What is a transaction coordinator? That question is on many realtors’ and agents’ minds, and we’ll answer it for you.

There are people in the backend running every successful real estate business. And one of the most important jobs in the real estate industry is one you’ve probably never heard about.

In this post, we’ll explain what a transaction coordinator is. We’ll also cover how the digital era has transformed the real estate industry and the two phases of a transaction coordinator.

The Digital Era of Real Estate Work 

It’s plain to see that the digital age has come crashing into the world of real estate and transformed it. The ways we all used to work seem quaint and outdated.

Now social media campaigns, interactive 3D tours, virtual assistants, single property websites and virtual staging are the essential tools for selling property in 2022. 

Two of the most important roles in the digital workplace are the virtual assistant and the transaction coordinator.

These are highly-skilled individuals, working domestically or overseas, who are able to coordinate the digital work of US-based real estate operations. And also help them to manage and complete a real estate transaction.

Virtual Assistant vs. Transaction Coordinator

There is  a lot of attention given to who your first hire will be when you’re ready to expand your real estate business.

The first person you hire will determine, to a large extent, whether you will carry on using this new model of work. Or whether you will revert to a more traditional, office-bound style of working.

So, do you hire a virtual assistant or transaction coordinator first?

We’ll try to explain this in a simple way.

A virtual assistant tends to pick up the slack across a lot of departments; from scheduling to social media marketing, data entry and paperwork.

But after a few short weeks or months, if they are successful, then you will start to see an uptick in the amount of work being generated.

This is usually when the day to day management of each transaction becomes too much for one person to handle, and that’s when the next hire becomes even more important.

So, that’s the moment to contract a transaction coordinator who can make sure nothing slips through the cracks during each and every new transaction.

Transaction coordinators will oversee all aspects of the transaction, from both the buyer and seller perspective. 

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The Two Phases of a Transaction Coordinator

Think of the work of a transaction coordinator as being separated into two halves.

The first half runs up until the point that a sale has been agreed upon; the second half handles everything that needs to happen to close the deal.

There are a lot of different tasks and responsibilities associated with each phase for a transaction coordinator to deal with. 

1. Listing to Contract

For example, when you’re working from the Listing to Contract phase, you might be asked to prepare all listing materials such as the pre-listing presentation, listing agreement, sellers’ disclosures, comparative market analysis and more.

After that, you will likely have to obtain all necessary signatures on listing agreement, disclosures and other necessary  documentation, then input the listing information into MLS and marketing websites before publishing the listing.

Finally, the job requires you to submit all necessary documentation to the office broker for file compliance and input all necessary information into a client database and transaction management systems.

2. Contract to Closing

It’s hard work and that’s only the beginning. The second phase deals with Contract to Closing tasks, such as:

• Coordinate title and escrow
• Mortgage loan origination 
• Appraisal processes
• Assisting in negotiations regarding repairs
• Coordinate moving and possession schedule
• Scheduling, coordinating & attending the closing process

These are much more consumer-facing tasks and require a well organized individual with good people skills.

The entire process, start to finish, requires a capable and skilled digital professional to make it a real success. 

In addition, it’s also a role that can happen asynchronously from the rest of the team.

Wrapping Up

Transaction coordinators don’t need as much daily interaction from the client, which is another reason that it’s the ideal digital role to outsource to a qualified person in another country.

Virtual assistants and transaction coordinators from the Philippines tend to be some of the best in the industry.  

A transaction coordinator is an incredibly important role for a growing agency.

A person who is focused on the details of a transaction and can coordinate between all the parties is an extremely powerful asset. 

Let PhotoUp use our experience in staffing to help you find a transaction coordinator or virtual assistant that is sure to have a positive impact on your business. 

We hope this post answered your question: what is a transaction coordinator? Before you go, you may also check out the following resources:

Are you considering whether outsourcing real estate marketing is a good idea or if you should do it yourself?

Today, real estate marketing is handled by teams of digital professionals who work all over the world. Outsourcing your real estate marketing will help streamline and grow your business.

So, in this post, we’ll share everything you need to know about outsourcing real estate marketing and why hiring a marketing partner is a good idea to increase sales and revenue for your real estate business.

The Business of Real Estate Marketing

When it comes to marketing and selling a property, one of your most valuable selling tools are the photographs.

