Skype and VoIP In Real Estate

My father, a retired professor who continues his side interest of real estate brokering, sent me an email last week that completely surprised me. Whenever a new VoIP soft phone shows up online, I usually download it and give it a go. My father has served as my test subject several times, as he’s usually the only one I know who is at home when I’m doing these tests. I’ve been trying to get him to install either Skype, Hullo or a Skype alternative on his computer, but it’s the sort of thing that I have to do for him, despite him being relatively computer savvy. Understand that he’s about 75 now.

He knows that I freelance write and occasionally sends me tips for ideas that he sees on TV, in the newspaper, or even online. Usually I’m already on top of things, but this time, I wasn’t. Not quite. It seems that the real estate firm he brokers for had a meeting recently to introduce brokers to new online tools to promote their business. So my father’s email consisted of a list of three tools that were recommended for real estate agents and brokers: (1) Skype, (2) YouTube, (3) Fliker (not Flickr).

While IPTV might be hot right now, I can’t imagine why they’d want to run YouTube on a real estate agent’s website - most of them have both company sites and their small business sites. With the exception of, say, a private channel on YouTube to display videos of a house, I would actually substitute Flickr for YouTube, to show static pictures. (Inside pics can be a security risk, as they are an invitation to burglars, who can see what goodies a home has.) As for Fliker, well, the intro page (flash player required; recommend Internet Explorer web browser) says it’s an “image search engine” and an inspirational tool. An extremely confusing choice of name. It seems simple in theory but it didn’t work when I tried it. But I digress.

Skype, on the other hand, is a great choice for a small business of one person. I actually meet a lot of real estate agents and they have out-of-town dealings quite often. Call quality issues aside, Skype could save them a considerable amount of money for monthly operations. (Skype still has free SkypeOut for Canada and the US until Dec 31st, and have similar promos in a few other countries.) VoIP can save a small business, from the reduction of communication costs. (Though small businesses are slow to adopt VoIP.)

But that’s not all. There are some truly useful ways that Skype could be used in real estate. If you have a client that cannot make an Open House, for whatever reason, but they too have Skype or some other suitable video VoIP soft phone, such as Sightspeed, then you’re set. Conduct your own walkthrough for the client, if you have a webcam-enabled laptop computer and a cell phone/ PDA with a cellular wireless plan. (You may need a Bluetooth USB adapter for your laptop to connect to the cell phone’s data network.)

You can also send clients any necessary documents through Skype, and even conduct a conference call with one or more potential buyers, or with the current owner and a buyer. You might even try house bidding auction via Skype, after a laptop video walkthrough, but I’m not sure how likely buyers are to go for something like that unless they know you very well. (Sightspeed has video conferencing for free for up to four people. I’m not sure, but I don’t think Skype has video conferencing yet.)

Skype, Sightspeed, and VoIP soft phones in general - especially those that have a full suite of features including voicemail, video calling, text mode chat, file sharing, conference calling (voice and video), etc. - could be powerful tools for busy real estate agents / brokers as well as buyers and sellers.