Real Estate Video Marketing Statistics (2026)

Video is now a standard part of listing marketing rather than a luxury add-on: 48% of home buyers' agents told the National Association of REALTORS in 2025 that video in a listing was highly important to their clients, and 51% of buyers found the home they actually purchased on the internet. The honest counterweight is that buyers still rank photos and floor plans above video when asked what matters most on a listing page, so video is what gets the listing seen, not what replaces the photography.

This page collects 25 statistics on video and real estate listings. Every one was read from the original report on September 8, 2026, and the source and year sit next to each number. Nothing here is quoted from another blog post. Where a famous number has no traceable source, it is listed at the bottom under the stats we left out, with an explanation.

The ten most quotable numbers

If you only need one figure for a listing presentation or a seller email, take it from this table. Each row names the organisation that published it and the year of the report, which is what makes a statistic usable in an argument rather than just decorative.

Buyer behavior: how people actually search

Home buyers start online and finish with an agent, and the media that gets them from one to the other is dominated by photos and floor plans rather than video. The NAR generational trends report is the cleanest source for this because it asks buyers directly rather than asking marketers what they think buyers do.

• Looking online for properties was the first step in the home search for every generation of buyer, according to NAR's 2025 Home Buyers and Sellers Generational Trends report (National Association of REALTORS, 2025, read the report).
• 51% of buyers found the home they purchased on the internet, against 29% who found it through a real estate agent (National Association of REALTORS, 2025, same report, exhibit 3-4). For buyers aged 26 to 34 the internet share rises to 63%.
• Among buyers who used the internet, the website features rated 'very useful' were photos 83%, detailed property information 79%, floor plans 57%, agent contact information 47%, virtual tours 41% and videos 29% (National Association of REALTORS, 2025, same report, exhibit 3-6).
• 37% of buyers used an online video site as an information source during the home search, behind a real estate agent at 86% and a mobile or tablet device at 69% (National Association of REALTORS, 2025, same report, exhibit 3-2).
• Asked to rank the single most important listing feature, prospective buyers put floor plan first at 33%, high-resolution photos second at 26%, a 3D or virtual tour third at 20%, and video at 4% (Zillow, Consumer Housing Trends Report 2025).
• 68% of prospective buyers had already viewed for-sale homes on a real estate website, more than the 48% who had contacted an agent (Zillow, Consumer Housing Trends Report 2025, same page).

The useful reading of these numbers is not that video does not matter. It is that video is a discovery and shortlisting tool. Buyers use it while deciding which homes are worth opening, then switch to photos and floor plans to evaluate the ones they opened. A listing video that behaves like a trailer for the photo set is doing the job the data describes.

Listing performance: what agents observe

Agents on both sides of the transaction rate video as the second most important listing asset after photography. NAR's 2025 Profile of Home Staging is the source with the clearest split between buyer-side and seller-side agent opinion, and it also contains the only credible time-on-market figures in this collection.

• Home buyers' agents said the elements highly important to their clients were photos 73%, traditional physical staging 57%, videos 48% and virtual tours 43% (National Association of REALTORS, 2025 Profile of Home Staging).
• Home sellers' agents rated photos 88%, videos 47% and traditional physical staging 43% as much more or more important to their clients (National Association of REALTORS, 2025, same release).
• 31% of home buyers' agents said buyers were more willing to walk through a home they had seen online (National Association of REALTORS, 2025, same release).
• 29% of agents reported that staging a seller's home produced a 1% to 10% increase in the dollar value offered (National Association of REALTORS, 2025, same release).
• When homes were staged, 30% of sellers' agents observed a slight decrease in time on market and 19% noted a significant reduction (National Association of REALTORS, 2025, same release).

A caution on the staging figures: they measure staging, not video, and they are agent recollection rather than measured market data. They are included because staging is the closest well-surveyed proxy for 'spending money on how the listing presents', and because the same survey rates video directly. Nobody has published a clean, primary, US-wide study isolating the effect of a listing video on days on market or sale price. If someone tells you they have, ask for the link.

