Virtual Reality: The New Reality For Real Estate

The wave of tsunami is flooding in the real estate market. Will you ride through the wave, or get crushed by it?

A way back before decade, virtual reality (VR) only seemed possible in the science fiction movies but the time changed when the tech was adopted by video game and entertainment industries. VR came up with the fresh headlines in 2014, when Facebook made $2 billion acquisition of Oculus VR.

Today, VR is booming up for all industries especially in real-estate sector as real estate marketers provide the buyers with headsets to explore the properties rather than visit site physically. More and more startups are entering this space and it is predicted to become the next hottest trend.

As per National Association of Realtors research 95% of customers searching for real estate online, 51% actually finding their ideal home that way and the market of real estate is predicted to touch at least $80 billion by 2025. Isn’t that great?

But why there is so much of hype for VR in real-estate?

It is because of

• Real estate brokers had to manage the tight schedule from one visit to the other dealing with the traffic, weather condition and much more and this tends to be very tedious task.
• Real estate brokers had to deal with the heart-broken phrase everyday “It doesn’t look like pictures”.

Virtual Reality can resolve these hurdles and offers the possibilities to virtually visit the spaces in less time. This will naturally increase sales efficiency and enables the ability to convert into potential leads.

Let’s zero down some ways on how can VR make the job of real-estate easier?

Gives 360 degree of insights to client: Using Virtual reality headset, you can showcase your project to the buyers and they can take stunning realistic 3D tours of their future homes. Buyers can experience movements in the house without being physically over there and can also experience activities like opening of doors, folding furniture, accessing built-in elements and much more. Instead of explaining to the clients what property will look like once it is finished, you can show them precisely how their future home would look even before the construction. Making a large investment solely based on plans written out on paper is risk and not all buyers will be willing to agree upon. But with such simple gesture and finger touch, buyers have the opportunity to augment their living standards once they take a tour. This helps in taking faster decision and feels less hesitant about investing in property that they can’t see physically.

Enables the client to customize their homes: Suppose you are showing your client a fixer-upper; but how about if you can show your client a fixer-upper into many other layouts of the same property within minutes? It is always difficult to sell the homes that needs many reworks, but VR can make it easy for the buyers to imagine the potential. Within a few touches, you can showcase how kitchen would look like, new paint color on few walls etc.; this in-turn helps the client to feel more comfortable about the process and can hassle-free buy the space that needs some customization. VR can show them ‘what if’ possibilities before initiating any work. Our Clients had fabulous experience when they hired iPhone app developers from iPhone app development company known as iQlance Solutions.

Show homes that are staying 7 seas far: As per research, 20% of the home buyers are making offers on home without even seeing them in person. With the advancement of VR in real estate, the risk can be mitigated of buying properties from a longer distance! Many international construction companies finds it difficult to reach the destination by car and are left with only flight option as the destination is located in other country. With VR, it is easy for the company to walk through the building sites of property and can even remotely guide the workers through the tour. Additionally, buyers are able to take real-time experience of property compared to the simply viewing of images; there is far less chance of misunderstandings and miscommunication and hence they are able to take quicker and educated decisions.

Keeps cost down: It costs high to create show homes, scale models, printing collateral etc and all needs to be redesigned and remade when the concept changes. From marketing and engagement to conversion, VR reduces cost everywhere and helps in avoiding travel and hotel expenses, and traveling hassles. As things are kept transparent and buyers know in advance what they will have in their budget, there is little scope for objections or refund like situations which often groove our income besides bringing disgrace to an organization. Hence, seeing the cost structure VR can be effective and efficient way to connect fresh prospects especially when real-estate industry is involved.

How VR in real-estate can benefit you?

It provides

• Great visual engagement
• Unprecedented clarity
• Branding
• Mobility
• Extended reach
• Cost saving
• Improved brand loyalty
• Enables to get more ROI
• Reduces sales cycle time
• No special hardware or software is needed

It’s all about imagination

Today, VR is rolling the balls and creating new intuitive way to interact with computer or smartphone. It enables the real estate marketers to visualize like never before and offers wider field of view, where the concept of the virtual desktop is no longer confined by the size of the physical display screen on our desktop or palm of our hands.

At the end of the day, the real-estate industry focus on how to make it easy for the prospective buyers to visualize and how they would feel living in that particular property. And for this, VR has the potential to disrupt and improve the real estate buying process all while increasing sales efficiency and without having to hire more staff.

So, are you looking to develop VR app for your next big project? Write to us on [email protected]

Originally published at www.iqlance.com on December 28, 2017.