How Does Virtual Tour Software Transform Real Estate Business?

Virtual reality is quite possibly the technology with the most widely recognized potential for application in many industries. From the field of medicine, through gaming, all the way to architecture, the possibilities with VR are endless. The real estate industry is another area where virtual reality can introduce potentially ground-breaking solutions.

It has already started doing so with virtual tour software that allows real estate agencies for the virtual staging of open houses using 3D virtual tour technology. In the COVID-19 era of social distancing and mandatory isolation, these three-dimensional tours can revitalize the market and help real estate agents continue working and making money on commissions.

As a seller, you may be wondering: “I just want to sell my house fast for cash. Why should I care about agents’ commissions and all that other stuff?”. Well, if you own the right equipment and are willing to put some effort into creating the tour, including it in your listing can make potential buyers turn in a more lucrative cash offer.

Regardless of whether you’re a seller, buyer, or perhaps a struggling real estate agent, you are bound to encounter 3D virtual tours sooner or later. They are transforming the industry, and if you read this article, you’re going to find out exactly how they’re doing so.

What Are Virtual Tours?

360 virtual tours are used by home sellers and larger real estate businesses to market the house to potential buyers. A tour like that is an immersive experience that can be lived out from the comfort of one’s own couch, regardless of their geographical location. It lets customers view properties quickly and efficiently without wasting time and money on actually getting to the house.

Virtual real estate tours are a game-changer for big real estate businesses in particular. Namely, they allow them to streamline the property-viewing process and weed out potential clients from undecided people who weren’t going to buy anything in the first place much faster. They’re also the ones that can afford to get large quantities of the necessary equipment.

In order to stage 3D tours, all you really need is a 360-degree panoramic camera and some directorial flair to present the home in the best way possible. As for viewers, the best experience can be achieved with VR headsets. They don’t even need to be high-grade — a simple home-made one such as the Google Cardboard is enough for viewing 3D videos.

Types of VR Tours

There are two basic types of real estate tours that you should know about if you’re in the real estate business or are looking to sell or buy a house.

Guided Tours

For real estate agents, guided tours are definitely easier to prepare. All you’ve got to do is record your 360 virtual tour with a panoramic camera. Feel free to add a voiceover using text to voice generator describing the property’s features in detail to make the experience as informative and worthwhile as possible for your clients. These types of home tours are particularly useful in the case when your prospective home buyers live abroad or in a state located far away from the property, making it difficult for them to inspect the building physically.

As a buyer, you should really be on the lookout for virtual tours that don’t tell you the whole truth about a property you’re interested in. The real estate industry is known for quite much deceit and trickery when it comes to photographing properties, and guided tours give those dishonest agents the possibility to skew a potential client’s perception even more.

Immersive Visits

VR technology grants its users the possibility to do much more than just 360-degree videos. If you’re planning on a virtual staging of an open house, you can opt for a more immersive customer experience in the shape of an interactive tour. The clients can view the desired property by clicking through various rooms, as well as get a look on another floor of the home independently, without the constraints of a guided video tour.

It is much more difficult to create a virtual, interactive tour of a property, but if you’re up for it, your prospective buyers will surely appreciate it. There are plenty of other features you can use to make the VR tour as engaging and attractive as possible. The positive experience of such a fun tour will surely have an impact on your clients’ final decision.

What’s the Impact on the Real Estate Industry?

Real estate virtual tours and open houses are really changing the landscape for buyers, sellers, and agencies. First of all, even though the equipment required to create (a 360 camera) and view them (a VR headset) is quite expensive, as a seller or an agent, you’re actually going to end up saving money in the long run. Throwing open houses at properties is associated with the cost of getting it ready, providing the refreshments as well as cleaning up the property afterward, not to mention the opportunity cost of you having to actually be physically present at these showings! With the virtual reality option, you’re going to save a lot of time and money, and you’re going to be able to show properties to more people, which brings us to the next point.

Virtual and augmented reality tours are making the distance between properties and buyers irrelevant. If you can create them using VR technology, you’re going to be able to sell any piece of property to people all over the world. Many international business magnates are looking to buy property worldwide, wishing to profit off of renting them, but don’t have the time required to actually visit and inspect them. Modern software and virtual reality can help them bridge that gap and take a look around a property to see if it suits their business needs.

The Bottom Line

Some may say that the use of virtual reality in real estate can hurt the so-called “little guy” and allow more and more markets to be swallowed up by companies and individual businessmen, crushing many people’s dreams of homeownership. On the other hand, though, it allows people with the time and means to create these experiences to cut out real estate agencies from their deals and regain control of their selling options.

Regardless of where you stand on this issue, one thing is certain — virtual reality in real estate is not going away anytime soon. The one thing insiders should do is to ensure that it contributes towards providing fair and equal opportunities for everyone and not work to the detriment of hard-working, middle-class Americans.

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