Agent adoption: how many listings actually get video

Video adoption on real listings is far lower than the marketing conversation suggests. In NAR's 2025 survey of sellers who used an agent, video was one of the least common marketing methods used on their home, which is the single most useful statistic on this page for an agent deciding whether video is a differentiator.

• Only 12% of sellers who used an agent had video used to market their home, and 16% had a virtual tour. For comparison, the MLS website was used for 86%, a yard sign for 61%, an open house for 58% and social networking sites for 22% (National Association of REALTORS, 2025 Home Buyers and Sellers Generational Trends, exhibit 7-8, read the report).
• Drone photography or video is used by 52% of REALTORS, making it the third most popular technology after eSignature at 79% and social media at 75% (National Association of REALTORS, 2025 REALTORS Technology Survey).
• Social media was the top lead-generating technology for REALTORS at 39%, ahead of CRM at 23% and the local MLS at 17% (National Association of REALTORS, 2025, same survey).
• 66% of REALTORS said they embrace new technology primarily to save time, and 64% said their motivation was to enhance the client experience (National Association of REALTORS, 2025, same survey).

Put the 12% next to the 48%: agents believe buyers care about video, and almost nobody is producing it. That gap is a cost and time problem, not a belief problem, which is what the last section is about.

Social video: the wider numbers

Outside real estate, video marketing is close to universal, and the consumer numbers are consistently strong. These come from Wyzowl's State of Video Marketing 2026, which surveyed 266 marketers and consumers in late 2025. It is a small sample and not real-estate specific, so treat it as directional rather than precise.

• 91% of businesses use video as a marketing tool, back to an all-time high (Wyzowl, State of Video Marketing 2026).
• 82% of video marketers say video marketing has given them a good return on investment, and 85% say video has helped them generate leads (Wyzowl, 2026, same report).
• 84% of consumers say they want to see more videos from brands in 2026, a figure Wyzowl notes has stayed within 8 points for eight consecutive years (Wyzowl, 2026, same report).
• 89% of consumers say video quality impacts their trust in a brand (Wyzowl, 2026, same report). For a listing video, that is an argument against the bouncing-zoom slideshow.
• YouTube is the most widely used video platform at 82%, followed by LinkedIn 70%, Instagram 69%, Facebook 66% and TikTok 40% (Wyzowl, 2026, same report).
• 63% of video marketers have used AI video tools to create or edit marketing video, up from 51% the year before (Wyzowl, 2026, same report).

Cost and time: why the adoption gap exists

Listing video adoption is low because the traditional version costs money and a second appointment. The published figures below are about staging and technology spend rather than videography, because those are the numbers that exist in primary sources; treat videographer quotes as a local market question.

• The median cost of using a staging service was $1,500, against $500 when the sellers' agent handled the staging themselves (National Association of REALTORS, 2025 Profile of Home Staging).
• 34% of REALTORS spent an average of $50 to $250 a month on technology for their individual business over the previous 12 months (National Association of REALTORS, 2025 REALTORS Technology Survey).
• 92% of marketers plan to spend the same or more on video marketing in 2026 (Wyzowl, State of Video Marketing 2026).
• 17% of video marketers are not tracking their video spend at all, which is worth remembering the next time you read a return-on-investment figure (Wyzowl, 2026, same report).

Stats we left out on purpose

Two numbers dominate every other real estate video statistics page on the internet, and neither could be traced to a source that opens. They are listed here so you can stop looking for them, and so this page is not quietly the only one without them.

1. 'Listings with video get 403% more inquiries.' Repeated on dozens of vendor blogs and usually attributed to an unnamed Australian real estate group, occasionally to NAR. Searched on September 8, 2026: no primary study, no publisher, no date, no methodology. NAR has never published it. Do not put it in a listing presentation.
2. '73% of homeowners are more likely to list with an agent who uses video.' Same pattern, same result. Widely quoted, frequently credited to NAR, and absent from NAR's published research. If you find the original, we will add it here with the link.

