The Importance of Virtual Reality for Real Estate in Florida

Technology is changing all around us at an exponential rate. One of the most obvious and yet underutilized ways this has been shown is in the development of virtual reality. We need to talk about the importance of VR for real estate, and how it can help realtors worldwide in their relationship with potential buyers.

So what is virtual reality? Well, VR is “the computer generated simulation of a three dimensional image or environment that can be interacted with in a seemingly real or physical way”.

It’s importance in real estate, especially in these troubling times cannot be understated.

Usually, realtors will provide a list of properties to a buyer, with explanations and negotiations aplenty until finally there is a real-life visit to the house or apartment up for sale. There’s a lot that goes into it.

With the pandemic or even with clients who lead busy lives and don’t want to do a house tour for every single property they’re after, there’s a solution.

A VR property showcase

Virtual Reality Property Showcase

A VR property showcase is where a potential buyer can tour the property in question from the comfort of their own homes using only their computers, phones, or a virtual reality headset. This is useful if a client is too busy to have a showcase of every single property they’re looking into, or they live too far away, or they just want the comfort of their current home/ office to check out where they might be living. If you can make things more convenient, why not, right?

There are two times of showcases - these are

• Guided visits

• Interactive visits

Guided visits can either be fully virtual OR 360-degree videos. These are really simple to set up, a high-definition, panoramic camera is used to create the images of the house, with the client then able to perform the tour using the VR headset.

In an interactive visit, users can choose where to move around in the tour by clicking on special hotspots in the field of view. This can be especially useful because the users feel more in control of the experience, which will give them a positive association with the entire experience. A positive association is what you want to be aiming for, because it makes them more likely to want to go for the property because they already feel in control of the property.

This can also be particularly useful for international buyers who are moving to a different country and are unable to fly over for a tour.

Architectural Visualization

It’s always been difficult to market properties that haven’t fully been constructed yet, but the evolution of VR has made this much easier to do!

VR technology can be used to show the exterior and interior of properties that haven’t yet been finished so that realtors don’t have to wait to show them off to clients and close a sale. Plus, the architectural visualization is both more immersive and cheaper than previous methods of creating 3D models and showrooms.

Helping customers to imagine the architecture is a great way of establishing a bond between them and the property, and ensure you don’t have to wait to begin trying to sell to potential buyers..

Assisting Tenants

With every property there are going to be problems where tenants need some help with dealing with a specific problem. This can waste realtors’ precious time that could be better focused on marketing other properties and gaining a buyer for them.

VR offers a much easier way to assist tenants if, for instance, they need help checking where a certain switch is, or how to work the washing machine, the thermostat, you get the point.

Instead, guidance on these issues can be incorporated into a VR experience. Tenants can use VR headsets to find the specific information they are looking for without the landlord or realtor needing to come out and deal with a very simple 1-minute problem.

Appealing to Millennials

While millennials may not be buying houses as much as the older generations, there’ll still be renting them. And in the future, those millennials will be buying properties, and they will have come to expect a certain modern way of business being conducted since it’s all they’ve known.

By implementing VR into your real estate strategies, what you’re doing is future-proofing the success of your business by utilizing the latest trend in technology to expedite and modernize the process for the benefit of buyers, landlords and you - the realtor.

The best time to begin implementing VR into your business is now, before the competition leaves you behind. While VR may not be demonstrably prevalent in real estate right now, we know from the data and the way that technology sees exponential growth, and is brought to a widespread level that eventually it will be. Better to make a start using VR now and establishing a name as a company that is modernized than playing catch up in five years time.

Conclusion

VR brings many benefits to the real estate industry, specifically realtors and the importance of it cannot be overstated.

It may seem confusing or overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be!

SoFlo360 is here for you to air any concerns and worries while you consider implementing VR technology into your SOPs.

Give us a call on (501) 908-0260 or use our contact form to get in touch.