Virtual tours have revolutionised the way prospective buyers and tenants can view built and unbuilt properties. These days, developers and their real-estate agents can provide buyers with an interactive online experience that is more immersive and engaging than pictures or videos alone.
Results from two separate studies have shown that property listings with virtual tours included, sell for a higher price, and can spend less time on market than spaces listed using traditional marketing packages
The results revealed that real estate-agents closed at a 4-9% higher sale price and sold up to 31% faster.
Virtual tours have therefore become an integral part of property marketing strategies. These interactive experiences are used to showcase both built spaces and for properties that are still under construction or in the design phase.
Virtual tours, also known as 3D tours or 360 tours, allow viewers to remotely tour an existing or unbuilt property. — think of it like street view on Google Maps, but for interiors and exteriors of a property. Virtual tours are accessible and compatible through desktop, tablet, mobile and VR. Virtual tours are fast becoming the norm for the residential, commercial, retail and hospitality industries.
Virtual tours have many forms but usually fall into 3 categories for property marketing:
– 3D virtual tours: for built property
– Off-plans 360 virtual tours: for unbuilt property developments
– Hybrid virtual tours: a combination of built and unbuilt property.
3D virtual tours of the built properties, consist of a series of scans/360 photos of a physical location, typically created using Matterport technology.
Matterport 3D virtual tours are used by real estate agents, brokers, retailers, hoteliers, and property managers to showcase their properties for sales and marketing purposes. 3D virtual tours allow for offsite inspections which result in a wider audience reach and ultimately quicker closing of deals on residential and commercial properties.
Matterport 3D virtual tours offer potential buyers and tenants an open door experience, allowing visitors to virtually walk through a property at any time day or night from anywhere in the world.
A recent study by Matterport revealed that buyers are beginning to purchase properties online without a physical viewing. The study also revealed that real-estate agents saved valuable time by attracting more ‘qualified’ leads to a property. They have also proven to have a significant increase in the renting of properties. Matterport believes these statistics are a result of allow potential buyers having the option to explore the space in-depth prior to a physical viewing.
The in-tour features of a Matterport 3D virtual tour include:
– In-Tour Tags: Embed annotations and media into the tour to highlight key features of a property.
– HD Photos: 4K print quality photography automatically generated.
– Guided Tours: Automatically generate video tours that highlight the attributes of a property
– Floor Plans: Generate schematic floor plans of a property.
– Measurements: Ability to measure any aspect of a space, such as walls, windows, furniture, and more.
An off-plans 360 virtual tour is a rendered virtual environment that combines a series of exterior and interior 360-degree CGIs within a custom built app that is compatible on desktop, mobile, tablet and in VR.
Off-plans 360 virtual tours allow a user to move through an unbuilt property from point to point, like google street view. These virtual tours give users a fully interactive experience and are designed to a photo-realistic standard.
Off-plans 360 virtual tours are used across the property industry, most popular being residential, office and hospitality. They allow property developers, real-estate agents, and interior designers to showcase their unbuilt property to potential tenants, buyers, and stakeholders.
These 360 tours are used to secure pre-sales and pre-lets of apartment developments, housing schemes, student accommodations, office developments and hotels.
The in-tour features of an off-plans 360 virtual tour include:
– Integrated floor plans
– Information hotspots
– Integrated in-tour sharing on social media platforms and email
– VR capability
– Thumbnail gallery
– Auto rotation of each location
Hybrid virtual tours are a combination of 360 photos of built spaces and 360 still CGIs, where both can co-exist and interact within a virtual tour. Users can navigate seamlessly through the built and virtual world at the same time within the one tour.
Hybrid virtual tours are used by property developers and real estate agents to showcase future phases of an ‘under construction’ development. Within hybrid virtual tours, the exteriors are typically full CGI while the interiors can be 360 photos. These 360 photos can be taken from completed show units from identical or similar schemes by the same developer.
Hybrid virtual tours allow developers to bring their show units to the market well ahead of completion to secure pre-sales. They are a fast and cost effective marketing solution for developments where a show unit is not yet complete.
The in-tour features of a hybrid reality tour include:
– Integrated floor plans
– Information hotspots
– Integrated in-tour sharing on social media platforms and email
– VR capability
– Thumbnail gallery
– Auto rotation of each location
Qualified Leads: By giving potential buyers an in-depth view of a property, they are more likely to physically view properties they have a genuine interest in. This saves both time and money for real estate agents.
Global Reach: Virtual tours are open 24/7 online and can attract international viewers. Potential buyers can make informed purchase decisions without traveling long-distance for physical viewings.
Secure Pre-Sales & Pre-Lets: Virtual tours for unbuilt spaces are the ultimate tech-driven solution to bring a scheme to the market well ahead of completion. Developers can showcase their properties through accurate and photo-realistic CGI and give potential buyers an accurate and immersive tour of a planned space.
Interactive Experience: Virtual tours can enhance the viewers experience by integrating rich features within the tour. These can include mortgage calculators, information about similar properties and descriptions of the neighbourhoods can be added as in-tour tags.
Competitive Edge: In an industry that is extremely competitive, and with online platforms being flooded with content, it is imperative to have that competitive edge. Virtual tours are the most powerful and impactful form of content used in the property sector. Virtual tours give the viewer an accurate representation of a property that is both striking and immersive.
Hybrid tours are a combination or merging of real spaces and renders, where both can co-exist and interact within a virtual tour. Users have the ability to navigate through the real and virtual world at the same time.
If you’re a property developer, architect or Irish planning consultant, you should be aware that it is now industry standard to include daylight & sunlight reports as part of a planning application to local authorities or to An Bord Pleanála.
Property developers, real estate agents, architects and designers use 3D visualisation to engage with their target audience. 3D visualisation is now the key marketing tool to present their designs and ideas in a photo-realistic, engaging and immersive way.
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