House tour video: how to film one with your phone

Who this guide is for

This is for anyone filming their own place: selling without an agent, renting out a house or a unit, subletting an apartment, finding a roommate, posting on Facebook Marketplace, or sending a tour to a buyer, renter or landlord who can't come in person. Any recent iPhone or Android phone is enough.

If you're an agent filming a listing, our real estate walkthrough video guide covers 4K settings, gimbals, MLS branding rules and Zillow Showcase in more depth. This page is about the home tour most people actually need: honest, steady and easy to send.

Before you film: tidy, then protect your privacy

A tour shows everything the lens passes, not just the parts you'd photograph. Walk the route once before you record and fix what you see.

• Tidy the obvious: dishes, laundry, cables, bins, towels on the floor, toiletries on the sink. Make the beds and close the toilet lid. Our prep checklist goes room by room.
• Mail and paperwork: anything with your name, address or account numbers, including bills on the fridge and packages by the door.
• Family photos and kids' names: school artwork, name signs, calendars and whiteboards.
• Security details: the alarm panel, spare keys, the safe, and the outside of the home if you'll post the tour publicly with dates you're away.
• House number and plates: if the video will be public, start inside the front door rather than at the street, and keep car license plates out of frame.
• Other people: ask roommates, family and guests to step out, or film when they're out. In a sublet, get your roommates' OK before their rooms appear in a public video.

Plan the route

Film the home in the order a visitor would walk it, and don't walk the same stretch twice. A viewer builds a mental floor plan from the order of the rooms, so jumping from a bedroom back to the kitchen makes the home harder to picture.

Open every door you'll walk through before you start, and decide whether you'll film one continuous take or one clip per room. One take is more convincing for a remote viewer, because it proves how the rooms connect. Clips per room are easier to get right, because a wobble costs you one room, not the whole tour.

How to hold and move the phone

• Two hands, elbows in. Hold the phone at chest height, close to your body, with the screen level. Tilting the phone up or down makes walls lean.
• Turn your body, not your wrist. To pan across a room, keep your arms still and rotate from the feet. A wrist pan is fast and jerky; a body pan is slow and smooth.
• Walk slowly, heel to toe. Then slower again. Movement that feels too slow while filming usually looks right on playback.
• Pause at each doorway. Hold still for two or three seconds before you step in, so the viewer sees the whole room at once.
• Don't zoom while walking. Pinching the screen mid-walk looks jumpy. Pick a lens before each room instead.
• 1× for most rooms, 0.5× for small ones. iPhones let you tap .5x or 1x while recording, depending on the model. The 0.5× lens shows more of a small bathroom or bedroom, but bends straight lines near the edges and can make a room look bigger than it is, so use it where 1× can't fit the room, not everywhere.

Stabilization: use what your phone already has

Every recent phone stabilizes video by default. Most also have a stronger mode for walking shots, which crops in a little and wants more light.

A gimbal gives the smoothest result, but you don't need one for a home tour. If you're weighing one up, the walkthrough video guide covers the trade-offs.

Light and sound

Light: film in daytime, open every curtain and blind, and switch on every lamp and ceiling light, including in rooms with windows. Stabilization modes want it too: Apple says Action mode works best in bright light, and Samsung warns that SuperSteady may add noise in low light. If a bright window turns the rest of the room dark on screen, tap on a wall rather than the window so the phone exposes for the room.

Sound: plan for the video to be watched muted. Zillow's Showcase videos autoplay on mute in the listing carousel, and when Zillow first launched video walkthroughs on for-sale and rental listings in 2016, they had a two-minute limit and no sound. Footsteps, a TV or a fridge hum add nothing, so mute the clip or add a short voice-over afterwards. A voice-over can say what the video can't: the square footage, the rent, what's included, the noise level at night.

Don't record other people's conversations. If a buyer, roommate or neighbor talks during the tour, cut that audio or film again. Federal law and 37 states plus D.C. require only one party's consent to record a conversation, but 13 states require everyone's, including California, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Washington, according to a July 2024 summary by the law firm Kilpatrick Townsend. This is not legal advice. The simple rule is to record only your own voice.

Where to post it: format and length

Decide where the tour will go before you film, because that decides horizontal or vertical. If you only film once, film horizontally: it works for listings, links and YouTube, and you can crop a vertical clip for social afterwards.

How long? One to three minutes covers most homes: about a minute for a studio or a room in a shared apartment, two to three for a family house. Show each room once, cut the walking between rooms short, and stop when you've reached the best view.

Sending a tour to a remote buyer, renter or landlord

When someone is deciding without visiting, the tour has to answer the questions they would ask in person, and prove the place is what the listing says.

• Film one continuous take, front door to the last room. It shows how the rooms connect and is hard to fake from other homes.
• Show the details people ask about: run the shower and a tap for a few seconds, open the fridge and oven, show the closet inside, the view from each window and the laundry.
• Show the condition honestly. Pan over a scuffed floor or a stained ceiling instead of around it. A remote renter will see it on move-in day anyway.
• Say what you're showing, or add captions: "second bedroom, about 10 by 11 feet" is more useful than a silent pan.
• Offer a live video call too. The viewer can ask you to open a door or point the phone out of a window, which a recorded tour can't do.
• Share it as unlisted, not public, so the tour of your home doesn't turn up in search results.

Filming a move-in record or a home inventory

A tour for a landlord's move-in record, a move-out check or an insurance inventory has a different job: it's evidence, so detail and honesty matter more than looks. Film every room, every wall, the floors and the ceilings, and get close on any existing damage. Say the date and the address at the start, and keep the original file from the phone.

For insurance, the California Department of Insurance's home inventory guide suggests walking around with a video camera, filming every drawer with commentary about each item, and emailing the video to someone offsite. Don't forget closets, pantries, basements and attics.

When October fits instead, and when it doesn't

October's walkthrough video isn't filmed footage. The October app guides you through each room with an iPhone 12 or newer and takes the photos. An AI image model draws the finished photos from your capture, and an AI video model (Kling) makes the walkthrough as smooth camera moves between those finished photos. The photos and the walkthrough usually come back within a few hours. Photos plus a walkthrough cost $99 a place (up to 6 rooms), and the first place is free. See pricing and how it's made.

Because the photos are drawn from your capture and lightly styled, with beds made and loose items left out, check each one before you publish and label them where your listing site requires. And if you need real footage of the home as it is, such as a landlord's move-in record, a move-out check or an insurance inventory, film it yourself as this guide explains.

Step by step

1. Tidy and protect your privacy

   Clear dishes, laundry and clutter, make the beds, and remove mail, family photos, keys and anything with your name or address. Ask other people to step out.

2. Plan the route

   Front door, living room, kitchen, bedrooms, bathrooms, laundry and storage, then end outside or at the best view. Open every door first and never walk the same stretch twice.

3. Set up the phone and the light

   Film in daytime with every curtain open and every light on. Turn on Action mode on an iPhone or SuperSteady on a Samsung Galaxy if you have it. Hold the phone horizontally unless the tour is only for Reels or TikTok.

4. Film slowly

   Hold the phone level in both hands at chest height, pause two or three seconds at each doorway, walk heel to toe and turn your whole body to pan. Use 1×, and 0.5× only in rooms too small for 1×.

5. Trim and mute

   Cut the tour to one to three minutes, mute the background sound or record a short voice-over, and cut any audio of other people talking.

6. Upload and share

   Upload to YouTube as unlisted and share the link in your Craigslist replies, Facebook messages or emails, or add it to a Zillow Rental Manager listing's Video field. Crop a vertical version for Reels or TikTok if you want one.

Questions