Real Estate Video Marketing Statistics (2026)

Every number on this page is traced to a primary source — a NAR report, Zillow Research, or a named industry survey — with a link you can check. And because this niche runs on recycled numbers, the bottom section covers the three famous stats we won't publish.

Cite anything here freely — a link to this page is appreciated but the primary source is listed beside every stat, and that’s the citation that matters. Written and maintained by the team behind Kadapt, an AI tool that turns listing photos into vertical property reels. Every number was last verified against the source documents on 5 August 2026; the NAR 2025 Technology Survey figures were re-verified against the PDF on 20 August 2026.

The adoption gap — the whole opportunity in two numbers

Only 12% of home sellers say their agent used video to market their home — and only 22% say social media was used at all, versus 86% for the MLS. (NAR, 2025 Home Buyers & Sellers Generational Trends Report, Exhibit 7-8)
Yet social media is Realtors’ #1 source of quality leads — 39% rank it first, ahead of CRM (23%) and the MLS (17%). (NAR, 2025 REALTORS® Technology Survey)

Read those together: the channel agents themselves rank as their best lead source is one that almost none of them feed with listing video. That gap is the entire argument for making reels.

What agents actually use

Statistic	Source
75% of Realtors use social media in their business — second only to eSignature (79%) among all technologies	NAR 2025 Technology Survey
Platform mix: Facebook 87% · Instagram 62% · LinkedIn 48% · YouTube 25% · TikTok 15%	NAR 2024 Technology Survey
52% use drone photography or video; 38% use virtual tours	NAR 2025 Technology Survey
46% of Realtors already use AI-generated content (listing descriptions and similar)	NAR 2025 Technology Survey
66% adopt new technology primarily to save time; 64% to improve the client experience	NAR 2025 Technology Survey

A note on the drone number: the report’s highlights page says 75% and its chart says 52%. We publish the chart figure; treat either with that caveat.

What agents spend — and what AI has done for them so far

34% of Realtors spend $50–$250 a month of their own money on technology, and one in four spends more than $500 a month. (NAR, 2025 REALTORS® Technology Survey)
On lead generation specifically, 27% spend $50–$250 a month and 24% spend under $50; the rest spend more or couldn’t say. (NAR, 2025 REALTORS® Technology Survey)
58% have used ChatGPT and 41% say they currently use AI or generative AI in their business — yet 46% report no noticeable impact from AI on their business, and only 33% call the impact moderately positive. (NAR, 2025 REALTORS® Technology Survey)

Read with the lead-source number above: agents are already paying for tools and for leads, have tried the easy layer of AI (listing descriptions, ChatGPT) and mostly felt nothing — while the channel they rank first for quality leads is the one that takes the most production time. The survey is n = 1,241, fielded July 2025, margin of error ±2.78% at 95% confidence.

What buyers do and want

51% of buyers found the home they ultimately purchased on the internet, versus 29% through their agent — rising to 63% for buyers aged 26–34. (NAR, 2025 Generational Trends, Exhibit 3-4)
41% of buyers rated virtual tours “very useful” in their search — behind photos (83%), detailed property information (79%), and floor plans (57%). (NAR, 2025 Generational Trends)
Zillow listings with a 3D Home tour were saved 75% more and viewed 65% more than listings without, and 79% of shoppers say they want a virtual tour when home shopping. (Zillow Research, April 2021)

Short-form video performance

Short-form video is the #1 ROI content format — 21% of marketers rank it highest of any format. (HubSpot, State of Marketing 2025)
82% of video marketers report good ROI from video, and 63% of consumers prefer a short video to learn about a product or service. (Wyzowl, State of Video Marketing 2026)
On Instagram, Reels average a 0.52% engagement rate versus 0.37% for static image posts — roughly 40% higher — and drive the most comments of any format. (Socialinsider Instagram benchmarks, full-year 2025 data)

The three famous stats we won’t publish (and why)

These numbers appear on almost every real-estate video statistics page — usually credited to NAR. We traced each one to its origin before publishing, and none survived. If you’re a journalist or blogger, you may want to stop citing them too.

The claim	What tracing it finds
“Listings with video get 403% more inquiries”	A single Melbourne agency’s self-reported claim from 2012, relayed by Australian trade press. No study, no methodology, no US data — and modern citations invent attributions (“REA Group 2023”, “NAR”) that don’t exist.
“73% of homeowners would rather list with an agent who uses video”	Circulating since ~2016 with drifting attribution. No NAR document contains it — the Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers doesn’t ask sellers that question. The real, verifiable number on this theme is the 12% adoption figure at the top of this page.
“Homes marketed with video sell 32–68% faster”	The 68% version cites a “study” nobody can produce; the 32% version traces to unpublished internal data mentioned in passing. The closest published evidence is Zillow’s 3D-tour engagement research above — which measures saves and views, not days on market.

Sources

Corrections welcome: if a number here is out of date or you can produce a primary source for one of the debunked stats, email [email protected] and this page will be updated.