Hosting a Virtual Open House

So the audio is working as of now. As I've said before, gotowebinar is just struggling with all the amount of people working from home. We're doing our absolute best to make sure that we have everything dialed and ready, but they're just struggling with the bandwidth capacity. So if the wheels come off and all of a sudden you can't hear us anymore, we have massive audio issues. We will just kill the webinar. Then Brad and I will do a recording and we'll push the recording out. But we're going to try to do it live. That way we can take your questions live and in living color. Well, Brad's in living color and I'm in. You just get the dulcet tones of my voice. There's your big word for the webinar. So questions tab is on the right hand side. Please use it with abandon. This is for you. We are all now in weird various states of new normal. Some parts of the country it's kind of business as usual, but you know, wear gloves and bring some hand sanitizer or other parts are still on total lockdown and real estate is deemed non essential. So there's differing degrees of need for this. But this is an important concept that I think we can carry forward on the other side of this pandemic and really use to create some value. So this is a concept that I have been playing with for a while and then I was trying to think about who to do this webinar with and I needed someone with great online content already. And that's actually when the talented and brilliant Petra Manning said, hey, what about Brad Gill? And I was like, yeah, perfect. So I'll introduce my co host for this one is Brad Gill. Brad, thank you so much for carving out some of your time to share with us. I appreciate you very much. Thank you.

Yeah, absolutely. Pleasure to be here.

Awesome. This is actually my concept with Brad's content and I'm going to frame up for you how I believe a virtual open house should be done and why. And then we're going to use a couple of Brad's actual listings to show you exactly what this process would, could, should look like. So Brad will play the knowledgeable real estate agent as he is incredibly qualified to do. And I will play the guy who had the idea for putting a twist on a virtual open house. So without any further delay, we want no delays on any gotomeetings, please. So without any further delay, we'll get this ball rolling. So glad you guys are here. This is Our thoughts around a virtual open house. And the first thing you want to think about is how cute this dog is. But right after that, what you want to think about is why do we do open house? And the answer is twofold. One, of course, you want to profile the seller's property, and it's important to the seller that they get maximum exposure. But in today's new normal, that's that, look, I don't care where you are or what the rules are. You shouldn't be doing open house right now in the classic form. Even if your local county says it's okay, it's not crazy. Uncle Keith loves you and doesn't want you being exposed and doesn't want you exposing other people. So please, no open houses. But how about we think about why we do an open house and how can we replicate that experience? The primary reason that we do open house is for on, for lead generation, right? We meet buyers, we meet potential buyers. We get to have that face to face. They get to have an experience with us. It's a foundational building block of the trust relationship. And that's why we do open houses. So if we're thinking about a virtual open house, we really want to look at it through the frame of a potential buyer trying to learn the market, because that's why folks go to open house. They're either looking for a house they want to write an offer on, or they're looking for a house that or they're looking to get more market intelligence. Brad, would you say that, you know, for the vast majority, there's nosy neighbors, there's kind of three buckets, there's nosy neighbors, people looking that have an agent already and are looking for a house that they want to buy, and then people that are trying to get some market intelligence. Have I missed any categories, in your opinion?

