Did you know that real estate listings with video receive 403% more inquiries than those without? Or that prospects who watch a video on a multifamily website are 4x more likely to lease?
These statistics demonstrate that video is highly effective in increasing multifamily website conversions in 2025. Despite this clear data, many leasing teams continue to rely on highly polished 3D renders and virtual tours.
While these assets have their place, recent trends suggest that they are no longer as effective for users. Today’s renter wants a reason to trust you. They know that a wide-angle lens can make a 450-square-foot studio look like a ballroom, so they are not satisfied with a still image of your apartment. They want something more. Something that guarantees your authenticity.
And that’s exactly what a video conveys. Trust. Reliability. Professionalism. Available data shows a massive performance difference between Real video (walkthroughs, raw footage, genuine testimonials) and Stock images or 3D-renders.
Need further proof that video is the better choice for your multifamily website? We have analyzed the top statistics and trends regarding video in the multifamily sector. Next, we will break down what makes Real video, the future of multifamily website conversions, and how your CMS must evolve to support it.
Why Polished Renders Are Not Effective Anymore
For the last decade or more, multifamily marketing has prioritized picture-perfect presentations over accurately depicting properties. Websites feature stock models in random houses. And floor plans look more like video games than real apartments.
In 2025, this display of perfection is breeding suspicion. Consider the following statistics;
- 88% of consumers say authenticity is a key factor when deciding which brands they like and support. In housing, this number is even higher because the financial stakes are massive.
- A recent survey indicated that 43% of renters agreed they wasted time visiting properties because they didn’t understand the photos online. Real video eliminates this fear while static images increase it.
- Videos that appear raw or user-generated often see 28% higher engagement rates than planned high-budget commercials.
Why does the real video convert better? Because it proves the product exists.
When a prospective resident sees a live video of the apartment. Say, maybe of a faucet turning on, a closet door opening, or the actual view from the balcony, they feel enlightened. They see the reality, including the traffic noise or the neighboring building.
Where such a display of reality suggests transparency, polish signals marketing.
In the multifamily market, that transparency is key to bridging the trust gap. A prospect in New York moving to Los Angeles doesn’t want to see a render of the gym. They want to see a video of the actual Peloton bikes to ensure they aren’t broken and can immediately become useful to them upon their gym registration.
Discover how we increased web traffic by 134% for HPI Real Estate without video renders.
Why Video Performs Better Than 3D Tours on Mobile
Data suggests that 96.3% of internet users browse via mobile, yet many multifamily sites still rely on Matterport or 3D interactive tours. While these are excellent tools for desktop users who want to measure walls, they don’t serve mobile users well. This creates a significant disconnect.
On a small screen, 3D tours require active navigation. You have to pinch, zoom, and tap dots to move through a room. This can be incredibly frustrating for users, leading to high abandonment rates in the first few seconds.
Video solves this by offering a more relaxing experience. Because 95% of information is retained compared to the 10% that is retained from reading. This suggests that video is a far more effective tool for keeping prospects engaged and then converting them.
By switching to vertical (9:16) video formats, you not only align with user behavior but also allow your team to control the tour’s narrative. This ensures prospects see the best features of the unit without the friction of a laggy, interactive web interface.
For maximum multifamily website conversions, your site must prioritize video players that load instantly on mobile. You must also avoid heavy 3D iframes that crash mobile browsers.
How Video Impacts Multifamily Website Conversions
The difference between a website with static photos and a website with real video is measurable in leases signed. Let’s look at the hard data to back that up:
- Real estate listings with video receive 403% more inquiries than those without.
- Prospects who view video content are 4x more likely to lease than those who view only photos.
- Real estate prospects who watch 5 or more videos on a property website have a conversion rate approaching 60%. This suggests that continuously watching apartment tours is a strong signal of purchase intent.
- Including the word Video in an email subject line to a lead increases open rates by 19% and click-through rates by 65%.
- Viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video, compared to 10% when reading it in text.
Clearly, real video doesn’t just get more leads but better leads.
A prospect who has watched a 3-minute walkthrough of a 2-bedroom unit already knows the layout. They know the finishes. They know the view. When they finally contact the leasing office, they are not asking “What does it look like?” They are asking, “When can I move in?” This effectively shortens the sales cycle.
In the U.S real estate markets, where vacancy loss can cost thousands of dollars a week, accelerating the leasing velocity by even a few days has a massive impact on Net Operating Income (NOI).
How Video Helps Multifamily Websites Rank Higher
A multifamily website with only photos is no different from a gallery. Users flip through it in 60 seconds or less and leave the website. Comparatively, a multifamily website with video walkthroughs, virtual tours, and resident testimonials will keep the user engaged for longer.
The increase in dwell time signals to search engines that your multifamily website CMS is delivering high-quality content and leads to a higher ranking on SERP.
According to available data, the average user spends 88% more time on a website with video. Likewise, pages with video content see a 34% lower bounce rate. Consequently, video results are 53 times more likely to reach the front page of Google than text-based results.
