the personal heirloom category. The seller cleaned the cabin out except for the furniture too heavy to move or that maybe would not fit in the seller’s vehicle. In the eyes of my buyer and myself, this was not a furnished cabin; all of the charm that was for sale as a furnished cabin was packed away and removed.

To me if sellers have items not included in the sale of a furnished cabin either there should be a crystal-clear list of items NOT included in the sale or they should be removed before the cabin is placed on the market. My advice to buyers is to have a thorough checklist if you want anything that’s not nailed down, though in 5 years of selling real estate in this area that’s a first.

Buyers or sellers: how do you define “sold furnished”?

We’re testing a new layout for our log cabin sorts. The new design displays larger thumbnails and less text than our standard log home sort. However, you can see the agent’s remarks on the property when you roll your mouse over a thumbnail; for the listing detail page, click it.

Instead of a line of 25 thumbnails down the page, the pictures are arranged 5 columns by 5 rows sort of like Hollywood Squares. If the feedback is positive, we will employ the new on sorts other than just log homes.

Do you prefer the new design to our standard log cabin layout? Why?

Our number one request is by far, “more photos”. It’s crazy, close to 10 emails a day with just basically, “more photos please”. Apparently, for now, our MLS only exports 4 photos per property. What does this mean? Basically, we display every picture we can; there are no more.

Kip has set up a cheap, simple virtual tours site, in an effort to get local agents to post more unbranded photos so we, they, and other agents may better know, promote, and sell their listings. Additionally, agents that utilize these tours will have them linked from their listings that appear on our website.

With that in mind, we thought we would provide a friendly online “petition” to perhaps get a more public view of the kind of feedback we receive on a daily basis:

Dear Northeast Georgia Realtors,
I would like to see more than 4 photos per listing…

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