The Virtual Breakdown: Open Houses, Tours, Showings and Videos

What’s the difference between a virtual open house and a virtual tour? What’s a tour of homes? Are virtual showings and videos the same thing? This breakdown is designed to clarify each one of these so you know exactly what to offer your client.

Open House

An open house is a scheduled event at a designated time where an agent holds the house “open” for potential buyers to walk though. How to add: Click Change Listing under the Add/Change section of the Flexmls menu. Select your listing, then select Open House under Scheduled Marketing Activities section.

Virtual Open House

A virtual open house is a live scheduled event at a designated time where an agent holds the house “open” but hosts it virtually by setting up an invite via Facebook Live, Zoom, GoToMeeting, etc. Here, the agent is physically at the listing and gives a tour of the property via meeting software. The open house audience can view the live stream and can interact with the agent and ask questions. How to add: Click Change Listing under the Add/Change section of the Flexmls menu. Select your listing, then select Open House under Scheduled Marketing Activities section. Select Virtual in the dropdown. Links to virtual open houses must be from one of these services:

• BlueJeans
• Facebook Live
• Google Meet
• GoToMeet.Me
• GoToMeeting
• GoToWebinar
• join.me
• Microsoft Teams
• RingCentral
• Skype
• WebEx
• Whereby
• YouTube Live
• Zoho Meeting
• Zoom

Virtual Showings

A virtual showing is where an agent schedules a showing but hosts it virtually by sending their client an invite via Facebook Live, Zoom, GoToMeeting, etc. With a virtual showing, the agent would physically be at the listing and would give a tour of the property to their client. It’s different from a Virtual Open House because it is a one-on-one meeting. The client can view the live stream and can interact with their agent and ask questions. How to add: Schedule a showing with listing agent through the appropriate channel (ex: Aligned Showings) and create an invite to send to your client. There is no field in the MLS for this.

Tour of Homes

A tour of homes is where a group of agents (usually from the same office) gather to tour a group of listings. You can accomplish this virtually by having one agent host the tour. Similar to a Virtual Open House, the agent would set up an invite via Facebook Live, Zoom, GoToMeeting, etc. The agent would then physically go to each property and would live stream the event. How to add: Click Change Listing under the Add/Change section of the Flexmls menu. Select your listing, then select Tour of Homes under Scheduled Marketing Activities section.

Virtual Tour

A virtual tour is a virtual walk-through of the property via a slide show or other pre-recorded interactive media rather than being a scheduled live event. The virtual tour is simply a link on your listing and the destination cannot have branding. How to add: After creating the virtual tour, post the URL link into the Media section of the listing under the designated spot labeled Videos and Virtual Tours.

Video

A video is a pre-recorded video about the property that can be added into your listing and shared with other agents and clients. How to add: You’ll need the embed code (HTML) of the video. Paste the HTML code for the video into the Media section of the listing. There is a designated spot labeled Videos and Virtual Tours.