There are about 2 million active real estate license holders in the United States, according to the Association of Real Estate License Law Officials (ARELLO). According to the National Association of Realtors, these individuals sold just over 6 million homes in the United States in 2019. The competition in the real estate industry is fierce, and real estate agents need to harness new and innovative ways to showcase their properties.
A 3D virtual home tour is different from viewing floor plans, 2D photos, and even 360° images or video tours. It allows viewers to get a real feel of the property’s layout instead of needing to try and piece it together using a number of still images. A 3D virtual home tour gives potential buyers an immersive experience where they can view a home in virtual reality.
The 3D house tour lets the potential buyer view the home as if they were making an in-person visit to the property. This allows them to view details of a home and work through their options before they contact the relevant real estate professional. It saves both the home buyer and the real estate time and effort as the prospective buyer can eliminate homes that do not meet all of their requirements.
Sometimes a house looks good on paper, but when the potential buyer views the home, they may notice some things about the home they don’t like. By doing a 3D walkthrough of the property on your website before the on-site visit, they have more information on the property and better understand whether it meets their needs.
How 3D Virtual Tours Can Help You Sell Your Home Faster
According to the 2021 Home Buyers and Sellers Generational Trends Report by the National Association of Realtors Research Group, 58% of all buyers found a real estate virtual tour of a home a ‘very useful’ feature of property listings. Individuals between the ages of 31 and 40 make up the largest group of home buyers (23%). This group of individuals is also the group where most persons (63%) find virtual tours very useful. That means including a 3D home tour in your listing caters to the largest percentage of potential home buyers.
Another way how a 3D virtual tour can help you sell your home faster is by allowing potential buyers to view the home in privacy and in their own time. It is essentially an always-open, virtual open house. Potential homebuyers can take their time looking at every detail of the home. They can zoom in to look at areas of interest and go back to view spaces where they have already been. It removes that awkwardness of physically being in someone else’s home with a real estate agent (or worse, the current owners) present. A 3D virtual house tour allows viewers to spend as much time as they need or want to view every detail of the property.
When a potential buyer spends more time viewing a property, they start to feel a kind of ownership relating to the home. They may begin picturing their furniture in the space and thinking of how they would decorate the home. By engaging in an immersive 3D virtual reality tour, they can see themselves living in the space instead of feeling like they are walking through someone else’s home.
A 3D virtual home tour allows you to highlight specific features of the home that you are showcasing. You can add additional images and information on areas that potential buyers may find helpful. This could answer any potential questions that buyers may have, streamlining the selling process. You could even showcase the local area by linking out to drone photography of surrounding areas.
3D virtual home tours can help showcase a property to out-of-town buyers. Most people buy a new home that is located between 10 and 15 miles from their previous residence. Older individuals, however, relocate up to 35 miles from their previous residence. That makes remote viewing of a property especially helpful to these individuals as they don’t need to travel to view a property that might not meet their needs. They can view multiple properties online and create a shortlist of potential homes to view when they do make the drive out – or they may even put in an offer without doing an in-person view of the space.
Virtual 3D home tours make it easy for potential clients to share the process of looking for a home with their partners, family, and friends. Buying a home is one of the most significant financial investments a person can make. Sharing a virtual home tour gives potential buyers the opportunity to get input from those they trust and let them talk through options before making a decision.
How a 3D Virtual Tour Can Help You Sell Your Home Faster by Harnessing Social Media
According to The National Association of Realtors, 76% of their female members use social media channels professionally. In comparison, 73% of their male counterparts harness this marketing tool. The average person in the United States spends about two hours and three minutes on social media (Including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram) each day.
This means realtors who harness social media as a real estate marketing tool may have a higher chance of reaching prospective clients. Sponsored posts and paid for social media marketing can reach potential home buyers even when they are not actively house hunting and just scrolling through their social feeds. 3D interactive virtual tours can easily be shared across various social media channels to generate more exposure for your property.
By combining social media marketing with other digital marketing tools, you can reach a wider audience than you would with organic traffic and other marketing efforts alone.
How a 3D Virtual Tour Can Help You Sell Your Home Faster: According to Matterport
The people over at Matterport (who specializes in creating 3D models of various spaces) have collected some statistics on how a 3D virtual tour can help you sell your home faster. They found that 95% of potential buyers are more likely to contact a real estate agent to enquire about a property after viewing a virtual 3D tour of the space.
What is more: a whopping 20% of buyers put in an offer on a home after viewing a Matterport 3D virtual tour of the property and without viewing the space in person.
Homes that are showcased by a 3D virtual tour sell quicker and for 9% more money than homes that are not represented by a virtual tour.
There are various reasons how a 3D virtual tour can help you sell your home faster. It caters to the majority of home buyers and makes the entire searching process and buying a new home more convenient. Buyers can take their time viewing properties and engage with the space as if they were there in person. It eliminates the feeling that they are in someone else’s home and lets them imagine how it would feel living in the space.
The tours are easily shareable, giving potential buyers the opportunity to show their options to friends and family who could assist them in making their decision. In some cases, homebuyers can even make the purchasing decision before contacting the listing agent.
By using Matterport technology, real estate professionals can create virtual showings of their properties without the need to hire a professional photographer. The technology is easy to use and allows users to capture professional photography and 3D scans to create VR tours of a space. See for yourself: just install our WP3D Plugin and see how it changes everything!