Yesterday, one of our members requested a new function on the site. She asked that we place a link to any virtual tours available for properties on our site directly in the search results.
Results from a site poll taken last year showed virtual tours as one ofthe most popular ways of viewing properties so I had been contemplating how to incorporate them onto the site. The initial thought would have been to provide virtual tour production as an extra service and host them directly on our site: quite a big undertaking considering most of our members already work with virtual tour providers and have their tours hosted online through these companies. We have always allowed our members to post links to these tours from within the actual ad content; however, until yesterday, it had never ocurred to me that we could easily make these more visible with a quick change to the site.
So we decided to add the new feature "View Virtual Tour" with a direct link to these tour as a special feature. Now, when buyers are searching the site, they will see the list of properties along with the thumbnails and basic information (price, city, etc...) and a direct link to the virtual tours (if available).
Please keep in mind, that at the time I am writing this, most of the properties will not have this link as it has just been implemented, but you should sart to see this option more and more as time progresses. Happy house hunting!