There are lots of ways to create video tours of your listings —most are not free or easy.  Here’s a very cool and private way to do it that is free, fast and incredibly easy…

Smart Phone to Video Tour 1-2-3

The first thing you want to do is set up a free account on the Posterous photo-blogging service (click here for a previous post about the use of Posterous and photo-blogging). This just takes a couple of minutes and only needs to be done once.  Now you are ready to create your video tours.  Here’s what you do:

1. Plan Your Walk-through – you want to keep your video tours short yet have great impact, this requires that you first think through what you are going to show and say as you show it.
2. Shoot the Video – use your smart phone to do this and try to keep your hand as steady as possible.
3. Post it Privately On Your Posterous Account – by sending your video to private@posterous.com Posterous will send you back a special link to your video up on your account site.  This is a private posting so only your prospect will be able to view it.

That’s it!  Now at this point you are probably wondering why I recommend that you keep this kind of tour private.  First of all, shooting it with your smart phone allows you to complete the process in about 2 minutes and you can highly personalize the video by talking directly to them.  This is incredibly powerful for relocating clients and prospects.  By definition you wouldn’t want this kind of video to be seen by just anybody.  You could certainly use your Posterous account to post publicly viewable videos as well.  However, I’d spend more time and hire a professional videographer if you are going to show these tours to the world.

The method described above is perfect for 1-on-1 communications with prospects or clients that appreciate seeing properties they simply don’t have the time (or capacity) to view in person.  It is free, fast, easy and will certainly set you apart from the crowd.