How Virtual Reality Can Set You Apart
The home buying and selling market is rapidly changing, and a major force causing these alterations is technology. With the assistance of technological advancements, efficiency has increased for those searching for the perfect home. All you need to do is put on a virtual reality headset and you can go on a tour of a New York City luxury apartment or a quaint home in Hong Kong, 24 hours a day.
With incredible technology literally at our fingertips, it is more crucial now than ever to provide value to homebuyers in order to remain ahead of the competition. For this exact reason, the concept of virtual reality is rapidly gaining popularity. With the proper utilization of virtual reality, agents can showcase their services in a unique way that leaves no gaps for miscommunication or imagination.
While nearly every industry is keeping up to date with technology and incredible innovations, it is almost shocking that the real estate sector has not risen up to this challenge. This industry has shown reluctance by staying true to outdated practices and is desperately trying to hold on to generic sales and marketing schemes. Not only is this reluctance to change costing property sellers and developers copious amounts of time, effort, and money, but it is also robbing buyers of the fulfillment and comfort that they deserve while making the biggest purchase of their life.
What is virtual reality?
It is an artificial, computer-generated environment that you experience as if you were inside the image, or for us at Twist Tours, the home. Once you put on a virtual reality headset, you can go on a tour of a home without ever stepping foot inside the door. Not only does this make house hunting so much more efficient, but also it assists in relieving stress that occurs when relocating.
Selling an empty house
A major problem that real estate agents have been haunted by for decades is that an empty home is borderline impossible to sell. Without furniture and all of the other little touches that allow a house to transition into a home, it can be hard for potential buyers to even visualize themselves living in a particular property.
With technology, the virtual solution solves this dilemma, and “staging” a home, just got substantially less expensive and easier than lugging around actual pieces of furniture to fill a home whether it is for an open house or for a simple inspection.
FloorPlanOnline’s 3D floor plan solution allows any user the opportunity to drag and drop furniture onto a “clean slate” floor plan model and virtually stage it with furniture. To make this incredible technological advancement even sweeter, users can virtually change wall colors, flooring, or even experiment with removing a wall to visualize what an open concept may look like.
By simply clicking a button, anyone can see a room in 3D from the top, or go all in with an immersive first-person view. Our 3D plan enhances some of the other 3D tours like Matterport, which show all of the seller’s furniture in the property, while also converting any Matterport tour into a 3D model that allows you or the owner to do anything, all virtually in real time!
Considerations when using virtual reality
At Twist Tours, we are always focusing on providing a high-end virtual reality experience so that each property’s beauty is properly reflected. According to Coldwell Banker’s 2018 Smart Home Marketplace Survey, 77% of homebuyers would like virtual reality tours before seeing a listing in person, so having a high-quality tour is crucial.
To start you off on the right path, our team came up with some important tips for using virtual reality to flawlessly showcase a property:
- The quality of the camera work is everything. Be sure that you are working with passionate, dedicated, and experienced photographers like us at Twist Tours that are sure to capture the perfect shot.
- To ensure that users experience the perfect tour, the 360-degree camera needs to take data from multiple points in each room of the home.
- If a home is very upscale and contains art, jewelry, or other potentially desirable items, remove them before filming to make sure that the homeowner has privacy.
- Allow prospective clients to access the model in different ways. We offer virtual tours that can be seen through a headset or through a web browser. For users that have a virtual reality headset, this can enhance the overall experience!
The future of virtual reality in real estate
When it comes to the combination of virtual reality and real estate, there is so much more to come. Virtual reality may seem like a disruptive technology because it changes the experience for investors, sellers, and buyers through various stages of construction and in selling a property, but for a good reason. There will be a time in the future when the practice of open houses becomes unnecessary and individuals can get all the details they need on a property from anywhere in the entire world. From interactive virtual hotspots to virtual tours, and more, the creative potential of this technology is here to improve the experience for clients when it comes to selling properties that are commercial or residential.
As the number of developers around the world are spotting unique sales and marketing opportunities, virtual reality solutions are also bringing all industry stakeholders including real estate agents, buyers, and developers on a common platform. On this virtual platform, all parties can share their vision and at the same time, benefit from the highly personalized outcomes. With virtual reality added to your arsenal, staying on the top of your real estate game and crushing your competition will be simple.