No, I think you covered it all. Um, you know, we, we, we love the nosy neighbors because that's going to be your next seller. And obviously we're there for all the tire kickers, because the tire kickers are the ones who are going to help three to six months down the road. And then there's a lot less that are actually ready to buy quickly. So.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Yep. So those are the buckets. And then if you think about that buyer lead, that tire kicker, that's going to be a buyer someday down the road. What do they want? Why do they go to open house? What are they trying to find? They actually aren't trying to find a real estate agent that's just a byproduct of the action they're taking. What my belief is, and my experience is, is what they really want is market knowledge and market information. They really are trying. They're at the place where they've looked online for a long time, and now it's time to actually go out into the wild and risk accidentally bumping into a salesperson and buying a house. Right. And of course, that's not how it works, but what they really are trying to do is go to that next step, that physical interaction step of. Of market intelligence. And of course, that's great for us because if someone's willing to sacrifice their Saturday or Sunday, well, that means they're further down the sales funnel than if they just started looking. So that's what the buyer wants. Who's out there? Who do we want? We want the buyers that don't already have agents. What do they want? They want market intelligence. So with those two kind of placeholders in mind, that is how I thought we should think about what should a virtual open house look like? Because what we want is those buyers that don't already have agents, and what they want is that market intelligence. And I'm going to brag about Brad for a second. You're going to Brad, in this example, he's the after picture. I'm the before picture. Right? So he's the after picture. If you're looking for befores and afters of a flip or befores and afters of Jenny Craig or whatever, Brad is the after picture. When it comes to online marketing, you're going to see his stuff and you're going to be blown away. And I'm actually okay if you're a little bit intimidated, because you should be, because his stuff is great. What I don't want you to do is say, well, I don't have what Brad has, so I can't do this. We're going to give you examples of exactly what you want it to look like at the end after you've done a bunch of these. But you'll start where you start and you'll. You will build it out. You're going to see Brad's content. Don't get so intimidated that you don't take action. He's been doing video since before video was cool. He's been presenting his properties at a distance and virtually in a bunch of different ways for a very long time. So Brad's been ahead of the curve. He's got content you may not have today. But there's other things that you can do and we'll talk about that. So I'm going to break this down for you and then, and then we'll do, then we'll play. We'll play. And Brad will be the agent. He's actually going to do it in real time. He's agreed to do this like as if he was doing a virtual open house. So I'm going to ask him some questions to get the ball rolling. But he's really going to talk about each of these because he can, because he's incredibly knowledgeable. But the first thing you want to provide in your virtual open house. So you are going to get a GoToMeeting or get a Zoom account that will allow you to do a webinar. So that's the very first step. You got to get the software to do a webinar, do some practice runs, you can even email me. I'll do a practice run with you if you want so that you feel comfortable with the tool. Then once you know the tool that you're going to use, this is the structure of your webinar. So the first thing you do is a macro market update. A little bit of national stats, a little bit of local stats, but just a quick market snapshot. A great answer to how's the market? Then once you've got that, and remember this should be interplay, there should be questions coming from the audience, hopefully. But you're then going to once you've done the market update, now it's time to profile three or four properties. And in my experience, when a buyer comes to an open house, what they're really looking for is comparable properties in comparable price ranges in a diverse cross section of cities and communities. I'll say that again, comparable properties in comparable price ranges in a diverse subset of cities and communities. So where I live, you know, I live in Dublin, California, people are probably interested in Dublin, San Ramon, Danville and Pleasanton. And they're sort of up and down the 680 freeway where you live. That it might not be that they're multiple different cities, it might just all be the same city. But they're