The folks at WellcomeMat, a video portal (of sorts) for the real estate industry, have put together an interesting report on the state of video marketing in real estate.

According to the survey, “the use of video by real estate professionals and companies is up 95% in the first half of 2009 relative to the same time period in 2008.” Photos are still the primary media type for advertising a property, but according to the real estate pros who took the survey, video is catching up … and fast.

It seems safe to assume that video will soon surpass photos as the top marketing tool/media for real estate professionals.

Surely the ease of making and uploading videos is what’s at work here. A few years back, virtual tours were all the rage. When I was doing web development/SEO work for a local company, we couldn’t go a week without getting a call or email from a local agent or broker asking us if we could help them create virtual tours. But doing so was difficult and time-consuming, and quite often the end user couldn’t see the virtual tour without special software or a certain browser.

Video has no such barriers. Most digital cameras have video capability built-in, and 15% of survey takers said they shoot video that way. Another 14% said they use Flip videocameras — the ones that let you upload video straight from the camera. And pure video cameras have come way down in price in recent years — like pretty much all pieces of technology hardware.

Interestingly, the real estate pros said that using video isn’t just about marketing their listings. Look at this chart below; it’s also about presenting themselves as local experts and “selling” the local area itself.

And what do real estate agents/brokers say is one of the main benefits of marketing via video? It distinguishes them from the competition and helps them get more listings. In other words, it’s about promoting their business as much as it about selling a home or piece of land.

The survey also gets into some other interesting areas, such as hiring a pro vs. D-I-Y video and what are the barriers that are keeping real estate pros from adopting video for marketing. It’s an interesting read for anyone involved in real estate, and probably helpful, too, for other small business owners/marketers.

Your turn: Are you using video in your small biz marketing? Are you in real estate or some other industry? Love to hear about your successes and challenges.