Why many NZ listings still go to market without video

Many NZ listings go to market without video because the traditional production model does not fit every vendor’s budget or campaign. It is not that agents do not value video. Booking a videographer, arranging a shoot and paying for the production can put it outside the plan for an everyday listing.

When the photography is ready and the campaign needs to launch, the listing goes ahead. The missing video can reflect those practical constraints, rather than a decision that video has no place in property marketing.

Is New Zealand behind on real estate video?

Calling NZ agents “behind” misses the practical question. You can want video on a listing and still have a vendor who cannot include a shoot in the marketing package. Knowing the value of a format does not automatically make its production fit the campaign.

At the top of the market, a filmed production can be a clear part of the plan. The gap this article is concerned with is the everyday listing: a property that needs a considered campaign, but where video has not fitted the available spend.

We see that as a production problem. The useful question is how to make video fit more listings while respecting the vendor’s spending decisions and the agent’s workload. Labelling the agent as slow to adopt something does not answer it.

The vendor’s budget decides

Video is usually a separate line in the marketing package. When the vendor’s budget is tight, the listing still needs photographs and the campaign still needs to go ahead. Video can become the item that is left out.

That decision is particularly relevant to lower-priced properties, where there may be less room in the marketing package from the start. The agent can explain why video belongs in the campaign, but the vendor still decides what they can pay for.

Once the vendor says no, the traditional route offers no easy answer. A shoot still has to be arranged and paid for. Wanting a video does not remove those requirements.

The practical opportunity is a production method that fits the listing’s existing photography. It gives you another option to put in front of the vendor, or to fund yourself, without asking the campaign to accommodate a separate shoot.

The time cost for the agent

A traditional video also means another booking and another visit to the property. Someone needs to coordinate access and timing with the vendor, make sure the property is ready, and wait for the finished edit.

That work sits alongside the photography, listing copy, open homes and everything else involved in taking the property to market. The issue is not that arranging a shoot is unreasonable. It is that the campaign has to make room for it.

A filmed shoot can be the right choice when the listing calls for it. But if those arrangements are the only route to video, a listing that cannot accommodate them may end up with no video at all. Giving agents another route changes that decision.

What agents lose when video is dropped

The listing goes to market with less to show. The photographs remain the core material, but there is no video version to use alongside them on the listing or in the campaign.

You also have less content for your own social channels and profile. A listing video is something you can share as part of the work you are doing for the vendor. Without it, that part of the campaign is absent.

There is also less work to show the next vendor at a listing presentation. A video gives you a concrete example of how you present a property. Browse our example videos to see what a video created from listing photos can look like.

What’s changing

Video can now be created from the listing photographs you already have. No shoot is required. That separates the question of whether the listing can have video from the question of whether the vendor can accommodate filmed production.

There are different ways to use that technology. Self-serve tools put the production controls with you. A service lets you send the photographs and get a finished video back, with the creative work handled by someone else.

If you are considering self-serve tools, see our platform comparison and editor comparison. For our reasoning, read why Howards takes the service approach.

With Howards, you send the photos and receive your video within 24 hours. A Full Listing Video is $199 and a Social Reel is $149, both GST-inclusive. We use AI-assisted production with human quality control.

You can fund the video yourself when the vendor says no, or include it in the marketing package and oncharge it. You or your office admin can place the request. Our guide explains how ordering works.