Buyer expectations have shifted through the years as they become more and more technology-savvy, and as agents, we're missing the mark.

My first eye-opening experience was with a 23-year-old buyer, who preferred to look at properties online before driving around to see them in person, but his elimination process is what was most fascinating."?Logged into the public MLS site together, he and I previewed properties in his price range. As we brought up property after property an interesting trend developed. If the property offered a "virtual tour" he asked to see the tour nearly every time. In about an hour's time he had eliminated dozens of properties from his list based solely on the fact that they didn't have the visual content he expected! Once he'd made a list of the properties he had seen online with their virtual tours, he was then ready to go and look at those homes.

Did you know that in most markets across the nation only 10% of the properties have virtual tours? Yet it's one of the easiest ways to stand out! Certainly multiple photos and slide shows have helped, but dark, blurry photos showing half of the rooms do not represent a property well when there are hundreds of others from which to choose. Not only that, but on nearly every property search engine there's a prominent button that allows the consumer to sort the listings by those that have "tours" first.

In my humble opinion, we have a responsibility to our sellers to represent their best interests in marketing to today's new technology-savvy consumer. By not providing the best visual content in a way that appeals to the masses we are falling short. Here are the components that I feel must belong in every virtual tour:

• Professional photography
• Both still and panorama photos
• Neighborhood and school information
• Map to the property
• The ability for anyone to e-mail the tour to their friends
• Tracking of each potential buyer as they click on every room in the home
• Tracking of where the traffic originated
• National distribution to the top web sites

These are just the basics, but if your properties do not already include these few "sticky" features, your listings are in danger of being eliminated, even though they might be the right fit for the buyer. Let me be clear here: that includes the fixer-upper and the bread and butter listings, because it's the young and the tech-savvy that are most likely to seek out those listings on the Internet before picking up the phone to schedule a showing.

Within five showings the 23-year-old buyer wrote an offer and closed on a home (which he first previewed in a slick Obeo tour), and is happily settled in now. And, he has a number of friends that are in similar situations and have similar technology expectations.

If you really listen to your clients you will realize that the marketing dollars we are spending today are misappropriated. In order to effectively represent your seller's best interest and to meet the buyer's expectations, it's time to adjust your marketing budget and apply more of your advertising dollars on every listing to the marketing of your listings on the Internet.