What follows is a flywheel effect. Better video leads to more wheel time and less bounce rate. This leads to better rankings. Better rankings lead to more traffic. More traffic leads to more video views, and the cycle continues.
Gallelli User Engagement Rises by 125% After Blacksmith Engagement. See how.
Choosing the Right Multifamily Website CMS for Video
Now, this one is very important.
You can invest thousands of dollars in video production, only to host it on a multifamily website CMS that cannot handle the load. That will be terrible.
High-resolution video is data-heavy. A single minute of 4K video may be over 300MB. If you upload this directly to a basic WordPress setup or a legacy property management template without the right web infrastructure, your page load speed will plummet.
And you know what happens when your website slows? 53% of mobile users abandon a site if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load. Even Google penalizes sites with poor loading performance. Further, large video files directly cause layout shifts (CLS) and affect your SEO rankings.
If your current website takes 5 seconds to load a video, you are actively hurting your multifamily website conversions. Instead, it is best that you also engineer your website accordingly. You can do the following;
- Lazy Loading: This strategy allows you to postpone the loading of the video until the user scrolls to it. Lazy loading saves initial bandwidth by focusing on loading exactly what is needed and maintaining your website speed.
- Adaptive Streaming: Program your website to serve different video qualities based on the user’s connection speed, similar to how Netflix and Amazon Prime operate.
- CDN Integration: Keep your video assets loaded on an Edge Network (CDN) if you want a quick loading experience. Doing so ensures the video loads instantly for users, even if your main server is located far away in another city.
- Headless Architecture: For the fastest possible experience, consider a Headless CMS. This decouples the frontend (what the user sees) from the backend database. It allows video content to be delivered via API instantly, creating an app-like feel that traditional websites cannot match.
Essentially, it means your choice of SMS or technology stack must be able to allow these changes.
What Kind of Real Video Drives Multifamily Website Conversions?
When we say real video, we don’t just mean a walkthrough of a vacant unit. Rather, to maximize multifamily website conversions, we mean you need a mix of different video types that answer every objection a prospect might have.
Of course, the walkthrough of the unit is still the most basic video type. This is a continuous shot walking from the front door to the balcony. No fancy cuts. No music masking the ambient noise. Just reality.
Another video asset to record is that of the neighborhood. 85% of buyers want to know what happens around their apartment. Thus, a video showing the entire walk to the latest restaurant or store, or the atmosphere in the local coffee shop, is more satisfying. This kind of video elevates the apartment from being just a unit to a component of a kind of lifestyle.
Again, videos from staff are also helpful because people buy from people. A video introducing the concierge or the maintenance supervisor builds customer trust and suggests a high level of service.
Perhaps the most important video is the one you don’t create yourself. Consumers find UGC 9.8x more impactful than influencer content when making a purchasing decision. UGC galleries also see a 29% increase in multifamily website conversions.
To get UGC videos, encourage residents to tag your property in their “move-in” videos on TikTok or Instagram. Embed these videos directly onto your multifamily website. Seeing a real person excited about their new apartment tells the prospect, “People really live here, and they are happy.”
Won’t Doing Too Many Videos Be Costly?
Many C-level managers believe the cost of video content production to be high because they imagine film crews, lighting rigs, and post-production delays. In 2025, the reality is different.
The camera on an iPhone 17 is capable of shooting 4K video and will easily rival professional gear from a few years ago. Thus, you don’t need professional equipment to make a real video. It can easily be shot, edited on the phone, and uploaded in a short while. Compared to a 3D render that takes weeks, this speed when using your phone is even better. Again, training leasing agents to shoot video is unlike creating 3D renders.
Volume over Perfection
Another reason you do not need to bother getting professional gear is that perfect videos are expensive. It is better to have 20 regular videos covering every floor plan and amenity than one perfect cinematic trailer that costs $10,000. By shifting your budget from high-gloss production to high-volume authentic content, you lower your Cost Per Lease (CPL). You also increase engagement.
How Blacksmith Agency Can Help
Switching to video-first marketing is a bit overwhelming. Your video content may be available, but your website performance drops once you upload it. Or maybe you have a website performing well, but you’re unsure how to integrate your video content into your current leasing funnel.
That’s where our expert team at Blacksmith comes in.
As a Multifamily website design agency, we understand how technology and real estate psychology can work together for your multifamily apartment to increase leases. As part of our expertise,
- We build custom multifamily website cms solutions designed to handle high-resolution video assets without sacrificing page speed.
- We design user flows that strategically place video content at key stages of the user’s journey, ensuring the right video appears exactly when a prospect is considering booking a tour or applying, maximizing multifamily website conversions.
- We architect websites that prioritize mobile experiences, creating seamless vertical video experiences that mimic the most popular video content platforms like TikTok and Instagram.
- We implement video schema markup to ensure your Real videos appear in Google Search results, driving organic traffic directly to your floor plan pages.
Ready to turn video views into signed leases? Contact Blacksmith Agency today to audit your current web architecture and design a website that helps you get more leases on your multifamily website.