interested in, in Shadow Cliffs neighborhood, I'm completely making these up Oakmont neighborhood and the Laurel district. And those are three communities that are similar. And so you will batch these based around. You might do a first, whatever the subject property, your listing is your primary listing. If you really think that's a first time homebuyer home, then you're going to go find several other first time homebuyer properties to profile but in different neighborhoods, different communities or different cities nearby. Because again, that's exactly what the buyer is looking for. What they would love to see is three to four properties, the features and benefits of each community, the features and benefits of each property, and what the changes are to price. So I'm going to take a big deep breath and a sip of water and allow a moment for any questions on this macro concept of what it good should maybe look like. 3, 4, 5. No questions. Okay, so I'll walk you through it one more time. You've got the right tool. You've got the one that you feel comfortable with using. The first thing you do is a macro market update. You're going to give them some stuff about the nation. You're going to give them some stuff about the local city. Then you're going to transition to the first property, which is your subject property. That's your listing, the listing you are doing the open house on. I might play with this and try doing it first and last, but I think the best way to do it because you're going to pro. You want to still profile the seller's property. So you're telling them it's a virtual open House for 123 Elm street and so that is the approach. A couple questions that I'll handle in just a second. I see them. They're great. Then you're going to profile the community. Then you're going to profile the first property, then you're gonna profile the second community, then you're gonna profile the 2nd property. And then you're gonna repeat for at least 3, no more than 5. At least 3, no more than 5. I think 3 to 4 is really the sweet spot of properties. You wanna show them several different properties. I'm gonna clear out some of these questions. Would you definitely advise a webinar style, Rachel? I really would. You could do a virtual tour like, you know, if you wanted to do. If you wanted to do a Facebook Live and walk through the house. If that's community based off of what's going on with the virus, there's nothing wrong with that. That's really just profiling the property. And I don't think that gives the buyer what they really want or the buyer client that you're looking to impress. What they really want. What they really want is market information and market knowledge. So I would definitely use a webinar format for this, not Facebook Live. Although if you get the upgraded Zoom account, you can share it to Facebook Live and I might do that. So you just, you get more eyeballs that way. But I really think you need the visuals. Real estate's a visual medium and you aren't going to be at the property. You're profiling multiple different properties in this example of how to do it. Am I suggesting separate videos or transitioning one video, different slides, or record a video for each? We're going to give you exactly what we've got. And so Amy will be digging in on all that here in just a second. Okay. This is kind of like a cma, but for a buyer virtually. Yeah, kind of. But it's really about courts. It's about finding the communities that fit the archetype of the property. So you know when a property is a first time homebuyer house, or it's a trade up house, or it's a trade down house, or it's the aspirational house, or it's a golf course house, or Tammy asked, maybe it's a vacation rental. Right. So you're looking to profile similar again, what the buyer wants is comparable properties in comparable price ranges in diverse communities and cities nearby. So think about it like the first time you did a showing for a new buyer and you want to show them three or four different neighborhoods in the city so that they get a better understanding of the city. That's really more what it's like. It's like that first time an out of town buyer comes to town and you're trying to give them a high level overview of the local city. So a little less of a cma, little more of a first time showing for an out of town buyer. Okay. I think everybody has the concept and now it's time to play. And this is the real meat of it. This is going to be Brad and I doing it in real time. We haven't rehearsed this a thousand times. We've talked about it several times over the last few days and week, but we aren't. We're going to be dancing in and out of a role play. But Brad's the real expert in on these homes and in these areas, so he's going to be driving the conversation from that standpoint. Okay. So, Brad, are you ready, sir? Sorry, I've dominated the first 15 minutes of this.