The reason to care is practical rather than pedantic. A seller who checks a number you quoted and finds nothing behind it has learned something about the rest of your presentation. The NAR figure that video matters to 48% of buyers' agents is smaller and less exciting than 403%, and it is real.

How to cite these statistics

Cite the original report, not this page. Every statistic above names its publisher, the report, the year and a URL, so the correct citation is the source itself. If you want to point at the collection, cite it as: ListedReel, 'Real Estate Video Marketing Statistics (2026)', last verified September 8, 2026, https://listedreel.com/blog/real-estate-video-marketing-statistics.

• Always carry the year. A 2025 NAR figure quoted in 2028 without its year is a misleading claim, not a stale one.
• Quote the exact wording where you can. NAR's buyer-side and seller-side agent numbers are different questions with different answers, and swapping them changes the meaning.
• Link the primary source in whatever you publish. Wyzowl's citation policy explicitly requires a link back, and NAR and Zillow reports are free to open, so there is no reason not to.
• If a number has no publisher, year and method you can name, leave it out. That is the whole editorial rule behind this page.

Frequently asked questions

Do listings with video sell faster?

There is no primary, US-wide study that isolates the effect of a listing video on days on market, and any page that gives you a precise percentage is quoting a vendor blog. What the published research supports is narrower: 48% of home buyers' agents said video in a listing was highly important to their clients, and 31% said buyers were more willing to walk through a home they had seen online (National Association of REALTORS, 2025 Profile of Home Staging). Treat video as something that increases the number of buyers who consider your listing, and be honest that the sale-speed claim is unproven.

What percentage of real estate listings have video?

In NAR's 2025 Home Buyers and Sellers Generational Trends survey, 12% of sellers who used an agent said video was one of the methods used to market their home, and 16% said a virtual tour was. That is the closest thing to a national adoption figure that exists in primary research, and it means roughly one listing in eight gets a video.

Is video more important than photos for a listing?

No, and the data is consistent about it. Among buyers who used the internet in their search, 83% rated photos 'very useful' against 29% for videos (National Association of REALTORS, 2025 Generational Trends). Asked to name the single most important listing feature, prospective buyers picked the floor plan 33% of the time and video 4% (Zillow, Consumer Housing Trends Report 2025). Video earns attention in a feed; photos and floor plans do the evaluating once the buyer is on the listing page.

Where does the 403% more inquiries statistic come from?

Nowhere that can be checked. It is attributed variously to an unnamed Australian real estate group and to NAR, and as of September 8, 2026 no primary study, publisher or methodology could be found for it. NAR has not published it. The same applies to the '73% of homeowners' figure. Both are excluded from this page for that reason.

Do buyers watch listing videos on social media?

Some do, and the wider consumer numbers are strong, but the real-estate-specific evidence is thinner than vendors suggest. 37% of buyers used an online video site as an information source during the search (National Association of REALTORS, 2025 Generational Trends), while social networking sites were used to market only 22% of agent-listed homes (same report). Across all industries, 84% of consumers say they want to see more video from brands (Wyzowl, State of Video Marketing 2026).

How often should these statistics be updated?

Annually, because the three main sources publish annually. NAR's Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers and its Generational Trends report land in the autumn and spring respectively, the REALTORS Technology Survey lands in the autumn, and Wyzowl's State of Video Marketing lands around the turn of the year. This page was last verified on September 8, 2026, and every number above was read from its source on that date.

Last verified September 8, 2026. If a number here no longer matches its source, email [email protected] and it will be corrected or removed. Related reading on this site: photo slideshow vs video for what these numbers mean when choosing between a slideshow and a video, the real estate video cost guide for what each option costs, best AI real estate video tools for the tool landscape, how to turn listing photos into a video for the practical how-to, and pricing for ListedReel's own plans.