Here is a portion of an article on the benefits of adding audio to your online listings from Inman news.

Realtor Zahara Mossman is publishing audio descriptions of new real estate listings via the Internet to potential home buyers in a novel use of the popular audio publishing technique known as podcasting.

Mossman, a Miami Beach, FL., Realtor, dictates descriptions of her listings that can be downloaded from her two Web sites, http://www.zaharaproperties.com and http://www.podcastrealty.com.

Podcasts are audio files, usually MP3s, that can be downloaded to any portable MP3 player, such as an iPod, or personal computer. Mossman's approach is unusual; podcasts are usually in radio talk-show format.

Interest in such offerings is just beginning in the real estate and other industries. In July, ByOwner.com, a for-sale-by-owner real estate site, started offering podcasts for the FSBO industry. In June, Martopia, a national marketing firm for the mortgage and financial services, launched its Executive Insight Podcasts of corporate positioning messages.

In April, the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that 22 million Americans own an MP3 player and 29 percent of those had downloaded a podcast. And Forrester Research expects sustainable podcasting – listening to a podcast once a month or more – to reach 12.3 million households by 2010.

"Though it's been expensive to adopt the technology, in the long run I know it will be worth it – it already is. I'm getting referrals like you wouldn't believe," said Mossman, owner of Zahara Properties in Miami Beach, FL., a division of Beachfront Realty.
Mossman wouldn't say how much she paid to get set up with the technology, though she said the tech guy she hired to help her charged $250 an hour.

Zahara was licensed as a Realtor just 10 months ago. She has been podcasting listings in this manner ever since she was licensed, and credits a full 50 percent of the $7 million in sales she claims to her podcasts.

When Mossman gets a new listing, she records the description over the phone.

"I use my cell phone and walk around the property. That way I can catch details like, 'The view is spectacular, there's an orange tree on the side of the house,'" Mossman said. She describes the listing property as if she were having a conversation about it with an interested buyer, Mossman said.

In each of her podcasts, Mossman announces her name, the city she's podcasting from and her company name, and then describes the property and its amenities.
When she's finished, the Audblog bot automatically uploads the recording as MP3 files to Mossman's blogs at her Web sites. Subscribers can then get the latest podcast via RSS technology, she said.

Mossman gets up to 50 downloads a day from her main site, www.podcastrealty.com, she said.

In January, Mossman said, she had only five unique visitors to her PodcastRealty site. By June, unique visits had jumped to 5,849, and that number more than doubled by September to 12,473, she said. She predicts that in a year, podcasting will be as widespread as blogging is today.

Mossman isn't the only real estate agent to use podcasting as a marketing tool. For example, Ira Serkes of Berkeley, CA., is working on a series of informational podcasts on "preparing your home for sale, negotiating, pricing, loans, making offers, inspections and title and escrow," as well as a completed podcast on disaster preparedness.

However, Mossman is one of the first to garner attention for podcasting listings descriptions.

Asked how she came up with the idea, Mossman responded, "The question is, 'Why didn't anyone else do it?' Audio has existed forever. I don't understand why nobody thought of it before. Podcasting makes it possible for anybody to have their own radio show."