Before Seeing A Home In Person, 84% Want A VR Tour
It’s not surprising to any of us here at immoviewer that a recent survey by Coldwell Banker revealed that, “62 percent of the more than 3,000 respondents to Coldwell Banker’s survey say they’d choose a real estate agent who offers VR house tours as a service to their clients over one who does not. Further, 84% express desire to take a VR house tour before seeing a property in person; 77% say they’d be satisfied with a traditional video tour.”
This consumer preference has existed for some time. The 2016 NAR Buyer And Seller Survey showed that 82% of buyers rated virtual tours very useful or useful during their home search. The number that stood out to me, however, was this one, 70%. That’s the percentage of REALTORS® who said: “consumers expected virtual tours to be made available.”
If consumers want it and agents and brokers know they want it, why do less than 5% of listings have immersive home tours?
We think the answer is simple. Until immoviewer, 360° and 3D tours have just been too expensive and taken too long to create. The high cost of the camera equipment required is only the beginning of the expense. The real expense is the time needed to shoot the tour, often several hours per home. These cost factors have caused the real estate market to see VR house tours as a luxury item. They are categorized as a marketing tool reserved for the upper end of the real estate market. This has to change.
The evidence is clear; consumers want this bad enough to use it as a differentiating factor in choosing an agent. We know we’ve created a solution that makes it affordable immersive home tours possible for every home. How?
immoviewer is not a camera company.
Because we’re not a camera company, we focus on using images from any consumer 360° camera, and we’ll integrate with those that make their technology available, like Ricoh, the camera used to shoot the tour shown above. We’ll be announcing new integrations with higher resolution cameras shortly.
This means that for less than $300, you or your photographer can have a camera capable of capturing a full room in a single shot, dramatically reducing not only the investment required to get started but substantially reducing the time to create as well. And the quality of this technology is improving continuously. You shouldn’t be locked into any 360° camera technology or forced to take out a second mortgage on your home to afford it.
84% of consumers say they want to experience the kind of tours immoviewer enables. Let us help you meet their expectations!