Realtor.com has recently made it a lot more lucrative and attractive for virtual tour companies to post agents' virtual tours on the site, but there's still a cost gap for agents who prefer to do their own tours.

Homestore can do tours for tour providers through its full service hometour360º program or "PicturePath" program. Basically, the difference between the two programs is that Homestore acts as vendor on the hometour360º program, and PicturePath enables other tour providers to post a variety of virtual tour products. The cost for PicturePath participation dropped from $5000 a year to $500, and the fee to post the tour from nearly $80 to a fourth of that depending on the tour provider's market.

Meanwhile, costs to post virtual tours has gone higher for individual agents like Massachusetts broker Jay Burnham, who says Realtor.com's new deal isn't such a great deal for agents like him.

"Up until November, we were able to buy "keys" from HomeStore for $49.00 (4 virtual image keys). There was no cost to then upload them to Realtor.com through PicturePath," says Burnham. "Now, although they are trying to make it appear as though they have lowered their fee from $5,000 to $500, they are essentially increasing the costs to individual agents from $0.00 (or $49...for the keys) to $500 plus the cost of the keys that we now need to purchase from IPIX, plus $24.95 per tour. No deal there."

According to Realtor.com, the self-service agent who produces his own virtual tours instead of seeking out a provider, represents a small percentage of customers. "While these customers are obviously important to Realtor.com, they represent only a small percentage of customers that we were trying to service with our virtual tour program," says a spokesperson. "We recognized this audience, and throughout the transition, we thoroughly communicated with self-service agents, explained the position we were in, and offered numerous suggestions and solutions. (One such communication piece is posted on our web site) We also offered an extended transition period. From the time we made the announcement, agents had two months to buy a bulk of keys, and they have until the end of this year to use their keys."

The spokesperson explains how it currently works for self-service agents:

• "If an agent has enough volume, they can pay the implementation fee ($500) and create virtual tours for $24.95. If they do 20 tours a year they will break even on the previous price point of $49.95. However, they get the additional benefit of a 12-scene tour (rather than four), and flexible technology choices. (NOTE: The $500 fee is only for the first year. Each year after is $250.)

• "Agents may also use the This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. service that allows them to continue buying IPIX keys from IPIX. They would then host, create, and distribute to Realtor.com® through IPIX's PicturePath relationship for roughly the same price they paid previously.

• The barrier to entry to the PicturePath program has all but been eliminated, so agents can now use basically any virtual tour company. Many self-service style virtual tour providers are members of PicturePath, including VisualTour, TourFactory, IPIX, RealBiz, iLookAbout, andRealEstateShows.com. These providers are very cost effective for agents.

• Agents may also use a local hometour360º provider. The cost would more than likely go up for full service, but some providers are willing to take images shot by self-service agents and create the tour for a discounted fee. We did not stress this, but it is a viable option."