Sometimes, great pictures do all the talking for you. With the right photos, the buyer can imagine himself/herself in the space and the deal is closed.

As simple as that!

However, closing a deal used to take an extraordinary amount of time and effort from the realtor.

Especially when it came to marketing a listing.

Today, real estate marketing is handled by teams of digital professionals who work all over the world.

Photos themselves can be edited, organized, and even sent to your clients through platforms like PhotoUp.

Using our service as example, PhotoUp offers real estate photo editing and marketing services, specifically for real estate professionals. 

Partnering with a team of professionals to help you with your marketing can still have it’s challenges, but it will beat the alternative of managing everything on your own.

The Perils of Doing It Alone

As mentioned, the easiest way to run a first-class real estate business is to partner with a real estate marketing provider.

Whether you’re a real estate photographer or a realtor, doing everything alone can take a lot of your time and be a real challenge. 

No doubt you save a little money in the short term. But the time you spend on real estate marketing will keep you away from gaining new clients or getting more homes under contract.

After all, you’re busy, over-stretched and human. Sometimes you will get it right and other times your focus is elsewhere.  

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Advantages of a Real Estate Marketing Company

So, what are the real advantages of outsourcing your real estate marketing needs? Allow us to give you a quick overview:

1. Save Time

Whether it be real estate photo editing or building a single property website, creating quality marketing material is a tedious, time-consuming process.

Making photos look perfect or virtually staging a room can take hours, sometimes days to complete.

And that’s if this is the only thing you’re focusing on.

By delegating your marketing tasks such as real estate photo editing, virtual staging, and building single property websites, you’ll free up your time to focus on more high value areas of your business.

2. Better Quality

It’s safe to say that, unless you are a professional photo editor or know your way around design tools or development software, it’s probably better to leave that to the professionals.

You wouldn’t try to build your own garage unless you were a builder. So why spend your time trying to design, develop, or edit if those aren’t skills in your wheelhouse…?

3. Integrated Services

One of the best features of an online real estate marketing service is how well all the various aspects of marketing integrate together.

So, for instance, if you start by using a real estate photo editing service, it should be relatively easy to also do some virtual staging as well.

And once all of your images are done being processed, the next step of building a property website should be a piece of cake.

The real cherry on top would be to find a company that will help you find and hire a virtual assistant to manage most of this process for you.

Essentially, you should be able to run an entire real estate agency through the dashboard of a service provider like PhotoUp. 

Marketing Is Better When It’s a Team Effort

As we’ve stated before, there is nothing to stop you from creating all of your own real estate marketing materials.

But time and again, we hear from people who say they receive better results and more free time when they outsource their real estate marketing.

And here are some reasons why: 

• Collaboration produces better results. 
• A team dynamic makes things happen faster. 
• Time saved can be used on other parts of your business.

As a real estate professional, you get to stay focused on what you’re good at.

You can you leave the design, development and creative aspects up to the professionals. 

With that said, if you’re ready to work with a real estate marketing team, then get started with PhotoUp today!

We’ll set you up with a professional marketing team to assist you in photo editing, virtual staging, property websites, and more!

We hope this post helped you see the benefits with outsourcing your real estate marketing. Before you go, you may also want to check out the following resources:

• What Is a Real Estate Virtual Assistant?
• Where Are They Located?
• How Do I Find the Best Virtual Assistants?
• How Much Do They Cost?
• When Should I Hire a Real Estate Virtual Assistant?

Are you considering whether to hire a real estate virtual assistant?

Virtual assistants are transforming all industries, and real estate is no different.

In this post, we’ll cover everything you need to know about hiring a virtual assistant for your real estate business. We’ll explain what a real estate virtual assistant is, where they are located, what they do, and how much they cost.

Alright, let’s dive in!

What Is a Real Estate Virtual Assistant?

Virtual assistants are taking the world of real estate by storm.

Thanks to the global nature of the internet, realtors and real estate agents are finding virtual assistants who are effective, flexible, and affordable all around the world.

Also, known as transaction coordinators, these individuals provide the kinds of services that allow you to focus on high-value tasks. And in that way, you can leave the administrative tasks to your behind-the-scenes team.

Typically, they shape their working hours to suit the client’s needs. Plus, they are fluent in English, understand the US real estate market, and work with agencies that have good footing both in the US and abroad.