No, man, great setup. Now I'm clear on what we're doing. So all good.

Now you know what we're supposed to be talking about.

Now I know what I signed up for. Exactly.

Yeah. Sweet. All right, here we go. So the first thing you do is a market update and Brad is in San Jose California and he services that whole area. So you're going to see a bunch of, a bunch of million five starter homes because that's what we've got. But Brad, just high level, I know you answer this question all the time as you're, as you're engaging and interfacing with clients, but give us your quick three sentence, five sentence, whatever. Give us your quick market update that you use verbally and then we'll show some statistics too.

You got it? Yeah. So we are now officially in the spring market. So spring market always brings or starts to bring more inventory as well as home buyers. So we're starting to see more homes pop up on the market. Days on market are still fierce. At 30 days or less, most homes are still selling with multiple offers. Interest rates are still really low. As you guys know, prices have been going up from the winter months. Beginning of the year, we probably saw a 10 to 15% price bump. Yes. Silicon Valley has a very volatile real estate market which is all based upon supply and demand. Right. Keith, being an economics major, we understand this supply is beginning to increase. And as we head into summer, we're going to start seeing supply and demand balance out. So that's kind of what we're settling into right now for the spring market.

All right, perfect. So, and that's what Brad would say even on a slide to, on a webinar just like this. Right. He's just sharing his understanding about the local market, talking about some of the volatility. Things that go up really fast can come down really fast. And he did a great job of outlining the seasonality component. I've got to take a big step back because there were some questions that came in regarding if you're using three to four properties, should they be your listings, if not available, other listings in the office? Yeah. You need permission to use other. In my opinion, you need permission to use other people's listings if they aren't yours. But no one should have a problem with you marketing their listing for them. Right. So I would try to find the best properties you could and if you don't know the agent, get permission. Explain what you're doing. Hey, I'm doing a, I'm doing a marketing piece. Your property is a lot like my listing over here on in Elmwood. And it would be a great property to profile to the buyers that I'm going to have on my webinar. Most agents should say yes to that if they're fiduciaries for their clients. Someone will always get weird. Okay, cool. You know, they get protectionist and they don't understand. That's cool. Go find another good listing. And yes, if it can be in your office, that's even better because they will just say yes. But yes, I would strongly recommend that you get permission. Technically, do you need it? I mean, everything you're going to be pulling about it is on Zillow and it's public record and it's out there. So I don't know if you need it, Victoria, but I would recommend that you get permission. It's just a professional thing to do, in my opinion. Interesting. I'll get to some of these questions. All right, cool. All right, great. Market update then. Oh, before now Brad actually. Yeah, let's do this. So Brad actually has a market update video that he does. And I thought about playing some of it, but really we would just play, you know, 15 or 20 seconds of it and you'd be like, yep, that's Brad doing a video. So what we're going to do instead is Brad has been gracious enough. Any video you see here that we profile, any. Any tool that you see that we profile here, we're going to put all the links in the email that we send you after with the recording of the webinar. So you will get links to all of Brad's. I don't want to spoiler alert, but you're going to get links to all of Brad's neighborhood videos, Brad's market update videos, and any of the tools that he uses. So you'll get all of that. I didn't want to play 30 seconds of a video and I also didn't want to play the full, you know, six minute market update either. So, Brad, walk us through. When you're designing a market update video, how long do you try to keep them? This one's six minutes. But how long do you try to keep them? What specific data points are you trying to communicate? Just your thought process on a macro. How's the market video?

So thank you, Keith. Appreciate that. So if I could keep it to three minutes or less, I would. But I like to talk. So they end up being six minutes. But what I like to do, if any of you know, kcm. Keeping Current matters. Keeping Current matters has some really good slides. Every single month they come out with new economic slides and data. There's usually good information to provide no matter what. Every month updated. So I grab one or two, you know, critical things. For instance, when I do a market update for the next month, one of those slides is going to be you know, any type of recession we're going to see coming down from COVID 19 is still not going to be like the financial meltdown that we had when real estate caused it. So I throw that in, just showing the differences between recessions and the effect on home values. Then I dive into and go into seasonality. What we're looking at here locally, how the market has been current, average sales price, days on market, inventory levels, etc. And then pretty much provide content for how is a seller going to utilize this information? In other words, if you're thinking about selling, how are current market conditions going to affect you? And the same with a home buyer. How are current market conditions are going to affect you? What should your expectations be?

Perfect. Hopefully you got those bullet points, but you're also going to get the recording. But it really is kind of from the macro down to the micro specific to the area. So if, if you don't love video, then what you need are some slides to communicate, right? You can pull some newspaper articles. Newspaper articles, Man, I sounded really, really old. You could pull some news articles from online and screenshot the headlines, use those to talk a little bit about the market. You could pull some statistics from your local MLS and screenshot those and plug those into your market update. So again, in a perfect world what you want to do is how are you going to do this virtually? And it'll be a great recording that you could share and if there's a video, you can hit play on the video and if not, then you can put the statistics in and just speak to them on the screen. So this is why I said not a Facebook Live for this kind of virtual open house. Let's keep it rolling. Oh, good question. Jenny asks, is there a sample slide that we can use? Petya, I know you're lurking on this webinar. We'll send you this template slide so that you can use this if you wanted at least as a starting point for your webinar. So we will send you the templates from the slides we're actually using on this webinar. So you have that content as well for you. So then the first thing you're going to talk about Brad is the community, right? So remember we've given the macro market update. Now we're going to talk about the first community for the first home. And the first community is Almond, Almond Den. And this is just a title slide. And then this is an example where Brad actually has a video. We will send it to you. Brad actually has a video for the Community of Almaden. Am I saying that right, Brad?

It's Almaden. But that's.

All right, listen, I was all around it, I had all the letters. So Brad's got a video for that community that I'm not going to butcher again. But on the right hand side, you could also just take that. You could take a screenshot of the city logo for Almaden. Did I get it right?

You got it close?

