Virtual Reality For Real Estate Agents: Does VR Invade the Market?

Imagine that you are looking to purchase a home, and are set to have a walkthrough of a prospective property with a real estate agent. Will you prefer that the agent describe the home’s physical attributes like area and building materials or talk more about its history and the neighborhood it is located in?

Each client has their own preferences when it comes to house tours, and this makes it quite difficult for the agent to tailor their approach to the tour without preparation. The process of choosing a home is in dire need of customization options, and virtual reality for real estate agents might just be the perfect answer. Can VR app development work hand-in-hand with real estate practices? This is the question our article seeks to answer.

How is VR Being Used in Real Estate?

When the first major VR platforms came out, they were viewed as novelty items for the rich. Eventually, more affordable variants like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive began to seep into consumer markets, but they were still seen mostly as tools with which to play video games or enjoy immersive experiences. It is only in the past 5 years or so that enterprises started taking a second look at the technology and adapting it to their business needs. The real estate industry is no exception to this trend.

According to a study by Goldman-Sachs, an estimated 1.4 million realtors will be using the technology by 2025, which will almost certainly make up the bulk of the total specialists in this field. Though data on current use of VR in this industry is limited, we have seen notable examples with adoption by companies like Compass, Zillow, and Sotheby’s International Realty. These businesses have successfully adapted the technology to their operations, and in doing so, made the work of their realtors a little easier.

The aforementioned companies are ahead of the curve when it comes to the technological tools they have at their disposal, but it is not too late for other real estate (RE) businesses to get in the game.

How VR Helps Real Estate?

If properly applied, virtual reality will provide a number of benefits that will extend to RE agents, their company, and their customers. Some of these benefits include the following:

1. The realtor makes fewer trips to the house
2. Customers get to window-shop virtually
3. Reduced costs
4. Forming emotional connections
5. Unlimited customization

Considerations for Building a VR Real Estate Experience

If you choose to take a leap of faith and build a VR program for your RE business, there are several important points that should be considered before and during development:

• VR platform
• Software
• Guided or interactive
• Animation and LOD
• BIM elements

An Example of How a Virtual Reality Real Estate App Might Look

“ Virtual Hotel “ is a solid example of the remarkable achievements that become feasible when the power of digital visualization is applied to RE. This application developed by Program-Ace features a 3D simulated hotel with all floors, rooms, and major equipment included. Thus, employees of the hotel can use the app as a guide to learn the layout of the building and how to navigate around it. Over 15 different types of rooms were designed for this program, and it took dozens of different object models, too.

Realtors typically deal with properties smaller than hotels, so most virtual real estate applications developed for this industry would probably be built faster and might feature more interactive options for the user. The apps can even have dual functionality: 1) for realtors ; 2) for potential homebuyers.

What VR services we offer for real estate market

Even though VR is a relatively small niche in the big world of software development, there are still plenty of companies and studios that specialize in this type of development and can help you with your project. Among them is Program-Ace.

Our long history of developing virtual reality software has given us the skills to deliver projects of different size and caliber, while our experience with construction and RE projects makes us uniquely suited to handle a combination of the two. We are the company behind the aforementioned VR Hotel app, as well as several other walkthroughs and simulated tours that bring real houses and buildings to the screen of a headset, computer, or mobile device.

Working with Program-Ace, you can expect to get a dynamic, detailed, and immersive experience that will help your business reduce costs, differentiate yourself from competitors, and add plenty of convenience to the property sale business.

We are ready to discuss your project at any time that works for you. Just contact us today.

Originally published at https://program-ace.com.