This month has seen the launch of the first property podcast whereby buyers in London can take a virtual tour of the properties they're interested in online.

Four of London’s leading estate agents have been trialing the use of videos tours in the marketing of property for sale and rent - Chard, Faron Sutaria, Marsh & Parsons, Featherstone-Leigh.

The video tours are also being used to reduce wasted viewings and refining the search criteria with the prospective purchaser before embarking on physical viewings.

The ‘Prop cast’ is a showcase programme featuring small exerts of the property video tours introduced by two presenters giving relevant pieces of information about the property.  This can be downloaded to an Ipod, PC or Mac.  Whilst this first podcast views homes in different price brackets, the company responsible, Real Property Tours, say future ‘Prop Casts’ will be in price banded episodes to enable easier selection by the viewer.

The use of video tours for marketing has become possible through the expansion of broadband to over 10 million homes combined with the public's increasing appetite for Video on Demand though the internet and the boom of the video iPod.

The new technology means that a property can be filmed once and then produced in different formats and viewed in many ways such DVD, web, iPod and Mobile phone whether you are at the agents office, at home, work or now even when you are on the move.

Lee Helliar, managing director of Real Property Tours (www.realpropertytours.com) confirmed the growing interest in real video tours: “ We have seen an increase in the interest and take up of video by estate agents since October 05," he said, "video is just the next natural step in the evolution of property marketing. We don’t have time to visit multiple properties which for many of reasons are unsuitable. Video tours enable you to make an informed choice. Ultimately it saves you time and money in finding your next home. Some agents are installing viewing areas inside their agencies utilising plasma screens to refine their clients search, others are letting prospective buyers view the video content on the web.”

And if you don't want to spend the evening watching video tours, then the next step is to view property on your iPod or mobile while you’re on the way home, leaving your evenings free for relaxing.

As our lives become busier, there is an obvious demand for innovative applications of new technology to minimise wasted time and effort.  However, whilst such an application is useful in whittling down a short-list, there still seems no substitute for making the effort to go and have a thorough inspection of a property in person.