Yeah. You can take the city logo and just put some of these statistics here. But Brad, now we're going to time back into the role play and I just want you to talk to them about Almaden and just give it like you would and we'll give them the video. But just give it like you would. If this was a webinar and all you had was some. Some stats and some bullet points.

Cool. All right, well, first of all, real quick, I just want to say that I love this presentation. The slides, the layout, it is really, really slick presentation. So I'm definitely gonna be taking the template slides from this and actually building this out. So this is really cool. Okay, so back to the role play. So Almaden is a fantastic community. We're comparing Almaden against a couple other communities and we're trying to keep the price range the same. Right. Cause we're trying to tour a buyer through relevant price ranges and neighboring communities. So Almaden is one of those neighborhoods that is. It's very sub, but a suburban that's in the middle of just beautiful picturesque scenery. It's in a little valley, hence the name Almaden Valley. It's got rich history. Almaden was actually our first quicksilver mining operation within the great state of California. So believe it or not, there's a lot of cool history. And the namesake county park in the area, Cooks over park has over 8,000 acres of wild terrain where people go hiking, biking, biking, horseback riding. It's just that community where you're close to Silicon Valley, you know, you're 10, 15 minutes away from, you know, where your job is high tech. But when you get home in Almaden, you can just disconnect from everything. Go out, enjoy the fresh air, enjoy the beautiful parks, enjoy the scenery. That's what I love about Almaden.

So good man, you. You slayed. That was so good. Like, literally, he is painting a picture. Think about the kinds of, like the way he's telling the story of Ahmaden not giving a bunch of stats, right. The stats are on the right hand side. They're there. He's talking, they're there to be viewed. But what he's really doing is you're sitting by the campfire while he's talking about his hometown. Right. I don't. I don't think that is your hometown, but maybe it is.

Actually, I'm biased because, yes, I did grow up in Almaden.

Okay, cool. Right, so, but like, the quicksilver, like, those are such great memory hooks. The fact that it was the first silver mine in California, the fact that it's got a park that's called Quicksilver park, that's got tons of hiking trails and biking trails and horse riding trails. I don't know anything about this city. I can't even say it. I know it's south of me, and I've probably driven through it before, but I got all of those mental hooks just from listening to you tell the story about the community. And that's really what this is about. Remember, you're talking to potential buyers. You want to craft a story and immerse them in these communities that you're talking about. And when you do that, you will be perceived as an area expert because just the way that you can talk about it. So that was really good, Brad. You nailed that. Okay, a couple questions. We're talking out of the role play right now. How does Brad send out his market update videos? Social media, email? Do you use Mailchimp or what software program? And do you have a YouTube channel?

Yes, yes, yes, and yes.

All right, Dust is ready to move. So you did that good a job at talking about this city. How long?

I can sell you a house there.

Yeah, yeah, I know. How long is the usual virtual open house? My guess is it shouldn't run more than 30 to 45 minutes. Again, this is probably going to run longer because Brad and I are timing in and out of the role play and telling stories. But I think your goal should be 30 minutes so that you get in, you give the macro market update, you profile two or three properties or three or four properties. You answer some questions, you get out. People are busy, they got lives. They're going to want to sit on a webinar for an hour. But, Diane, like, this is. This is a concept video. I'd love for 25, 30, 40 of you to do it. And here's what I can guarantee you. After you do your fifth or sixth one, you'll know the right duration for you. Right? You might be like, no, actually, people are thirsty for more. I should probably stretch this out a little or. Nope, half an hour seems just about right. But Brad you do a lot virtually. What do you think? How long do you think this concept should be? It's a half hour feel, right?

Yeah, I'd probably say 10 minutes. And if you're doing three to five properties, I would probably say 10 minutes per community and then one to two properties thrown in there for each community. Sure.

Yeah. Rachel gave me a great reminder here. It's okay to be nervous about these. Yeah, it is. Every time you do something new, you got nerves. That's all right. Don't worry about that. I promise you, your first one will be bound. You can always practice.

You always just, you know, videotape yourself doing it, doing the presentation, and then let your friends watch it and keep rehearsing.

Yeah, you can do the first, but just know that to get good at something, you got to do it a lot. Your first one will be much worse than. Than your 15th one, and that one will be worse than your 150th one. So give yourself some grace. Don't worry about it. Just fire it up and try.