Virtual assistants are quickly becoming the next wave of online evolution for the real estate industry. And this is providing a huge boost to early adopters.

Where Are Real Estate Virtual Assistants Located?

Virtual assistants are working from all over the world serving the needs of the American real estate market.

Most companies find that working with assistants from the Philippines, India, and Malaysia provide the best value for money.

But that doesn’t mean there are not virtual assistant’s in all corners of the globe.

Overall, the Philippines has an advantage in that the Filipino people are steeped in American culture. They also speak great English and have long and deep connections with the US.

With a thriving education system, solid tech infrastructure, and the widespread use of English, the Philippines is proving to be a global leader when it comes to virtual assistants.

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How Do I Find the Best Real Estate Virtual Assistant?

With so many different options for virtual assistants, finding the right VA is more than half the battle won.

You’ll know you have when:

• You have someone on your team who you can really trust
• Who understands the way you work
• And who you can delegate meaningful tasks to

Needless to say, the benefits of a virtual assistant are many.

That said, it is easier said than done to find a virtual assistant that fits your needs.

First of all, you need to start with a real estate virtual assistant service provider who understands the market. And who has done preliminary vetting of their VA candidates.

Second of all, once they have suggested a shortlist of VA’s, you should hop on a Zoom or Skype call and conduct an interview.

Find out what they know about the industry, how flexible they are in terms of working hours, and their fluency in English.

Remember to Specify the Work Tasks

Be quite specific about the tasks that you’ll be needing assistance with.

Also, have an understanding of whether this is going to be primarily a real estate marketing position.

Or someone who will spend most of their time as an administrative assistant? Perhaps their focus will be solely on transaction coordination?

Whatever it is, be up front about your needs so that both parties know what is expected as you begin working together.

After you’ve done your due diligence and found someone you click with and who checks the boxes, give them a try!

Additionally, most virtual assistant companies will offer you a trial period of 1-2 months to work with your new VA to make sure the relationship is moving in the right direction.

As with any new employee, make sure to have some onboarding material for them to get started, keep lines of communication open, and take things one day at a time.

Specifically, the more you put into the relationship with your VA, the more you’ll benefit from it!

Set up a free consultation with a virtual assistant recruiter to help you get started!

How Much Does a Real Estate Virtual Assistant Cost?

Like most other things, costs vary when it comes to hiring a virtual assistant.

More experienced, better qualified virtual assistants cost a little more than novice VAs who are just starting out in the industry.

Broadly speaking, a virtual assistant from the Philippines costs anywhere from $5.00 to $10.00 per hour.

But this can vary based on skill level, the type of tasks or skills required, and what hours of the day you need your VA to work.

With that in mind, it’s safe to say that Filipino virtual assistants offer some of the best value on the market.

Their professionalism, diligence, and familiarity with the American market make them the ideal candidates to join any real estate team.

Not to mention, the exchange rate between the two countries is typically very favorable for American employers.

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When Should I Hire a Real Estate Virtual Assistant?

For starters, when you are starting to feel overwhelmed by the number of tasks you have to complete in a day, then it may be the right time to hire a VA.

Also, if you are missing opportunities because you are too busy doing administrative tasks, it may be time to look for a virtual assistant.

Lastly, if you feel that you can’t grow your real estate business because you have too much on your plate, hiring a real estate virtual assistant is likely your best option.

There is no one single right time, place, or price to hire your virtual assistant.

But if you’re ready for growth, a better work/life balance, and want time to focus on the parts of the job that you really love, a real estate virtual assistant just might be your saving grace.

So, schedule a free consultation to learn more about PhotoUp’s virtual assistants and how they can make a profound difference to the way you work.

We hope this post covered everything you need to know to make a decision whether to hire a real estate virtual assistant. If you enjoyed this post, make sure to also check out the following resources:

• How Much Does a Real Estate Virtual Assistant Cost?
• Grow Your Business With a Real Estate Virtual Assistant
• The Value of a Virtual Assistant to a Real Estate Agent
• Are You Making the Most of Your Virtual Assistant’s Services?

The most successful real estate photographers working today find themselves providing services that would have been unimaginable ten years ago. They’re become more than just photographers and are turning themselves into real estate marketing professionals. Realtors are turning to their real estate photographers to provide drone shots, property websites, virtual staging services, and many other tasks that can be lucrative, but that place more demands on your time and require you to be good at multitasking.

