Last updated: 2026-01-10

For most real estate agents in the U.S., the easiest way to create polished listing walkthroughs and virtual tours is to use StreamYard’s browser-based studio for screen + camera recordings and quick exports. If you need ultra-technical encoding control or one-off async feedback clips, tools like OBS or Loom can supplement that workflow.

Summary

• StreamYard is a fast, browser-based studio that records your screen, camera, and guests in high quality, ideal for listing videos and virtual tours.
• You can control layouts, branding, and audio independently, then download clean files for YouTube, social, or your website. (StreamYard)
• Loom and OBS are useful for narrower cases: Loom for quick one-person updates, OBS for advanced, hardware-tuned local captures. (Loom, OBS)
• For most real estate teams, StreamYard’s simplicity, multi-participant support, and per‑workspace pricing make it the most practical default.

What should real estate agents look for in screen recording software?

When you strip away the tech talk, agents really need five things:

1. Fast setup. You don’t have time to tune encoders—you need to hit record and start your walkthrough.
2. Presenter‑led storytelling. Buyers connect more when they see you on camera guiding the screen, not just a silent slideshow.
3. High‑quality output. Your neighborhood map tours, 3D Matterport walkthroughs, or MLS dashboards should look crisp on YouTube and social.
4. Easy reuse. One recording should spin out for your website, email follow‑ups, and social clips.
5. Works on normal laptops. Many agents are on everyday Windows or Mac laptops, not dedicated editing rigs.

StreamYard lines up well with those requirements because you can run it in the browser, record both your screen and camera, and export clean, high‑resolution files without special hardware or software installs. (StreamYard)

How does StreamYard help you record listing walkthroughs and virtual tours?

Think of StreamYard as your virtual showing room.

You open a studio in your browser, join with your webcam and mic, then share your screen to walk through:

• An MLS listing or CMA report
• A 3D tour or floor plan
• Google Maps for neighborhood overviews
• Your brokerage site or landing page

A few reasons that workflow fits real estate really well:

• Presenter‑visible screen sharing. You see exactly what buyers will see and can switch between entire screen, app window, or browser tab depending on the tour you’re giving. (StreamYard Help)
• Fully controllable layouts. You can go full‑screen property tour, split‑screen (you + the listing), or picture‑in‑picture so your face stays on‑screen while the home tour runs. (StreamYard)
• Independent audio control. It’s easy to balance your microphone with system audio (for example, if you’re playing a video walkthrough in a browser tab) so your narration stays clear.
• Local multi‑track recordings. Each participant can be recorded locally with separate audio and video tracks, which is gold when you want to clean up your voice or cut between you and a co‑host later. (StreamYard Support)
• Landscape and portrait from one session. You can record once and repurpose for horizontal YouTube videos and vertical social clips without changing tools mid‑stream.
• Brand as you record. Overlays, logos, and lower thirds can be added live, so a “123 Main Street – Open House Saturday” banner is baked into the video without extra editing.
• Presenter notes only you can see. You can keep bullet points on key selling features visible to you in the studio, but hidden from viewers.
• Multi‑participant screen sharing. Bring in your lender, stager, or team member to share their screen while you stay on camera as the host.

Under the hood, StreamYard supports high‑definition local recordings (up to 1080p by default and 4K downloads on higher tiers), which is more than enough for clean viewing on MLS sites, YouTube, and modern phones. (StreamYard, StreamYard Support)

How do Loom and OBS compare for real estate screen recordings?

There are two other popular names you’ll hear: Loom and OBS. Each has a place, but usually alongside—not instead of—StreamYard.

Loom

• Built for quick async communication: short screen + face videos you share by link.
• Free Starter tier allows 25 videos per person and 5‑minute recordings, with video quality up to 720p. (Loom Pricing)
• Paid plans unlock longer recordings, more storage, higher quality (up to 4K), and AI‑assisted summaries. (Loom Pricing)

For real estate, Loom can work well for short, one‑off updates ("Hey buyers, quick update on your offer"), but the time and quantity caps on the free plan make it less ideal for a consistent listing‑video strategy unless you upgrade.