Okay?

So, awesome job about the community. You get the point. Paint the picture for the community. Here are some more stats. If you were doing this webinar, you would be talking, telling the story while they're looking at the screen and you're sharing stats. And again, they're getting some of the technical and the storytelling at the same time. Now we're going to transition to the first property, and you. You're going to see Brad's got everything on his listings. He's got virtual tours. He's got matterports, he's got professional sexy photography. All of that helps this experience because you can take them through some of those things. And again, it's. It's taking them inside, inside the property as much as you can at a distance. If you don't have all those things today. Okay, cool. Use what you have. Try to find comparable properties with great photos. Of course, you all have great photos because you're great real estate agents and you would never just do it on your iPhone or crazy Uncle Keith will fly to where you live and hurt you. But, so, but this is the process. We want to profile the property. So, Starwood, first thing you do is you pick the. The virtual tour. You can even hit play on the virtual tour. We aren't going to here for the effect of time, or you could push that out after with the recording to all the attendees so that they have a link to it. But you want to start with the virtual tour. Brad, first off, just from a technical Standpoint, what company do you use for virtual tour?

I use company called Walk In Tour, locally Walk In Tour. And it's just a matterport video camera that they use to create the 3D walkthrough tour.

Yeah. Okay, cool. So there's that. And just start to tell us about the property and I'll advance some of the slides for you in the background. But just start to tell us about 5992 Starwood Drive.

Yeah, yeah. So 5992 Starwood Drive. Really nice property. Built back in the 1980s. So Almaden is that suburban community that we were talking about before. The majority of Almaden was built between the 1970s to early 1990s. So the construction of this property is on a more modern floor plan. The other great thing about Almaden is the type of homes that were built there are definitely more middle class to upper middle class. In other words, larger floor plans on larger lots. So that's one of the appeals to the community itself is you're going to get a home, a much larger home and a much larger lot size. The trade off of course is that it's further away from employment centers. So it's going to be a 45 minute commute or so with our traffic. But you just get so much more and schools are really good. So Starwood again is that quintessential Almaden valley home. It's 2,700 square feet, two story. I call it an executive home with a floor plan, tall vaulted ceilings, dual pane windows, modern conveniences, upgraded electrical system, plumbing, really spacious living areas. You have formal living, formal dining. Then you have a huge family room and kitchen that opens into it with a nice breakfast nook.

Perfect lower level time you out there. Yeah, you're crushing.

I can keep bringing it on and on, man.

Yeah, but you see what he's doing? He's painting the picture again. He reset Almaden as a community and then now he's drilling down in on the property as well. And you want to tease a little bit with these ones, the virtual tour, the Matterport. Right. What you want to do is give them a reason to reach back out or tell them that you have these available. If you want to see the virtual tour or the, the Matterport 3D Tour, maybe do one of them to show them what it looks like to set the hook. But what you're trying to do is create a conversation with these attendees. Right. So I would offer all of these as links that you can send to anyone who's interested. And then I Might send them to everybody. Test that, see if that starts a conversation, or you'll get fewer responses. Right. But say, hey, if any of you want these virtual tours or anything else on this or any of the properties that you see today, let me know. I can get you those. I can get you that information. So what you want to do is find some compelling call to action. And what I would do is use these extra things. You're showing the pictures, you're setting the hook a little bit with what's in front of you on the slide right now to create some interaction. You might also want to test just pushing it out and see if someone says thanks or does that start a conversation. And then we'll come back to this video in just a second. And then what you're really doing here is, is you're picking the sexiest features of the home in this. You know, the kitchen, the formal dining room, and the backyard. And you really want to take these real sort of set pieces, these show pieces for the home and really profile them. Brad uses a professional photographer. He has them go at twilight to take photos. If you haven't done that, I would consider it. Real estate is a visual medium, and we also have a tool that'll help with some of these things to make them pretty after the fact. But photos matter. So let me walk you through that one more time. Talking about Starwood. You set the hook a little bit with the virtual Tour, with the Matterport 3D, with the video tour. And again, we're going to give you samples of all these, of exactly what Brad has done. We'll come back to this one in two seconds. And then you talk about the key features of the home visually with the great photos that you have right in front. And then Brad also does a video on just about every property. Right, Brad?

