Video chat is not quite as popular as regular phone calls. But that doesn’t mean it ain’t useful. Real estate investors can use video chat in lots of different ways. Consider:
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Showing potential buyers the wholesale house you’re walking through
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Explaining to a renter who just moved why his deposit is not being returned
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Contacting your contractor to make sure you have the right part at the hardware store
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Running over some numbers and presentations with a potential investor
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Conducting general conference calls with your team
I’m sure our audience of investors can come up with lots of other reasons why video chat can come in handy.
The two big boys on the block are Skype and FaceTime. Skype is all over the place, and all over the world. FaceTime is great if you work with Apple products, but if you have a team that includes Android users, you won’t be using FaceTime a whole heckuva lot.
Not to mention (as of this writing) you can’t do group video chats on FaceTime like you can on Skype. Skype has a lot of nice features like video recording and group video chats. However, sometimes people have connectivity and reliability problems with Skype and may want to try some alternatives.
So, we thought we would offer up some variety…
What’s Up with WhatsApp?
WhatsApp has been around for a long time and is a big favorite of people outside the U.S., but is gaining ground here.
WhatsApp has made it very easy, and FREE, for people to text or call each other from overseas. If you happen to have some international buyers for your properties, they are probably familiar with WhatsApp.
In November 2016, WhatsApp added video calling to its text and phone services. The video chatting works in groups and on any device, making it as versatile as Skype.
WhatsApp tries to keep all their connections and your data secure, but there is a catch (isn’t there always?). The App was bought by Facebook back in 2014. As you can imagine, Facebook liked the idea of vacuuming up tons of data on what users discuss on WhatsApp. So if you’re not a big fan of having targeted ads coming your way at times, you may not be a big fan of WhatsApp.
Check This Out for Excellent Sound Quality
Many times, your video chat is only as good as your internet connection. You may have found with FaceTime and Skype that the screen freezes or is very jerky. Not the best way to pitch a potential private money lender.
A video chat company is doing everything they can to improve the sound and video quality of their chats. Their sound may be better, but their name still sounds weird:
ooVoo
Despite their name, the sound and video engineers must be doing something right because they have more than 150 million users. When you make a phone or video call on ooVoo, the engineers created the software to:
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Recognize your network and adjust their configuration to optimize the sound
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Knock out the echoes in the calls in order to boost audio quality
You can talk with up to 12 people at a time using ooVoo’s group calling feature, and record all your video chats for later playback. And, ooVoo works on all your devices.
Even though so many people have downloaded ooVoo, it still doesn’t seem to be as popular as the first three chat services we mentioned. You may need to educate the people you want to chat with about ooVoo. They may need to set up a separate account to use the service.
It shouldn’t be difficult to set up the new account. Once you have an account, you can count on very good quality when video chatting. And ooVoo also has the text and phone capabilities the other services do as well.
Hangouts No More – Welcome to Duo
Google wasn’t seeing a whole lot of traction with their Hangouts software, so they tried something new - Duo. Duo may be FaceTime with the ability to talk on both iOS and Android devices.
Once you download the Duo app, you can use it much like FaceTime. Just call someone from your contacts using the app, and switch to video. It works fine on both your cellular network and on Wi-Fi.
A nice feature with Duo is that you can preview the incoming calls, to see a sneak peak of what someone wants to share. You can see how this works in this video.
Duo doesn’t have all the cool texting and phone capabilities of a WhatsApp or an ooVoo, but neither does FaceTime. The idea with Duo is that it compliments the features on your phone.
If you are just looking for a simple video chat, especially for Android users, Duo may be the one.
The nice thing about all these video chat applications is that they are all free. You may have to put up with ads in order to keep the service free though. Seems worth it to me.
Staying in touch and communicating with people is a major key in your real estate investing career. It’s nice to know there’s a lot of choices out there these days to do just that.
Chat Us Up
Share your experiences with these video chat services below.
Stay in Touch – The real gold is in following up with people. Whether it’s phone, email, direct mail or video, losing touch with people can mean losing deals.
Make Time for Face-to-Face Time – The more personal contact you have with people (even over a video chat), the more comfortable they will be doing business with you.
Better to Overcommunicate Than Under Communicate – People like to hear more than less. When people are out of the loop, they get nervous.
JP Moses
is a real estate investor in Memphis, TN, with experience ranging from land lording to note buying, rehabbing, and wholesaling. However, wholesaling is the area that he enjoys most and where he bring the most experience and expertise to his students.