Of course, this is all on top of producing high-quality real estate photos, sending invoices, managing your website, and running multiple social media accounts.

As a result, top real estate photographers frequently turn to a virtual assistant (or VA) to help them manage the ever-growing workload. What is a VA? Someone who works in a remote location and dedicates their time to help you get through administrative tasks that you might not have time or energy to do otherwise. From scheduling your next shoot to running your social media to sending invoices and managing your photo editing needs, a VA can transform your work life and free up the time you need to take more photos and secure new clients.

Do I Need a Virtual Assistant?

But how do you know when or if you truly need a virtual assistant?

The most common reason for hiring a virtual assistant is because you find yourself unable to keep up with daily tasks and/or you’re falling behind or forgetting core aspects of your business. You may find that you need a VA to help with your marketing, or for your admin needs, or to manage the flow of your photo editing.

You may decide to keep that assistant dedicated to one task or to move them around to others, depending on the volume of work you’re dealing with.

But as long as your communication skills are good, and you set clear tasks for your VA, you’ll find yourself achieving more than you ever thought possible.

Let’s run through a few scenarios where a VA can make a big difference to your business:

Marketing

Virtual assistants are capable of handling many different types of marketing tasks. From social media to lead generation to email marketing, a good VA will be able to help you attract new business while you’re out shooting. Do you need help updating your website, or maybe you haven’t gotten around to building a website yet? A virtual assistant is the perfect person to help you with those marketing items that you know are necessary, but always seem to make their way to the back burner.

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Photo Editing

This is one arena of the business where a VA can make a huge difference. Turning raw images into top-class marketing material is time-consuming work. Many photographers choose to work with real estate photo editing companies that offer quick turnaround time and quality results. Others choose to hire a virtual assistant or team of virtual assistants that are purely dedicated to photo editing.

Whether you choose to hire a VA to manage your post-production needs or physically do the editing work themselves, VAs are a great resource when it comes to offloading the photo processing side of your business.

General Administration

When you work with a VA, you can delegate them to manage your schedule, book your next shoots, answer calls from clients, respond to customer service emails, and even help you to pay your bills and send out invoices. Allowing you to hand off all of the daily operational tasks so that you can focus on what you do best, taking photos.

As the relationship deepens and you get more comfortable with each other, your VA can take on more and more of the tasks that have been preventing you from producing the kind of work you know you could be creating. These are just a few examples of how other professional photographers work with virtual assistants. There are no hard and fast rules that you have to follow. All you need to know is what areas you need help with and how to communicate clearly with your VA – the rest is completely up to you.

How Do I Hire a Virtual Assistant?

Hiring the right VA can feel overwhelming if you don’t know where to look. The good news is that there are dedicated agencies out there who have been doing that kind of work for a long time and can help match you with the right person for your specific needs.

For instance, PhotoUp offers a network of capable Virtual Assistants who are able to work immediately in any number of roles. These are bright, tech-savvy, flexible young people who have a great work ethic and are eager to learn new skills.

To find out more about how PhotoUp can help you find the right virtual assistant for you, get in touch today. Our simple onboarding process makes sure that you’re matched up with the right VA, that the terms of the agreement are suitable for both parties and that the relationship gets off on the right foot.

The business of selling a property, like so many other sectors of the economy, is facing disruption in 2020. There are so many demands on people’s time and resources that it’s all too easy to neglect the necessary tasks associated with marketing and advertising.

But that would be a mistake. In the digital economy, real estate marketing is more important now than ever before.

The key to more efficient real estate marketing is to outsource some of the key activities that can be executed quickly and easily by real estate marketing professionals, virtual assistants, or service providers. Real estate photo editing, virtual staging, floor plans and web pages are vital tools to have, but are technical, detailed tasks that take time to get just right.

Building a digital marketing campaign by yourself is hard, time-consuming and vital work. And it’s not necessarily the reason why most of us go into real estate in the first place. From updating your website, to managing your mailing list and marketing campaigns, or performing the more technical aspects of online real estate marketing such as photo editing, virtual staging designing floor plans or building single property websites, it’s no surprise that virtual assistants are becoming a more critical part of any real estate team.

