"I've had a number of queries as to the difference between iPIX and VisualTour.com. It's important that you know the differences between these two virtual tour options. One, in my opinion will make you more money: VisualTour.com. It's probably the #1 moneymaking software product used by the CyberStars(tm).

"First, VisualTour.com gives you immediacy. You take your own digital photos and put together your own tours (complete with your voice narration if you wish), and it's a simple process. You don't have to wait on a photographer to come take the pictures. This is a tremendous advantage. If you are called this morning for a listing appointment tonight you can put together your virtual tour, have it up on the Web and have tour disks made for the seller this evening...what a listing edge! If you want to get a VisualTour® of a property to a spouse who's not in town for a buyer's tour, you can take your photos of the property, put together your VisualTour® and either email it or post it immediately on your Web site...and get the sale that day!

"Another advantage: posting tours on the Web is much more cost effective using VisualTour.com: $25 as opposed to $99+ for iPIX. Again, you can have the tour up immediately, rather than experiencing a delay (sometimes a week or more) as you do with iPIX's standard service where someone has to be scheduled to take photos of the home. As far as images included in a tour, you can have up to 50 images in a VisualTour.com tour, as opposed to the 4 in a standard iPIX tour.

"As for those panoramic, sweeping photos that show a 360 degree shot of the entire cul-de-sac, a wide view from the back deck or the entire master bedroom, you can easily do those yourself with the "stitching" software that comes with VisualTour.com. This is always a "Wow!" when I demonstrate it in my seminars, since it's so easy!

"Among the other ways in which VisualTour.com leads the virtual tour field is the fact that you have an "inventory list" of your tours, which displays on your Web site. The consumer can go down the list, viewing the small photo of the home, and click on any one for a virtual tour. VisualTour.com does the inventory list for you, and it's an impressive feature for your Web site. You can change tours posted to your site at any time (add or change text, add/delete images, etc.). You can include neighborhood photos among your photos.

"Remember: you can make as many tours as you want when you own VisualTour.com. You pay an additional fee only when you post a tour to your site. You can put as many of your tours on diskette or send them via email for free....a tremendous plus for working with both buyers and sellers. Among the ways the CyberStars(tm) use this feature are providing buyers with a disk containing a neighborhood tour or their best listings; giving one spouse a disk containing a tour of homes seen so that he/she can share it with the absent spouse; going to the listing presentation with 10 disks containing a tour of the home that will be present at the listing for someone touring the property to take with them, etc.

"Again, I see VisualTour.com as the clear leader in the virtual tour field, a far more flexible, on-target money maker than iPIX. Consider the following story sent in by CyberStar Wynne Achatz of Marine City, MI:

"I picked up a $400K+ listing today. How? The preliminary tour I did involved them in pointing out to me the things about the home they wanted me to highlight in the VisualTour® for my site. I put the tour together and emailed it to them for them to preview. Here's how it went this afternoon: 'WOW! We really like what you've done, but do you think you could retake a couple of the rooms? We'll straighten them up now if you could come over and list the house this afternoon.' "

Allen F. Hainge, CRS
Allen F. Hainge CyberStars Seminars