Yes. If two agents are otherwise equally matched, choose the one who offers live remote video showings, such as Buyers Connect, alongside physical open homes. This is not just for interstate or overseas buyers. Even in large markets plenty of local buyers cannot make a Saturday morning open home because of kids' sport, functions, or a clash with another inspection, and a campaign that only runs on weekends quietly locks them out. There is typically a modest per-property fee for this, generally met by the vendor, but it is a small cost against the benefit of reaching buyers your campaign would otherwise miss entirely.
That is a reasonable claim to make, so it is worth explaining why it holds up, and what to actually ask an agent to check whether their version of "remote showings" is the real thing.
Most vendors spend more time choosing which biscuits to put out for the open home than they do interviewing the agents competing for their listing. That is understandable. The process is emotional, the market moves fast, and most people default to the agent who sold the house next door or the one their neighbour recommended. But there is one question worth adding to your shortlist, and it has nothing to do with commission or marketing budget: does the agency offer remote video showings alongside physical open homes?
A traditional campaign relies almost entirely on people who can physically get to your property on a Saturday morning. That works fine for local buyers who are free that morning, but as already noted, plenty are not, and it works far less well again for the buyer who has just accepted a job interstate, the family relocating from overseas, or the investor who is comparing your property against six others in a market they have never lived in. This is why we generally recommend agents also run a remote showing on the Wednesday, ahead of the Saturday open home. For a buyer who cannot make Saturday, a Wednesday remote showing on Buyers Connect means they are not simply left out of the campaign until the following week. They can view the property from wherever they are, decide whether it is worth rearranging their plans to attend in person, and still be in a position to act. For a keen buyer who can attend on Saturday, the Wednesday showing gives them the option to view early, get ahead of the weekend crowd, and put an offer in before the open home even happens. Either way, time-poor local buyers are not competing with each other for the same Saturday slot, and interstate or overseas buyers are not quietly dropping out of a campaign because the only inspection time on offer does not suit them. These buyers are not hypothetical. They are a growing share of every campaign, and a listing that only offers in-person inspections is invisible to them until it is too late to act.
Remote video showings close that gap. A trained operator walks the buyer through the property live, on their schedule, answering questions in real time. The buyer gets the same walk-through confidence as an in-person visit, without needing to be in the room.
Three things, in practical terms.
More buyers see the property, sooner. Instead of waiting for the next open home, an interstate or overseas buyer can view the property within days of it listing. More eyes early in a campaign generally means more competitive tension when offers come in.
Fewer strangers through your home. If you are still living in the property while it is on the market, every open home is a disruption: tidying, pets to manage, people in your bedroom opening your wardrobes. Video showings let genuinely serious but geographically distant buyers get most of the way to a decision before they ever need to attend in person, which can mean fewer, better-attended physical opens rather than a long string of low-value ones.
A campaign that does not stall on distance. Buyers who cannot inspect in person often simply drop out of a campaign rather than fly in on the off chance the property suits them. A remote option keeps them engaged until they are confident enough to commit to seeing it live, or to make an offer outright.
In my book on remote-first inspections, I argue that most real estate campaigns still assume every buyer is local and available on a Saturday. That assumption has not been true for years. Buyers now research, shortlist, and often decide their level of interest well before they set foot in a property. A campaign that only caters to the in-person step of that journey is leaving buyers behind at the exact moment they are forming their shortlist.
The fix is not complicated. It is simply sequencing a remote option early in the campaign, alongside the physical open homes, so distant buyers can self-select in or out before the campaign has run half its course.
You do not need to understand the technology to ask a good question. Try this:
"If a serious buyer is interstate or overseas and cannot make it to an open home, what do we offer them?"
If the answer is "we send them a video the agent recorded on their phone," that is not the same thing. A pre-recorded walkthrough cannot answer questions, cannot show a buyer the exact spot they care about on request, and does not create the same confidence as a live, guided showing.
If your agent already offers a live remote showing option such as Buyers Connect, ask how many buyers they have converted through it. If they do not offer one, ask them why not, and whether they would be open to it for your campaign.