In order to save time and keep your focus on gaining new clients and selling listings, consider outsourcing those kinds of tasks to real estate marketing professionals who do that work for a living. See if your real estate photographer can offer some of these services and if not, then you should consider working directly with a virtual assistant who can.

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Below is a list of the top real estate marketing tasks that you can and should consider outsourcing in 2020:

Top Real Estate Marketing Tools for Outsourcing in 2020

Real Estate Photography

It’s time to put down the iPhone and hire a professional real estate photographer. Professional photos will help any listing stand out online and is proven to increase online and in-person traffic to listings.

And professional real estate photographers typically provide much more than just taking photos of homes. The best real estate photographers will offer things like additional marketing services like real estate photo editing, video editings, virtual staging, floor plans, property websites, and flyers (just to name a few). Make sure you choose a real estate photographer that can be both a trusted photographer and a true real estate marketing professional.

Virtual Staging

Enhance any real estate photo by using beautiful digital furniture sets designed for a wide range of tastes. Let virtual staging artists take an image of an empty room and make it look like a photo right out of a Better Homes and Gardens magazine. From living and dining rooms to gym equipment, games rooms and offices – you can select the room type and style you want for your real estate marketing images and then rely on a team of experts to make it look picture perfect.

Virtual Assistants

Work with a dedicated virtual assistant who can help you manage your business while staying under budget. A virtual assistant can help with anything from scheduling meetings to answering client emails to helping coordinate your real estate transactions. Take advantage of the ability to hire another member of your team while saving time and money of having to train and onboard someone locally.

Floor Plans

Using an outline of the floor plan or even a hand drawn sketch, your online service provider can create sophisticated 2D and/or 3D floor plans for your listings. Make sure you have the ability to customize your floor plans to include your colors, logo, and text on the final product. Floor plans are another great marketing tool to help you stand out over the competition.

Drone Photography

Aerial photographs of properties have never been more popular. By working with a drone photography professional, you can get shots that show off your properties’ best features and let potential buyers see a birds-eye view of their new home. Ask your real estate photographer about their drone photography options as they’re sure to help you impress homeowners and homebuyers alike!

Single Property Websites

If you’re not already, you should consider using single property websites when marketing your listings. Single property websites help your properties stand out from other listings and bring an extra level of exclusivity and luxury to the listing. Use one of the beautiful templates offered by a website builder, upload your photos, videos, and 3D tour to create a stunning website with its own unique URL. Use the website to help tell a story of the property and showcase its best features.

Find a Partner That Works For You

All of these services are activities that eat up a realtor’s time and prevent them from doing the more people-oriented work that leads to sales. Realtors who are able to outsource these particular technical tasks and hire a virtual assistant to stay on top of their marketing workflow have a distinct advantage when it comes to real estate in the 21st century.

Create a PhotoUp account to discover the many ways that we help real estate professionals provide more products, services, and value to their clients, all under one roof.

What Does a Virtual Assistant Do

When you’re trying to run a business, it’s easy to get tripped up by the small things. Sometimes you’re so busy growing your business that some of your daily tasks begin to slip through the cracks or have you working 12, 15, or even 20 hour days just to keep your head above water. That kind of behaviour is natural for a growing business owner, but it can come back to haunt you.

A virtual assistant can solve that problem for you without breaking the bank. He/she can follow up with new contacts, organize your calendar, help support your current clients and generally free up your time so you can focus on growing your business.

Working with a Virtual Assistant

Virtual assistants are dedicated to solving problems for entrepreneurs and business owners just like you. Even though most virtual assistants tend to work in other countries (commonly, the Philippines, India, and Indonesia), they will typically work during your normal business hours and are available to you via phone call, instant messaging service (like Skype), or whichever platform suits you best.

It can feel a little strange in the beginning to entrust someone you don’t know to work on your business, but just like all new hires, that disappears quickly as your virtual assistant learns your business and gains experience working with you and your clients. Furthermore, most virtual assistant or staffing companies provide contracts that have strong confidentiality clauses so you can feel 100% confident in sharing your company information with your virtual assistant.

When you commit to a virtual assistant, the first thing the team at PhotoUp will do is schedule a discovery meeting so that we can understand exactly what you’re looking for so they can match you with the best possible VA for your specific needs.

