Besides being the first Real Estate site exclusively revolving around videos, RP offers a wealth of features never before offered in a Real Estate site, let alone a site open to all realtors, regardless of their brokerage and management affiliations. One of these key features is scheduling tools to book a videographer to tape a property, edit it and upload it into your own list of properties. Other such unique features are video popups in google maps, “buy now” buttons, integration with many MLSes, aggregated listings on brokerage pages, property pages for all states/cities/counties/neighborhoods, and really much much more.. I’ll provide a complete feature set break down at the end…And if you want skip all that, just check the demo pages we have up: ReelProperties.tv .
 
With sites like Zillow and Trulia not living up to their hype, the real question is how does Reel Properties plan to finally be the Ultimate Online Marketplace for Real Estate?

Well, to answer that question correctly, it’s important to know why those sites haven’t lived up to the hype—local staples are simply better and have more listings. We plan to combat this by doing two things: A) interfacing with as many MLSes as possible, and pre-populating an agent or brokerage’s account with their properties, so when they create an account on Reel Properties, all there properties will be there for them. Next, they can just hire a videographer and schedule a taping time by clicking a button on a given property. B) The second thing we have done is made the whole site location-centric, which means the location from which you are viewing the site will be taken into consideration for every piece of content displayed, from ads to properties, to news, and other user generated content. The user can of course change the location if they’re interested in realty elsewhere, but the point is that from the start—on the homepage—you will only see properties in your area.
 
There is one other major thing we’re doing, which we hope puts on the map: rentals. As we all seem to be finding out with the web, the best marketers are our users. We think younger people looking to rent, rather than buy, will be way more likely to spread the word of Reel Properties. With a Facebook application in the works, Reel Properties is sure to be a hit with a younger generation more adept with social networks. Sales will follow.
 
…Well there is one last thing (we think you’re going to like this one): We’ll be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on free property videos throughout the first year. This week Reel Properties.tv is actually competing to win $10,000 on ideablob.com for this exact goal. We will use the money to give out 500 free property videos in New York City in early 2008. To get a free video, just vote for us and leave a comment with your email address here:
 
http://ideablob.com/ideas/439-ReelProperties-tv-will-put-10-

The first 500 email addresses left in the comments will get a free property video, whether we win the $10,000 for our site or not. The only stipulation is that the video must be for a property in New York City, since that is where we’ll be starting. Votes/comments from people not from New York will be the first to get a free property video when we hit their city. 

So that’s that! If you’re still saying to yourself: “So what will Reel Properties do besides let realtors create property listings with videos and buyers/renters watch videos of properties?”


Well, here’s the complete feature-set rundown:  

 
-->Realtors can send a property that doesn’t have a video in it to a videographer profile for the videographer to do the video work. After using scheduling tools to book a taping time for the property, the videographer can then drop the edited video(s) into the original “container” the realtor sent to them, at which point the property is uploaded on to the site with no further work required from the realtor

-->Complete property management tools, including maps, the ability to add and edit content, ads for each listing, tools to filter interested buyers/renters, analytics, etc

-->There is a “buy now” button which runs credit checks (and for Sales listings, does mortgage evaluations). The realtor is sent all prospective buyers/renters, which match the original financial requirements the realtor set up for the property.

-->Standard social networking features: profiles pages (for realtors, videographers, and potential buyers/renters) commenting, messaging, bookmarking, rss feeds, favorites, sharing etc, with special realty specific functions like “ask question” on comment boards for realtors so other buyer/renters can see the answers to questions on the comment board

-->Integration with a growing number of MLSes, which populates your Reel Properties account with your properties on a given MLS.

-->We also offer the opposite version of this (initially just with craigslist, but hopefully with many more within the first year).

-->Tools to auto-embed flash video players into 3rd party sites, i.e. Myspace, Facebook, etc

-->A Facebook application that let’s realtors share properties with clients, which ultimately lets clients have a flash player on their profile page, which is populated with new properties, which the Facebook user’s friends can rate and comment on in order to discern the best match for the Facebook friend. There are a bunch of other tools, but the general gist of it is that our system significantly trumps Facebook’s current real estate system, with the addition of videos and all the properties in the RP database.

-->A lead system for Realtors, and a lead system for buyers/renters, with a paid premium versions of each with let the user get client leads or property leads, respectively, ahead of everyone else.

-->There are aggregated property pages with a centricity for all cities, states, counties, neighborhoods and zip codes. These pages are wiki-style pages that incorporate user generated information other than just properties, much like these pages from other location oriented sites: http://www.yourstreet.com/10019   and   http://streetadvisor.com/street/134270/overview/default.aspx

-->There are paid aggregated brokerage pages that display all the properties of agents within a given brokerage or property management company

-->There is a feature-packed ad system for realtors, which offers ads in the following forms:

-->In maps

-->Throughout the site, with targeting based on geographical factors for non-logged in users, and on what a logged in buyer/renter is looking for

-->Special ads on property profile pages, brokerage pages, and agent pages

-->Ads that display on realtors pages, created by videographers

-->Ads for related properties in the flash video player

-->And flash ads which showcase several of a realtor’s properties

-->Room-mate finder and commercial space partner finder

-->“Get directions” google map feature on all maps.

-->Facebook style newsfeed for logged in users, which displays mainly leads on properties and potential clients for realtors

-->Blogging tools for all users, and aggregated article excerpt modules that are displayed on users’ profiles, and throughout the site, all of which maintain a city-centricity so articles are only displayed to people from the same city

-->Complete mobile connectivity—Reel Properties offers “click to call” and SMS text message functionality for all properties and for all realtors. Realtors and buyers/renters can also get text messages sent to their phone for new leads.

-->There is a special browse page that can browse all properties in our database in one map, and even display the videos in the map

-->Searching/browsing maps have state/city/county/neighborhood/zip code long/lat boundary lines for all regions so users can browse properties and zoom in on regions on a google map, in a similar way they might select a region in a flash map. Browsing/searching tools of course also have standard tools to filter results (e.g. by number of views, rating, times favorited, times rated, size, price, etc), all done via ajax, with properties appearing or disappearing from the map.

-->We have our own internal video-taping/scheduling system in order to provide free property videos efficiently to the realtors in the neighborhoods we target

-->Contact importation tools and email marketing tools

-->Advanced scheduling tools with, confirmations and reminders for potential buyers/renters to schedule property viewings with realtors.

-->One very noteworthy feature is the ability for a buyer/renter to add a bunch of properties to his/her favorites, and then mark all the time-frames that he/she is available, and automatically notify all the related realtors so they can pick a time to show the property.

-->Flash video tools to mark sections in a video and add titles and sub-titles.

 

 
Anyway, thanks for your time, and we thank you for being apart of the Real Estate Video Revolution! And don't forget to check out a couple demo pages we have up for you:
Reel Properties.tv

James Gillmore
jamesgillmore@reelproperties.tv