Less Legwork In House Hunt

Illawarra Mercury

Saturday June 17, 2006

By GREG ELLIS

PAVEL Ovchinnikov has gone from making travel documentaries in the Antarctic where there are no homes, to documenting households in Wollongong suburbs where there are no penguins in sight.

As a result real estate agents and property hunters have access to a new home-grown product that can take a lot of the legwork out of finding a home.

Mr Ovchinnikov, of Coalcliff, has been developing a powerful marketing tool incorporating video streaming, which is like television-style advertising on the web for use by the real estate industry.

Ray White Helensburgh was the first agent to incorporate Real Estate in Motion video tours into its business and the response has been positive.

There are now four Ray White agents using the link along with McPhail Real Estate and Master Properties.

Mr Ovchinnikov said he was surprised how quickly it had taken off in the first three months.

"It gives their clients an opportunity to view their properties on their website," he said. "We value add to their existing site.

"The key benefit for vendors of video streams is the way the home is displayed. The video streams enable viewers to literally walk through the property while the selling agent commentates.

"The video stream in essence becomes an infomercial of the property.

"It is far more informative and has a much bigger impact than current virtual tours."

Mr Ovchinnikov said the tour included running commentary from the agent as the client virtually walked through each property in around two minutes.

"It also includes panoramic shots of the neighbourhood and view from the property.

"Once the video stream is produced we supply the agent with a link which is put on their site. Once the viewer clicks on the link the video stream begins. Psychologically it works in favour of the vendor because the prospective clients can actually meet the agent before they walk into the office."

They will have also identified the properties they are most interested in.

Mr Ovchinnikov said video streaming also had other applications, such as staff and product profiling, and there was an informative stream about the auction process on the website.

Agents can find out more at www.realestateinmotion.com.au.

While Mr Ovchinnikov decided to establish Real Estate In Motion as an Illawarra-based multimedia production house that specialises in not only digital photography and video production for the real estate industry, but also explores new innovative marketing tools such as electronic business cards.

His background is multimedia productions which has involved DVD productions for Universal Magazine, Dirt Action Magazine, the 2004 Jim Beam Racing Team Calender and Complete Wedding Magazine.

"I have been to Antarctica working for Quark Expeditions and my job there was to take all the photos for Quark advertising and passengers," he said.

"We also shot 24 hours of video footage which created two documentaries. My background has been mainly video production, video footage and numerous surf films.

"I now want to concentrate on specialising in real estate for the agents.

"Broadband coming on line now has allowed me to get this concept off the ground. We will be able to do TV-style advertising in the next six to 12 months.

"We will also look at working with property developers and hotel chains. The technology is there, let's embrace it and move forward with it."

© 2006 Illawarra Mercury

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