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Virtual Assistants in the Philippines

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Most Common VA Roles

• Marketing Assistant: When it comes to tasks such as lead generation, list building and running managed email campaigns, a virtual assistant is perfect for the role. The VP of Business Development at Lithic Foods recently shared their story about working with a marketing assistant. “With our virtual assistant from Eastern Staffing,” he wrote in an email, “we’ve been able to accelerate our lead generation over 200% and close an average of 20 new accounts per month.”
• Support Assistants: You don’t need to hire a call center to manage your incoming queries. A support assistant can offer live chat support for real time website sales or operational support for existing customers.
• Personal Assistant: Sometimes, you just cannot keep on top of your work life and personal life. Meetings, phone calls, kids sporting events, date nights, it all adds up! A virtual assistant can take care of personal tasks that free you up to keep you running both personally and professionally.
• Real Estate Virtual Assistant: In the real estate industry, it’s all about timing and responsive communication. With a real estate virtual assistant, you’ll be able to have someone help you with things like transaction coordination, scheduling, and helping out with lead generation and marketing to help you attract new potential clients. If you struggle to keep up with any of these activities, a real estate VA could be just the thing you need!

Where to Hire Your Virtual Assistant

There are various organizations around the world offering virtual assistant services, but we tend to believe that hiring a virtual assistant in the Philippines makes the most sense. Due to the strength of the US dollar, hiring virtual services from the Philippines is as cost-effective as it is beneficial. PhotoUp has its headquarters in Michigan and a talent pool in Cebu, Philippines, helping them bridge the cultural divide with ease.

Filipino people speak great English, they understand American culture and way of life, they work shifts that correspond with American working hours, and they know how to deal with American business practices.

Furthermore, the Philippines is producing a generation of young, well-educated, tech-savvy individuals who are hungry for international experience and know how to use the internet to make that happen.

So if you’re ready to see the value of a virtual assistant for yourself, then reach out to sales@photoup.net so our team can start matching you with a virtual assistant who will help you transform the way you work.

Starting a new business has never been easy. But starting one in 2020 can feel overwhelmingly tough. But the good news is that real estate photography is booming, and so are ‘online first’ businesses. So if you’ve ever Googled ‘How to become a professional real estate photographer?’, you’ve come to the right place!

You can start right away, with minimal risk, and build a thriving real estate photography agency in just a few short days, or even hours, if you have the right equipment.

How to start a real estate photography business

What do you need to get started? As a photographer, all you need is:

• A DSLR camera
• Flash and tripod
• Good internet connection
• Reliable transportation
• Photo editing skills OR a real estate photo editing partner

It goes without saying that you need to be a good photographer as well. (That’s the hardest part to learn and master) But if you’ve put in the time to learn photography, then you’ve already won at over ½ the battle!

Real Estate Photography Business Tools

Of course, there’s a lot more to running a business than just taking good pictures. Even great photographers fail if they don’t understand that.

Let’s go through a list of some of the tools you will need to start a real estate photography business.

Website

It’s never been easier to get a beautiful, fully functional website up and running. You can even find a website builder with templates built specifically for photographers where simplicity and high-quality images are valued. Take a look at what’s available at Folio Websites when you’re ready to get started.

Real Estate Photo Editing Services

You’re going to need to do a lot of real estate photo editing, retouching, and post-processing if you’re going to reach the standard you need for today’s real estate clients. Not to mention, as you get busier and busier, you’ll quickly find that shooting 2 to 3 homes in one day can make for a long night of photo editing.

The good news is that it’s easier than ever to learn photo editing skills or hire a real estate photo editing company. Simply sign up with a company like PhotoUp where professional editors are on hand to take care of all your real estate photography post-processing needs. You simply upload your photographs, add any specific editing instructions, and they take care of the rest. Your photos are delivered back to you, fully edited, and ready to send to your clients the next day!

Virtual Assistant

There are lots of tasks that need to get done when you’re running a business. Delivering images, sending invoices, scheduling shoots, communicating back and forth with clients, etc. But in order to continue to grow, you really need to be out there visiting realtors and taking more pictures. Make use of a virtual assistant to keep your business running: someone who is online and who you hire for a certain number of hours a day to take care of your admin tasks. Find out more about Virtual Assistants right here.

Real Estate Photography Marketing Tools

Real estate photographers today need to be able to do more than just take great pictures.There are a number of other skills that make you valuable to realtors and will help you build the kind of business that is scalable, relevant, and most of all, profitable.

