Greenwich Real Estate Broker Brings New Edge to Home Virtual Tours

Many of us have played armchair voyeur — enraptured with those real estate virtual tours that Realtors increasingly are embracing as a marketing tool. But those tours pretty much follow the same template. Typically, the homes are elegant, House Beautiful quality estates with verdant grounds and impeccable, if not over-the-top, home decor and amenities — all with placid, classical background music.

Greenwich real estate agent Joy Kim Metalios recently landed the listing for a stone-and-shingle Colonial in Greenwich. The 8,178 square-foot manse with six bedrooms and seven baths on two acres overlooking a lake previously was on the market for about a year.

So when Metalios got the listing she decided a virtual tour was in order. But, “You’ve got to make it fun. You’ve got to make it a little edgy,” said the agent with William Raveis Real Estate in Greenwich.

So Metalios had the home repainted and staged, then hired the firm Apostrophe Three of Armonk and New York, NY to create a video of the home that’s on the market for $5.5 million.

The result is an edgy ‘hide-and-seek’ tour of the home on Redcoat Lane in Greenwich’s mid-country, set to music reminiscent of the 1960s group The Ventures.

“I’m a little more edgy than the typical average Greenwich broker who won’t answer email and require a phone call instead,” explained Metalios.

The video begins with one boy counting down for a game of hide-and-seek with a group of five pals who scatter on foot and bicycles. The group hauls into a Belgian block motor court where one would expect to see a Bentley or a Ferrari parked. They proceed to scatter through the tastefully decorated but seemingly vacant house. The youngster searches the home for his mates, providing a further look through the home. It ends with “Tag, you’re it — your search is over.”

Metalios posted the video on You Tube. “It’s a happening, very cool marketing piece to get attention through social media.” In just a few days, the video has been seen more than 2,800 times on Facebook and You Tube, according to Metalios who relocated to Greenwich with her family six years ago after a decade-long career working with international clients at Douglas Elliman in New York City.

“I like to do a lot of out-of-the-box marketing,” she said. Next on her ‘to-do’ list, she’ll be hosting 17 members of a Stanford University a cappella group that will be performing at Yale University in March. “I told them I will put them up in my home but they have to help me with my open houses. Now where can you go to see an open house and hear some beautiful music at the same time?”

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Photo: screenshot from 14 Redcoat Ln. ‘Hide-and-Seek’ video.