Another set of questions: Who pays for the video production? Is it 100 percent the real estate agent’s responsibility as part of the marketing plan? Should the cost be split with the seller? Does the agent present the video tour as an opiton/suggestion for which the homeowner would be responsible?

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I think the answer to the question is… ‘nobody knows’…. and ‘all of the above’! It’s all so new, there are so few people actually doing this on a regular basis (some do a video here, another there….)
I think we’re still in the middle of ‘finding our way’ and figuring out what will work, what won’t and how to market it to be the most effective.
My experience so far is that nobody looks for real estate on YouTube or other of the various video sharing sites. Those real estate specific sites, such as WellcomeMat.com , ShowYourPlace.com, etc. make more sense - but the majority of customers AND REALTORS don’t even know they exist.
The bigger problem I see is that all of these sites, general or real estate specific, are soon going to be a vast wasteland of old, outdated, incorrectly priced properties that are most likely no longer on the market. I see the same problem with most of the general real estate sites that all want listings - who is going to update those listings and remove them when they are no longer active? NOBODY. I absolutely guarantee that agents will not ever bother. Most won’t even remember WHERE they uploaded their listing or video.
So, I look at all of these video sharing sites as a way to get more eyeballs - nothing more. At this time, many of these sites DO show up in the general SERPS on most search engines. They show up quickly and rank fairly high. THAT is the benefit to me right now, as that IS where customers are searching for real estate. If you search on "Hudson New Hampshire real estate for sale" in Google, you will see that videos for one of my realtors come up 4 or 5 times in the top 20 SERPS through Revver.com, WellcomeMat, Dabble.com, YahooVideo, etc. THAT is currrently the only real ‘value’ in uploading to these sharing sites right now. Because it puts the videos where customers actually ARE going to find real estate. Of course, it doesn’t hurt the agent’s website when it provides a one way link BACK to their website - just another perk.
Personally I think quality on a video selling property worth hundreds of thousands of dollars is important, but I know some people disagree with that. I also think that crap photos do a disservice to sellers as well, yet I see them all the time - many realtors don’t care. I’m sure the same thing will be true with video.
The bottom line for me as a video provider and a real estate web designer is eyeballs and traffic - the more ‘fingers’ people have out there pointing BACK to an agent’s website, the more this will all work together. I have a realtor who does videos for every listing (and has for over a year ) and often times on a very competitive search, 6 out of the top 10 SERPS are one of his numerous websites or one of his dozens and dozens of videos - all pointing back to HIM. That’s the way I think it works best - right now!

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It will vary depending on location but I feel that the most important place to put video is on the companies website, then Realtor.com, and the MLS. I love the idea of WellcomeMat, but you have a very steep path ahead of you to compete with the local websites and Realtor.com. Echoing what Fred said no one knows about these real estate video websites.

As far as who pays for the videos, I believe the realtor and company both should share the cost, but remember every office is different some offices are 100% offices others 50% and they all vary. But for me it doesn’t matter who pays for the videos, all I care is that the videos are paid for, whether it be the agent, company, home owner, or a third party.

We produce videos for every listing and every agent for 5 different companies and growing every day, we have over 100 agents doing all of their listings and payment for each company/agent is different.

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