Single Property Websites

These standalone websites are the perfect way to help sell a property. With just a few clicks (and some great photos), you can create an entire website dedicated to marketing a property. These are great for luxury listings or making a listing stand out among the pack.

Virtual Staging Services

Learn how to digitally add furniture to your pictures to create a perfectly staged image. All you need is to upload a good quality photo of an empty room, then you can select furniture from a variety of styles, share your selections with the design team and wait for high-resolution, beautiful marketing images that will be sent back to you in just 24 hours.

Floor Plans

These are a great way for prospective buyers to get a better understanding of the layout of a property. Learn how to create a sketch that can be easily translated into a 2D or 3D floor plan which can be added to your listing or uploaded to a single property website.

3D Tours

Let clients feel what it’s like to walk through a property without having to physically be there with the help of a 3D Tour. As a real estate photographer, you can capture and upload visual data which is then processed into a 3D tour that will blow your realtor clients away. Companies like Matterport and iGuide are great choices for 3D Tour providers with amazing technology, support, and customer service.

As you can see, there’s a lot more to being a 21st century real estate photographer than simply photographing properties. You need to master the real estate marketing tools that are out there, and keep on adding value for the realtors you service. By embracing these tools, you can evolve from a real estate photographer, to a real estate marketing professional.

Reach out to PhotoUp today and find out the many ways that they can help you start your new real estate photography career.

Why use real estate marketing tools in the first place?

The best real estate marketing helps properties stand out in a crowded marketplace. It generates a buzz on social media, draws a lot of visitors to your listings and website which helps grow your email database, adds leads to your CRM, and ultimately, increases your sales.

Great real estate marketing helps sell homes faster, and there’s no better feeling in the world for a Realtor

All the time and effort that you’ve put in behind the scenes starts to payoff. And what’s even better? Once you’ve mastered real estate marketing, you can scale your operations easily and repeat the same methods over and over again.

Here are a few real estate marketing tools that help generate more leads for your listings and will make sure your listing stands out in a crowded marketplace.

5 of the Best Real Estate Marketing Tools in 2020

Single Property Websites

The basis of your real estate marketing should be a single property website. That’s the heart of the campaign that everything else should flow from. Basically, a single property website is a website with its own unique URL that is created solely for the purpose of marketing a single listing. That may sound like a lot of work, and in the past, single property sites focussed only on high-end properties. But today, website builders like PhotoUp have made the experience quick, easy and cost effective.

Take a look at the kind of results you can achieve with a single property website.

Virtual Staging

Gone are the days when realtors had to rent furniture, haul it off to the property, set it up, photograph it, and invite potential buyers to view the staged room. That way of working ended up being expensive, time-consuming, and inefficient.

Virtual staging is the perfect solution. Realtors only need good photographs of empty rooms and then send them to a virtual staging company to do the rest. Most virtual staging companies will allow you to pick furniture from an online catalog where you can select furniture sets of individual pieces of furniture to include in each image.

In this age when most real estate marketing takes place online, virtual staging is the perfect solution to really showcase your listing in the best possible light. Browse through our catalog of 3D furniture sets for every room in your next listing.

3D Walk-through Tours

The ability to visit a property has been severely restricted in 2020 due to COVID-19. Serious buyers like to get a feel for a property before they need to step foot inside. So one of the best ways to get potential home buyers checking out your listing is to create a virtual tour of the property. Using their mobile devices or laptops, people can move through each room, see how the house flows, get a sense of each room and imagine what life might be like to live in the space.

It’s a standout feature to have, and really can set a listing apart for potential buyers.

Take a look at this beautiful example of a 3D tour.

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Professional Real Estate Photography

We all know the saying a picture is worth a thousand words. In real estate marketing, you could say that great pictures are worth a hundred thousand dollars. Nothing sells a property better than beautiful, hi-definition photography. Time-stressed consumers with lots of options simply do not bother looking into listings that showcase dark, blurry, or cluttered photos. There’s just no point.

If there’s one change you can make right now, it’s to engage a professional real estate photographer. You can also make use of some of PhotoUp’s affordable, amazing tools that transform your photographs into high quality marketing images.

Take a look at some examples of the difference that PhotoUp’s real estate photo editing service makes.

