Real Estate Shows, the online virtual tour provider, recently launched new features of their platform which now includes the ability to create a ‘flyer’ of any of your listings. You can see an example on their site (see New Construction In Woodland Hills!).

I’m a fan of the Real Estate Shows (RES) product even though I’m not personally that fond of the slideshow type presentations it generates – I prefer video tours myself, but that’s just my bag. That said, the RES platform makes it quick and easy for Realtors to create a slick looking presentation that is miles above the whirl-around-til-I-puke 360 tour. That, in of itself, is a win – the more Realtors abandoning that ancient technology the better, in my books.

RES’ new flyers are a significant change in strategy for the company however, and now lines them squarely up against another popular web-based marketing solution, vFlyer – both of whom are gunning for the single property website providers. If I were in that business I’d be worried or busy innovating.

It’s not too much of a stretch to see RES eventually offering Realtors the option to buy unique URLs (123MainSt.com for example) for any of the flyers they generate. In fact, it’s a probably a pretty logical step and an easy secondary revenue stream for them (reselling domain registrations).

I’ve long been a fan of single property websites in certain circumstances (see Do Single Property Websites Sell Homes?) and with today’s challenging market, any step a Realtor can take to differentiate themself in a listing presentation or help move a property should be looked at. Oliver Muoto from vFlyer recently penned a great piece on Single Property Sites – Dispelling the Myths and Embracing the Benefits – that I would encourage anyone who is still on the fence to read.

The bottom line here is that, with a very minimal investment, Realtors have the ability to reclaim virtual ownership of their listings – whose sole existence online to date likely lies buried in an IDX feed. Solutions from vFlyer or RES make it easy to re-purpose existing content (listing description, photos, etc.) into a quick and simple web presence for all your listings.

So rather than your listings feeding leads to a broker’s e-Team, with a smart syndication strategy (both RES and vFlyer allow you to push listings out to Google Base, Oodle, Edgeio and others), single property web sites (or ‘flyers’) can help steer any web traffic (read curious buyers) directly to your inbox.

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