Yes, correct.

Yeah. So then he also has the video. You don't want to give them everything, and you don't want to hit play on every single video in the webinar or there's no reason for them to follow up with you. Right. So you want to take some of these. If you don't have a video, maybe you've got a matterport. If you don't have matterport, maybe you have a virtual tour. You don't have a virtual tour, then what are you doing? Right. So pick. Pick some things to set the hook. Brad has all those. So his offering, his post webinar offering can be really robust. So question. Let me get through some of these questions. Yeah. Yep. Amy, we're Going to talk about that tool in a little bit. Yeah. Agree. Rachel says, I think you might lose some of the folks if you play the virtual tour. Dialogue is great to set with photos. Totally agree, Rachel. You want the virtual tour and stuff to be the hook that you're setting for a reason for them to reach back out. All right. And Vicki, I see your question. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get back to you on that specific one. So you're only showing three to five pics per property. It's a good question. You could show more what you want to do. Like, we don't really need photos of the bedroom because a bedroom is a bedroom. Unless it's one of those killer master bedrooms with views out to the backyard and you know, the slider that goes right to the pool. Sure. Then you would as many. What are the real key features and benefits of the home? That's really what you're trying to communicate. And look, if you find after doing it that there's a real thirst and demand for more photos, then you can plug more in and maybe start with too many or too few.

Go ahead, Brad, let me interject real fast. So, yeah, I mean, keep in mind, guys, the idea of this is not to tell them every single detail about each of these properties. What you're doing is you're going to pick what, what the differences are for this particular property in this particular neighborhood and show the highlights of how that's so different between this similar house in a, you know, diverse community, same price range. So kind of what are those key differences? Right. So for this house, it's, you're going to get more size, interior space, three car garage, just hit the highlights and the details. And then that way if the buyer likes it, they'll call you to set up, you know, a virtual showing of it where you're taking the time. And it's like 30 minutes dedicated to that house. But otherwise it's like, here are just the key highlights of this house in this neighborhood, same price range. Now we're going to move over to the next neighborhood. And this is kind of what you expect in that price range. So keep it high level.

So perfect. Perfect. Brian and Sarah. It's funny, Sarah, who's one of the attendees, said, I was so intrigued, I already pulled up the full listing. Exactly right. They're gonna be on a webinar. They'll open up a note.

That's what you want.

You want them going, oh, man, this is cool. Wow, this is interesting. They're at their computer anyway. Right. If they want to play their own virtual tour, they will. That is exactly what we are trying to create, Sarah. That is exactly what we are trying to create. Brad asks, how do you advertise the open house? Not, not Brad, my guest. Brad, the. An attendee. It's a good question, I think definitely all through social. Brad, how, how do you, how would you market this? And again, I'd love to tell you that we've done this a thousand times. This, we have it. This is, this is born of some thinking since COVID 19 hit. So that is, that is, I think you got to test a lot of different ways. I would probably, I would definitely push it through social channels on all of those. I would definitely do a blast email to my entire sphere of influence. I'd probably do a personal email to every lead that I felt fit the criteria. If you have a batch of online leads, I would push this up of course to all of them. Brad, what did I miss? What other, what other places can you advertise this? Can you think?

Yeah, I mean I think it's important to go after all the buyer leads that you've accumulated over the past six months to a year or longer because again, people are sitting at home if they're in the shelter in place and real estate is eye candy. So I mean it's going to be entertaining to them and you know, those people are interested or showed some interest in buying. So number one, I would probably do multiple email blasts to them and then of course social media and post it all over Facebook. Post it all over Instagram, tease it and you know, do it as a special webinar, etc. And just get it out and just see what happens again. You know, we're, we're. This is kind of experimental as well. So these are all great questions.

