I was asked a really great question by a home seller recently about the size of our virtual tour pictures compared to some other real estate company's virtual tours. I thought it was such a great question that I decided to include the answer in our company's Real Estate Q&A section of our website. Here is a copy of the answer:
9. Why doesn't MyGoldsboroAgent.com currently use larger pictures and moving-panoramic virtual tours to showcase homes?
Actually, I would love to put big, beautiful photos of seller's homes and fancy panoramas on our website! Unfortunately, the reality is only about 30% of the North American population has a broadband connection as of the end of 2007 (237,168,545 Total Internet Users & 72,313,133 Broadband Connections). The panoramic virtual tours you may see on other REALTOR's websites do look great, but if if a homebuyer is using dial-up, these tours are virtually useless or it may take the potential buyer several nights just to look at a few homes online. There are still areas of Wayne County where broadband is not even offered!
Many studies have been done regarding internet users and webpage loading times. To simplify and make this short, basically, if a potential homebuyer has to wait too long to see a virtual tour, he will "surf" to someone else's real estate webpage that takes less time to load. For example, if you are a home seller with a virtual tour that is too large, your home's virtual tour may not be viewed but a buyer views your neighbor's home up the street because the virtual tour downloads quickly, and that homebuyer falls in love and purchases it, not even looking at your home. This is a scenario that we are avoiding by keeping our home pics and virtual tours at a reasonable size.
As the web technician for MyGoldsboroAgent.com I am walking the virtual tour quality/size vs. download time tight-rope to allow our homes to have the most exposure possible. I am always monitoring website usage and will continue to increase the quality/size of our virtual tours as internet technology increases for the average homebuyer and/or web surfer. The last thing MyGoldsboroAgent.com wants to do is eliminate 70% of the potential homebuyers (refer to statistics above) due to a slow loading website.
Weldon Williford, REALTOR
Broker-In-Charge
MyGoldsboroAgent.com
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
After the Smoke Clears
Wayne county has been somewhat protected from the mortgage fallout in 2007 due to the fact that our market never seems to have a big price boom like more metropolitan areas. However, we started feeling the credit "squeeze" near the end of last year and it blew in hard the first quarter of this year.
If you know anything about credit scores, you understand how they affect your ability to get a loan. During the great sub-prime days of the past booming years, we saw clients with 560 or lower scores get loans. Now, it seems for even a government backed FHA loan clients need to have 620 or even higher depending on circumstances just to get a loan.
This increase in criteria has caused a slow-down in our market. Homes are still moving and certain pockets of the county still do not appear to be affected. However, we are starting to see very mild price pressures and a slowdown in new construction starts. These price reductions do not seem to be in vain though.
We have seen an increase in buyer activity in the past few weeks. The reductions and/or lack of home price increases, combined with some government tinkering with interest rates, and beautiful early spring weather has stimulated our real estate market. Our company outlook for later spring and summer is very positive. We currently have the most listings in company history and our web traffic is continually increasing. Web traffic is a great indicator of buyer activity since most buyers go to the internet first, before actually calling an agent. The government continues to tinker with FHA loans and interest rates. We'll have to see what affect these things have on the market over the next few months. We are all watching.
I'll have a first quarter report available the first of April.
If you know anything about credit scores, you understand how they affect your ability to get a loan. During the great sub-prime days of the past booming years, we saw clients with 560 or lower scores get loans. Now, it seems for even a government backed FHA loan clients need to have 620 or even higher depending on circumstances just to get a loan.
This increase in criteria has caused a slow-down in our market. Homes are still moving and certain pockets of the county still do not appear to be affected. However, we are starting to see very mild price pressures and a slowdown in new construction starts. These price reductions do not seem to be in vain though.
We have seen an increase in buyer activity in the past few weeks. The reductions and/or lack of home price increases, combined with some government tinkering with interest rates, and beautiful early spring weather has stimulated our real estate market. Our company outlook for later spring and summer is very positive. We currently have the most listings in company history and our web traffic is continually increasing. Web traffic is a great indicator of buyer activity since most buyers go to the internet first, before actually calling an agent. The government continues to tinker with FHA loans and interest rates. We'll have to see what affect these things have on the market over the next few months. We are all watching.
I'll have a first quarter report available the first of April.
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