Floor Plans

Send a signal to potential buyers that you’re serious about your listing by including floor plans in your marketing. You can include the floor plans in the images you add to your local MLS or as a bonus feature on your single property website. PhotoUp has mastered the technology behind offering 2D and 3D floor plans for your listings. You get to choose from six beautiful themes, and include features such as a directional compass, custom branding, square meterage, and even exterior drawings!

Prices for floor plans depend on the type of drawing (2D vs 3D) and how many floors the property is. Check out our Floor Plans page for more information.

Measure your Marketing Investment in Real Time

It’s not always easy to stay on top of all real estate marketing tools. But it’s important that you stay up to date with the trends that are taking hold of the market, especially during these changing times. PhotoUp offers plenty of actionable data that helps you to improve your operations, reduce your stress, and empowers your business to grow and scale, even through these difficult times.

Sign up with PhotoUp today and you get access to all of the above real estate marketing tools ready-made for your business.

Below is an overview of operational and system changes we’re implementing to improve our service during this season and beyond.

Intelligent Editor Matching

In July, we introduced a new simplified order rating system that is now fully deployed. This change provides an improved user experience but also provides big under-the-hood improvements to our editor assignment algorithms. Moving forward, our system will learn which editors are a good match for your style and will intelligently match you more often. Editor matching will improve over the coming months as we collect more data for each member and create stronger editor-photographer relationships in the system.

Lower Costs

With widespread lockdowns around the globe starting in March and April, we knew we needed to help our photographers lower their costs. This presented the opportunity to launch our new Distributed Editing service, which allows photographers to have an editor in our network edit an order at a 25% reduction in cost. We also introduced unlimited credit rollovers for customers who remained on their same plans for the Summer months which helped nearly 50% of our member photographers.

Top Editor

Thanks to the new data we’re collecting with the new rating system, we’ll be launching a new editing option in September called Top Editor. This feature will allow members to select an order to be edited by an editor who has consistently been ranked highly for a particular member, helping ensure the highest level of editing quality possible for mission-critical orders.

Faster Revisions

One of the larger challenges of work-from-home has been returning revisions on time due to slower home internet and the nature of a distributed workforce. Our team is currently working on optimizing operations so we have more editors dedicated to revisions so we can return revisions within our stated target of four hours or less.

Remote Training

One of the trickier parts of running a large remote editing team is training. PhotoUp’s customer success team has been hard at work this Summer to develop improved remote photo editing training courses for our team which will be rolling out this Fall. This will help our newest editors improve on their quality and help all editors learn the best and latest techniques in photo editing.

The Ultimate All-in-One

Real Estate Photographer Business Platform

Grow a successful real estate photography business with PhotoUp.

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Virtual Staging

With COVID, real estate marketing has gone virtual. This year, our team is doubling down on providing our members with new virtual products and services which can help you expand your service offerings. In May, we officially launched our new virtual staging uploader for all members and have seen a strong uptick in orders already. We’re already working on exciting new features to help improve the virtual staging ordering process as well as expanding our library of virtual furniture.

Virtual Assistants

Sometimes you need a little extra help without the extra expense of hiring a full-time or long-term employee. In June, PhotoUp beta launched our new Virtual Assistant service with many customers raving about the new service. With a PhotoUp VA, you can hire a ¼ time, ½ time, or full-time virtual assistant to assist in your operations. A virtual assistant can help you do quality control, create tours, invoice clients, and assist with customer support.

Single Property Websites

We’re excited to announce PhotoUp has been working on a new single property website product that will be launching this Fall. This is a part of our on-going roadmap to help our members provide more virtual products for real estate marketing. We’ll be announcing more details in the coming weeks so stay tuned.

Limited Office Reopening

While this year will largely be about building systems where our team can effectively work remotely, our team is reviewing plans to test bringing a small portion of our team back to the office in Q4 this year. While this will likely not exceed 25% capacity, it will help us improve turnaround times and implement the systems needed for a broader return to the office in 2021.

We Want To Hear From You

While the pandemic has brought many on-going challenges our team at PhotoUp wants to help you navigate this tricky season. Our operations, support, and product development teams are working hard to provide you the products, services and systems you need to not just survive, but to thrive during COVID.

If you have any additional suggestions, feature requests or questions about how PhotoUp can help you and your business this season, please reach out to our USA support team, we’d love to hear from you.