Yeah, Rachel has a great idea. Facebook marketing and create an event has worked well for her personal in person open houses. And I don't see any reason why that would wouldn't work well for a virtual. She got 10,000 views on Facebook for 15 bucks. Really? This I think translates even better to Facebook as far as trying to get attendees than to a real live and in person open house. Alex, I see your question. I think we're going to get to it later. If not, I'll save it for the end. Karen asked, so what if they're not your listings? How's the best way to get them to come back to you and not the listing agent if they look it up? Well, you can't really control that. Right. But they're on your webinar having an experience with you that should hopefully win the day. But again, there's no perfect. In the same way that when they leave your house to go to the next open house, there's no way of winning that client then either. So you have them on your webinar creating a love connection, having an experience with you, hopefully, Karen, fingers crossed. That wins the day, but there are no guarantees. But it gets you better at bat anyway. All right, so you've seen Brad do one. Now we got another one. So we've been through this. Now we got the second community, Santa Teresa. And again, Brad's gonna do this in just a second. He's gonna be the eloquent painter of picture with words. But if you don't have and he has a video for Santa Teresa community, which we will send you so you can see what it looks like, but don't feel like you have to have that, that's just better bait for setting the hook. What you really want to do is tell the story like Brad's about to do. Are you ready, Brad?

I'm ready.

Give it to him.

All right, so Santa Teresa. So Santa Teresa is another beautiful suburban community. It's located more to the south of San Jose. So where Almaden was southwest, this is going to be actually one valley over. Santa Teresa is a little bit older of a neighborhood. So the, the homes that were built were built in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, they're, they're more track homes, a little smaller. House price point is a little less than Almaden. Public schooling options are still good. They're not as highly rated as those Almaden. Some great community hotspots within Santa Teresa is there are several golf courses that are really good. It's still a beautiful location because again, we are, you know, 10 miles south of downtown San Jose. Lots of recreational activities, lots of hiking, lots of biking. You're close to some lakes, jogging trails, etc. It's another active, really active community and one where it's nice to come home, but you get to save a little bit of money on the actual home prices.

Awesome. Great job. I was clearing out some questions while you did it, but boom, perfect. Framed it up, gave a juxtaposition to the other one, which is another thing you want to do. You want to explain to them how is this different and how is it similar to the one that I just profiled? Thinking about like the first time you show property to an out of town buyer where you're really trying to paint the picture. So awesome. Oh, question from the audience. Are these towns or neighborhoods? I won't guess. Brown. Are these towns or neighborhoods?

They're neighborhoods. This is all city of San Jose, but city of San Jose is, I forget how many square miles it is. It's huge. And we have a million people here and it's broken up in all kinds of little neighborhoods.

Great point. For more rural, rural areas, please don't talk for a living. We can do this by subdivision or town instead of different communities. Exactly. Perfect point. You know your market and when it makes sense, again, think about it through the frame of out of town buyer and you're trying to explain the area. So perfect. Yep. Now we're going to talk about the second property and Brad will do it just like we did before. Remember, these are to set the hook. You're just scrolling through these and you're going to manage mention. I've got a virtual tour, I've got a 3D walkthrough. So you're going to mention that to set the hook and that you've got a video and then we get into the photos of the property. So Brad, are you ready? Are you ready? Yes.

Give it another shot. All right, so the second property that we're taking a look at is 932Bimmerly Place. And the reason why we're choosing this particular property is because it's in a neighboring community from Almaden. And much like the last property, this has a very similar floor plan. But you'll notice the price is quite a bit less. So there isn't any quality discount from the last property. This one is a little bit smaller. So it's 2,300 square feet versus the other one at 2700 square feet. This one is actually a little younger in age, built in 1988, but again, similar floor plan. It has a little bit of a split level floor plan between the kitchen and living area and steps down into the family room. This one has a guest bedroom downstairs, three bedrooms upstairs, but it still provides vaulted ceilings and monitored amenities. Dual pane windows, you know, again, more modern plumbing, electrical. And then this one actually I think has a better backyard because it's got a beautiful pool area. And again, just differences between this one and the last one. The price point because it's in Santa Teresa versus Almaden, otherwise very similar for the lifestyle or for, you know, a large family that can move into it.

So perfect. Nailed it again. And I here's the experience. I felt my.