In terms of selling real estate, the industry can be broken down into two distinct sections: Existing properties and new construction. In today’s landscape, selling in these two sections is incredibly different. Existing properties can be visited, toured, and photographed in their current condition while new construction requires a little more imagination from the prospective buyers until the property is built. While renderings, animations, and 360 degree interactive tours have made great strides in closing that gap between selling existing properties and new construction, the recent release of Oculus and other Virtual Reality headsets will make selling them more similar than ever.
When it comes to selling existing homes, some of the biggest barriers come from geographical distance and schedule availability. For prospective buyers that are moving across the state, country, or globe, it can be incredibly challenging to find the time and fund the travel required to tour homes and explore neighborhoods. With Virtual Reality, that barrier will shrink exponentially as real estate agents and builders will be able to create Virtual Reality tours of the property and its surroundings so people of any geographical location can tour the properties at their own convenience. For real estate companies and builders with offices all over the country and the world, buyers can stop into any office and take a virtual tour of a property thousands of miles away. And if the prospective buyers have their own Virtual Reality headsets, they don’t even have to leave their homes to take a look at those properties.
For new construction, geographical distance and schedule availability is less of an issue until the property is actually built. Until it’s completed, the biggest struggle in selling new construction is in the visualization of the property– showing what it will look like when it’s done. This is typically where renderings, animations, and 360 degree tours come into play, and with the rise of Virtual Reality, those renderings are becoming more and more immersive. Now, prospective buyers can get the same feeling of walking through a physical property with new construction as they can with existing properties.
Virtual Reality isn’t just an exciting platform for video games and simulations, it’s an incredible sales tool for real estate agents and property builders. Virtual Reality is eliminating barriers from geographic distance to a complete lack of a building’s existence. If you’re interested in reaching a wider audience and closing more sales on your properties with Virtual Reality, send us a message on our Contact page. We can’t wait to immerse you in your virtual properties!