Zillow now allows agents to upload professional video for a price

In 2016, Zillow announced the roll out of its listing video platform. The listing portal provided another way for agents to market a property, but it wasn't long before agents were asking for the option to upload professional videos to the portal.

Agents asked and it wasn't long before Zillow answered. Kind of...

Initially, Zillow's app only allowed agents to take a listing video from their phone and upload for free.

Zillow now accepts the upload of high quality professional walk through videos but it's going to cost you more than just the money you paid a real estate photography company to produce the video. Agents will now need to open their wallets and shell out the steep price of a $149 one time fee to post a video.

Capturing video through Zillows app remains free but is limited to 2 min, no audio, and the shaky video from your iPhone. Which leaves me to wondering if it makes a property listing look less professional.

With all that information aside- is it worth it to use to pay the $149 just to post a video?

It's a bit of a loaded question but I will simply say PROBABLY not. First of all you need to be selling or getting a lot of buyers primarily through Zillow and you would additionally need a to have a that is high enough priced to justify having a company produce a video.

According to Zillow's Chief Marketing Officer Jeremy Wacksman the new feature not only offers more insight of a listing to a buyer- but listings with video also get a boost in the property search results.

"Double the views and double the engagement," Wacksman said.

This is possibly the only redeeming factor of the high price to upload a video. But if you look at the current market and inventory, I think that money would be better spent by an agent to build their own brand through Google adwords and Facebook ads- rather than throwing money at a listing video that will be purchased pretty quickly anyways.

Inman.com posted an article with a very intelligent quote from Phil Osborne, chief creative officer of the creative digital real estate marketing agency Digital Feast. "Digital Feast mostly produces community video tours since agents rarely want to pay for listing videos," Osborne said.

This option gives an agent the ability to "rent" the rights to use a community video from a real estate photography company. Doing this will still boost your listing in Zillow AND at a lower cost of producing a walk through video for one specific listing that will essentially be an unusable video after the home is sold.

What are your thoughts on the Zillow professional video feature? Is it worth the money or just another way for Zillow to profit off agents. Email me at Dillon@firstpersonvisuals.com and I would love to post feedback in a future article.