Virtual Tours: Coming to A Home-for-Sale Near You
Over the past few months, the real estate media industry has seen an explosion in the use of virtual tours and 3D capture technology. While the medium of digital marketing has been expanding for the past two decades, early 2020 saw a momentous leap forward in terms of the use and availability of virtual tours on platforms like Zillow, Trulia and multiple listing services. Here at 3D/RE, we saw a flood of new agents all clamoring for virtual tours now that it is so affordable and addresses the quasi open-house moratorium in Salem and much of Oregon.
The reason why is not difficult to trace or deduce--the pandemic, lockdowns and the primacy of social distancing. Open houses, the industry g0-to for attracting attention, generating interest and drumming up leads, has been curtailed for many agents, as local governments enforce social distancing and as homeowners cringe at the thought of strangers parading through their homes during a pandemic. Without open houses, how would an agent showcase their listing to the public?
Virtual tours to the rescue. This increasingly popular technology provides an experience that is really second to none. Unlike other media, 3D scanning of a home provides a fully immersive experience that can’t be replicated with two dimensional photos and/or video. It allows an interested buyer--from the comfort of their computer or even phone--to freely explore every nook and cranny of home, room by room, at their leisure. They can look up, down, and all around—and traverse the space naturally as they would if they were really there. This is an easy, intuitive experience that bypasses the rigmarole of calling an agent, setting an appointment and traveling to a location--just to realize once they walked in the home--it just isn’t right. Virtual tours are an all around more efficient system and good for agents, helping them connect with genuinely interested buyers and filter out those that are ‘just curious.’
Before the pandemic, virtual tours looked as though they would become the new standard for the digital marketing of homes—eventually. The pandemic has expedited this process though by increasing access, lowering prices and establishing a new baseline for marketing real estate listings.
Photo by Tom Parslow. Copyright of 3D/RE, LLC.