With offices and common areas closed, many apartment communities and real estate investors had to rely more heavily on the digital experience. While some only used pictures, the savvy teams focused on visual media, including videos and virtual tours. Technology served to be a key differentiator for apartment communities dedicated to delivering a premium experience and making a strong first impression. And these tools are no longer reserved for the big players. The affordability has come down drastically, according to Alex Taylor of Oval Room Group.

Alex is an experienced entrepreneur & business owner with a demonstrated history of working in the real estate industry. His current company, Oval Room Group, is a nationwide single source real estate visual media provider. By combining extensive real estate knowledge with a wide array of technology, focused on planning, development, and post project marketing, this platform is revolutionizing the way real estate marketing & content is being created.

In this episode, Alex shares how real estate investors can use visual media to deliver an enhanced experience to residents, prospects, buyers, and investors. He also shares why video is critical for real estate and where opportunities lie going forward.

How to Leverage Visual Media as a Real Estate Professional

• Started in real estate by getting involved in the SFR and residential real estate world
• Transitioning into commercial real estate (brokers, large asset owners, and corporate real estate) rounding out his real estate investing knowledge
• Why Alex and partner Tim Haines bought 513 Oval Room and started Oval Room Group: Visual Media Real Estate Solutions

The guy taking pictures, or flying a drone taking pictures of your property, has very little knowledge of real estate and that gap causes a lot of frustration.

• How Oval Room Group partners with brokers and property owners from day 1 on a project
• Working through the foundation of a real estate project through the zoning, planning, and municipality processes
• How to use virtual renovation rendering and the benefits to your property marketing

Virtual renovation rendering can be used to get design and planning done, as well as demonstrate the new space to current and prospective tenants, all in one application.

• Getting specific with value add design while hitting your ROI
• How Oval Room Group works with different real estate investors from single-family to commercial
• Why your property's visual identity is so important (It's so much more than a virtual tour!)
• Engaging your prospective tenants with consistent marketing
• When you should be using high-level 360 virtual tours

Being able to represent your property virtually is becoming the norm and will continue to evolve past COVID.

• How real estate owners and operators have changed their processes in the last year due to COVID and how they are moving forward for a post-Covid world
• The Oval Group software that showcases the community in which the property is located
• Saving time analyzing a prospective property that will get you to a 'yes' or a 'no' more quickly
• Where Alex thinks the real estate market is heading
• Understanding the lifecycle of buyers, investors, and prospective tenants and how to better engage with them
• Marketing to a world filled with people who have short attention spans (Thanks, Snapchat & Instagram!)

73% of viewers drop after 82 seconds, so you have to produce informative, easily digestible, and smaller videos to engage your audience.

Bullseye Round

Apparent Failure:

You get what you pay for in the hiring market, and we learned that the hard way.

Digital Resource:

Monday.com

Most Recommended Book:

Shoe Dog

Daily Habit:

Setting micro-goals to hit my macro goals

Disconnect (meditate) for 15 minutes a day

Current Curiosity:

The company acquisition process

Wish I Knew When I Was Starting Out:

How to better build the customer journey

Best Place to Grab a Bite in Cincinnati:

Salazar

Get in Touch with Alex:

Oval Room Group

[email protected]