You know the market’s crowded. You know buyers scroll fast. But have you noticed that video still isn’t standard on everyday listings? Even REA wants video adopted more widely across standard residential listings, not just premium campaigns.
This is a lightbulb moment for any agent who wants the competitive edge.
We know you might be thinking you don’t have time for video, but that’s not what the market wants.
Short and simple seals deals, with REA’s data showing 43% more inspection requests for listings with video.
YouTube reaches around 21.0 million people in Australia, roughly 77% of the population, and 4.24 million in New Zealand. Your buyers are watching video, ads, and short-form content all day long on various platforms.
The only question is when they can start watching yours.
This is your guide to real estate video marketing — what to focus on and the 10 essential video ideas to get you started.
Jump to What You Need:
- What Agents Need To Know About Real Estate Video Marketing
- The Tools Needed For Real Estate Video Marketing
- 10 Essential Real Estate Video Marketing Ideas
- Utilise Video Content With ActivePipe
What Agents Need To Know About Real Estate Video Marketing
The hard part of getting started with video isn’t just grabbing a phone or arranging a shoot, but envisioning how this content will be used and earn its worth.
Spending a considerable chunk of your budget and time on video can feel like a shot in the dark compared to sticking with tactics you already know.
The truth is there might be a learning curve with video. However, the investment will likely pay off.
Tips For Newcomers To Video
- Start with just a few video formats. Don’t try to run every idea at once. Build a habit first. Once those are running consistently, you can layer in the rest.
- Think short but engaging over polished and unwatched. A polished five-minute video that nobody finishes loses to a rough thirty-second clip that gets watched to the end.
- Match the platform to the buyer. Chasing whatever platform is loudest this month burns time you don’t have, and so does following trending content unless it really resonates. A few choice campaigns can get attention, but your goals should be long-term reach. For quick, vertical clips, that’s Reels and TikTok. For broader reach and searchability, YouTube reaches more people than Facebook, Instagram or TikTok in both Australia and New Zealand, and because it’s searchable, a video can keep earning views months after you post it.
- Don’t let a good video die after one post. This is the gap that costs agents the most in the long run. We’ll discuss this more in a second.
The Tools Needed For Real Estate Video Marketing
Years ago, doing video meant hiring an agency, arranging a day for shooting and a USB drive with all the footage on. Nowadays, you can still hire, but you can also do it yourself in most instances.
Here are the tools you might want:
- A gimbal or stabiliser: This makes the single biggest visible difference to a walkthrough, more than camera quality does.
- Add a clip-on lav mic, even a cheap one, which fixes the biggest quality gap in phone-shot video: bad sound.
- AI photo-to-video generators allow you to upload existing listing photos, and the tool animates camera movement through the scene to produce a finished clip in minutes.
- For editing, a tool such as CapCut can do the tasks of trimming, adding captions and music that most agents need for an interesting and on-brand Reel or Story.
- A phone holder: Ensure it can spin your phone, so you can shoot horizontally and vertically for different platforms.
10 Essential Real Estate Video Marketing Ideas
If you’re stuck on what to actually film, here’s your starting list of real estate marketing video ideas that work whether you’re shooting on a phone or booking a full crew.
These are creative real estate marketing videos you can actually produce, not just concepts, but you’ll want to add your own take on them based on your market and location.
Looking for non-video options too? Read The Ultimate Guide to Real Estate Digital Marketing, or see How To Approach Real Estate Content Marketing in 2026.
- The Walkthrough. Perhaps one of the best real estate marketing videos you can make. A clean, well-lit tour of the property, room by room, with enough narration to highlight what photos can’t show — natural light at different times of day, flow between rooms, storage that doesn’t show up in stills.
- Meet The Agent. A short, personal intro video. Buyers and sellers choose people, not agency names, so a 60-second “get to know me” video builds trust before the first phone call ever happens. This could include an Ask Me Anything, known as an AMA. This is a Q&A-style video answering the questions buyers and sellers actually ask — finance, timelines, staging, contract terms. It positions you as the go-to local expert and gets people used to seeing your face in their feed. It can also be great for new agents.
- My Neighbourhood. Make a guide to the area, not just the address. Cafés, schools, transport links, parks — the things that turn a house into a lifestyle. This is some of the most shareable content an agent can produce, and it’s easy to take a tour over multiple days to capture footage.
- Did You Know… Quick, under-a-minute market-insight or local-trivia clips can be phrased as ‘Did you know’. These are bite-sized, easy to produce, and genuinely useful for people to view, especially if you add captions.
- Open Home. When open homes were banned during COVID, live-streamed virtual tours quickly became widely used across Australia. They’re still a genuinely useful option for reaching remote or interstate buyers who can’t make it in person or are too time-poor to commit. You can film the front door to advertise the live stream and use a dedicated platform on the day.
- Behind The Scenes. Give a look at what actually goes into preparing a listing — staging, photography day, prep work. People want to see where their fee goes. This helps bring your services to life.
- Anniversary Video. Video doesn’t mean ‘attract cold leads’. You don’t have to sell. You can film a short check-in video to send to past clients around the anniversary of their settlement. It’s warm, low-pressure, and a natural trigger for referral conversations. See The Art of Staying Front of Mind for why this kind of touchpoint works.
- Client Testimonial. A great way to do video is to let someone speak for you by asking for a short, authentic video from a happy client. Nothing sells an agent’s service like someone else saying it worked for them. Look for mobile tools that allow them to film on their smartphone so you don’t have to make a visit.
- Smartphone Recommendation. A simple, unpolished “recommend me” clip filmed on a phone, sent directly to a client after a great result, asking them to share it with anyone they know who’s thinking of moving. It can be low production value, but offers a high conversion value if you make it feel personal enough.
- Aerial And Virtual Tour Footage. Drone footage and 3D tours remain a strong differentiator for a listing. Aerial footage needs a certified drone operator. In Australia that means following CASA rules, and in New Zealand, CAA rules, so it’s best to find a drone photographer who already holds the right certification, rather than buying a drone and figuring out compliance yourself.
Utilise Video Content With ActivePipe
Here’s the trap most agents fall into: a great video gets made, it gets posted once on social media and emailed out, and it’s never seen again. Without a content strategy behind it, even a great video becomes a one-off piece of content that never earns back its full value.
The bigger issue sits underneath that. Most agents are only ever talking to the same small slice of their database, usually whoever’s actively enquiring right now. Only around 5% of homes change hands in a given year, so the other 95% of your database goes quiet, and by the time they resurface, they’ve already called someone else.
ActivePipe helps you squeeze more value out of every shoot by putting your video in front of that quiet 95%, not just the people already talking to you. Add a YouTube or Vimeo video to your nurture emails, and every click is tracked as engagement, not just “they watched it,” but a data point that feeds into the bigger picture of who’s actually warming up to move.
This means you don’t just see who’s interested. You see who’s showing buying or selling signals before they’ve picked up the phone, so your video content is doing double duty: staying visible, and quietly telling you who to call next.
For the full breakdown, see 3 Powerful ActivePipe Automations for Busy Real Estate Agents.