Some agents will tell you they already handle this informally, by jumping on a FaceTime or WhatsApp video call with a buyer who cannot attend. On the surface that sounds like the same thing. It is not, and the difference shows up both during the call and after it ends.
During the call, a FaceTime or WhatsApp video gives the buyer nothing to do but watch and listen. There is no way for them to interact with what they are seeing beyond asking questions out loud. A structured platform such as Buyers Connect gives the buyer their own interface during the walkthrough, so they can take their own photos, answer questions, and leave comments as they go, rather than trying to remember details afterwards. The video quality itself also tends to be noticeably better, since it runs through infrastructure built specifically for property walkthroughs rather than a general consumer messaging app.
A FaceTime call also leaves nothing behind once it ends. There is no record for you, the vendor, to check, and no record for the agent beyond their memory of the conversation. A structured platform produces a proper report for the agent: who was invited to view the property, who actually joined, and how long they stayed. That is the difference between trusting an agent's word that "someone seemed interested" and having something concrete in front of you.
The buyer gets something out of it too, which matters because it is what keeps them engaged with your property rather than moving on to the next listing. After the showing, they receive their own record: watermarked, time-stamped photos taken during the walkthrough, along with any comments and questions they entered. As they view more properties this way, they can compare that record against others they have seen, which keeps your property in the running rather than fading from memory among a dozen others.
So when you ask your agent about remote showings and they tell you they already do this by phone, ask a follow-up: can you show me a report of who viewed the property, when, and for how long? If the answer is no, it is not the same service, whatever it is called.
This is not only about how the vendor and agent experience the campaign. Buyers form an impression of a property, and of the agent handling it, based partly on how easy it was made for them to view. A buyer who can book a remote showing at a time that actually suits them, rather than only on a Saturday morning, and who walks away with their own record of the property to refer back to, generally comes away with a more favourable impression of that listing than one where the only option was to physically attend or miss out.
That impression compounds the more properties a buyer views this way. Once a buyer has experienced a proper structured showing with Buyers Connect, a FaceTime call from a different agent on a different listing tends to feel noticeably less professional by comparison, and a listing with no remote option at all can feel like it was simply harder to engage with. Agents who offer this are not just being convenient. They are shaping how buyers perceive the property itself.
You are not asking your agent to change how they sell your house. You are asking them to widen who your house is being sold to.
Does a remote showing replace the physical open home? No. It runs alongside the normal open home schedule, not instead of it. Buyers who can attend in person still should. A remote showing exists for the buyers who cannot make it, or who want to view early before deciding whether to attend in person.
Who pays for the remote showing? Generally, the vendor. There is typically a modest per-property fee, similar in principle to other campaign costs like photography or a floor plan. If your campaign is already underway and your agent proposes adding it partway through, expect this to come through as a variation to your existing agreement rather than something absorbed into the original fee.
Will a remote showing put off buyers who prefer to see the property in person? No. It is an additional option, not a substitute. A buyer who wants to walk through in person still can, at the scheduled open home. The remote option only comes into play for buyers who otherwise would not have seen the property at all.
Does a Wednesday remote showing mean fewer people at my Saturday open home? Not in a way that should concern you. Some buyers who view on Wednesday will still attend Saturday to confirm their interest, particularly if they are close to making an offer. Others were never going to attend on Saturday regardless, whether because of distance or a scheduling clash, so the Wednesday showing is capturing interest your campaign would otherwise have missed entirely, not diverting it away from the weekend.
How is this different from an agent just doing a video call on their phone? A phone call leaves no record behind once it ends. A structured platform produces a report showing who was invited to view the property, who actually joined, and how long they stayed, so you and your agent have something concrete to review rather than a secondhand account.
Do I need to be technical to make this work? No. The buyer and the operator handle the call itself. Your role as the vendor is simply to ask your agent whether they offer it, and to make sure the property is presentable at the scheduled time, the same as for any open home.
Is this only useful for expensive or unusual properties? No. Any property being marketed to a broad buyer pool benefits, since any campaign can include buyers who are relocating, working away, or simply too busy on a Saturday to attend. It is the buyer's circumstances that make remote viewing useful, not the property itself.