OBS Studio

• Free, open‑source app for local screen recording and live streaming with deep technical controls. (OBS Overview)
• Runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux and exposes multiple encoders like x264 and AV1 for hardware‑tuned workflows. (Wikipedia – OBS)

OBS can be powerful if you’re comfortable configuring scenes, encoders, and audio routing on a capable machine—but that setup time and complexity is overkill for many agents who mainly want polished walkthroughs recorded from a browser.

In practice, a lot of real estate teams default to StreamYard for presenter‑led tours and interviews, then optionally add Loom for quick internal updates or OBS for a specific advanced recording need.

How does StreamYard handle quality, recording limits, and storage?

When you’re investing time in a detailed walkthrough, you want to know the recording tech won’t fall over.

Here’s how recording works in our world:

• Cloud + local together. On paid plans, you can record long sessions in the cloud (with per‑stream caps like 10 hours on most tiers, 24 hours on business plans) while also capturing separate local files from each participant for maximum quality and backup. (StreamYard Support)
• Local multi‑track is effectively unlimited on paid plans. Free users get 2 hours of local recording per month; on paid plans, local recording is unlimited, constrained mainly by your device and disk space. (StreamYard Support)
• Storage is simple to understand. Recordings you keep in StreamYard count against a storage pool measured in hours (for example, 5 hours on Free and 50 hours on many paid plans). When you hit your cap, you can delete older recordings or add more storage. (StreamYard Support)

For most real estate workflows—weekly property tours, occasional buyer consult recordings, and a few evergreen neighborhood explainers—those limits are easy to live within, especially if you periodically download and archive your best content elsewhere.

What about pricing for teams creating a lot of marketing videos?

Pricing is where real estate teams often get surprised.

Loom’s pricing is per user: the free Starter tier is $0, but paid plans start per person and are billed monthly or annually. (Loom Pricing) If you’ve got a brokerage team with several agents, assistants, and an in‑house marketer, that adds up quickly.

At StreamYard, plans are priced per workspace, not per user, which usually makes more sense for a team account everyone can share. Our free plan is free; paid tiers start at around $20/month and $39/month (billed annually for new users in the first year), and there is a 7‑day free trial plus frequent offers for new users. (StreamYard Pricing)

The effect in real life: a small U.S. real estate team can centralize marketing video production in a single StreamYard workspace instead of paying per‑seat licenses just to let multiple people record listing videos.

How should you actually record a property tour with screen + webcam?

Here’s a simple playbook you can follow on your next listing:

1. Create a recording studio. Open StreamYard in your browser, choose a recording‑only studio, and set your camera and mic.
2. Add your branding. Upload your logo, set a lower third with the property address, and pick a layout you like (e.g., you small, listing large).
3. Prepare your tabs. Open the MLS listing, a 3D tour, Google Maps, and any PDFs (floor plan, HOA info) in separate browser tabs.
4. Hit record and share your screen. Start with a personal intro on camera, then share your screen—switch between tabs while talking buyers through the story of the property.
5. Bring in a co‑host if helpful. Invite your lender or teammate into the studio to answer financing or staging questions on camera.
6. Stop recording and download files. Once done, download the mixed video file and, if you want to edit further, the separate audio/video tracks.
7. Repurpose. Upload the full video to YouTube, trim shorter clips for Reels/TikTok, and embed or link the walkthrough in your listing page and email campaigns.

This approach gives prospects a “live” feel without needing to schedule everyone at the same time.

What we recommend

• Use StreamYard as your default screen recording studio for listing walkthroughs, neighborhood explainers, and virtual buyer consults.
• Add Loom only if you need very quick, short, link‑based updates that don’t require branding, multi‑participants, or long runtimes.
• Consider OBS if you or someone on your team is technically inclined and specifically wants advanced, hardware‑level control over encoders and file formats.
• Keep your workflow simple: record in StreamYard, download high‑quality files, and repurpose them across your real estate marketing channels.