The internet revolutionized how buyers look for properties and how sellers advertised. Before the MLS joined the information age, buyers and agents would have to pour through physical books of listings in the broker’s office. Ugh!
Fast forward to today… buyers can grab a glass of their favorite beverage and look up listings on their smartphones. Or they can drive by a house and look it up as they are sitting in front of it.
But between then and now, one thing that has not changed a whole lot are the pictures sellers use. Yes, we now have videos and virtual tours, but they are still 2-D pictures pulled together.
Quality pictures are huge. Many real estate agents believe they are vital to selling real estate. So why haven’t they changed much? Well, soon they just might…
Time for the Third Dimension
A company out in Silicon Valley is trying to change the way you look at real estate listings. The company is called Matterport. It’s playing around with technology that can literally give you a 3-dimensional view of any house you find on your computer.
It gets even better…
Matterport’s technology may soon work on smartphones. Not just to view a 3-D listing from your phone… sellers will also be able to create 3-D listings just using their phones.
Virtual reality is coming to real estate. It’s close, but it’s not quite there yet…
Right now, Matterport offers a 3-D camera that will enable you to create a 3-D map of a home. The camera costs $4,500. That probably sounds pretty expensive.
But, not so much when you consider that previous generations of these cameras were in the $50,000+ range.
You can see some examples of what this camera can do here.
In order to produce virtual reality tours like Matterport is doing, once you take pictures from the camera, you have to upload it to its cloud server. The cloud server then builds a model of the house from the photos and creates the virtual tour.
The server also makes it available so anyone with a browser can access the tour – phone, tablet or computers all have access.
What the Future Holds
Matterport sells tons of these cameras – even at the elevated price. But that is not the main thrust of Matterport management…
They want to create software that will be used on lots of other virtual reality platforms. Ultimately, they want you to be able to create virtual reality from your smartphone.
Think about it…
Today, your potential buyers can look through a bunch of pictures on a listing. Then they can Google map it to see what neighborhood it’s in.
In the future, buyers will have access to a virtual reality (VR) tour. They can strap on a VR device, such as the Oculus Rift, and ‘walk through’ your house before they ever see it.
This can really help real estate investors:
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It will cut down showings of your flip house
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It will screen out potential tenants who walk through your rentals and determine it’s not for them
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It will allow wholesale buyers to look at lots of rehab properties and start creating construction estimates
Sure it seems expensive to do these things, but the prices are coming down – fast. Matterport seems to be on the crest of a wave of companies working on VR.
Take Google for instance – Google is working on its Project Tango, which consists of an Android-based prototype phone and development kit.
The phone has some advanced sensors developed by Google. The sensors don’t just track motion like many smartphones today. They also ‘build’ a virtual map of the space (room, building, etc.) they are in using 3-D scanning.
Google is throwing this technology out to developers to see how they can use it. They may be leaning toward creating some cool new video games, but it could also be used to map houses for exact dimensions.
Then, buyers would be able to determine if their furniture fits in certain rooms. They could also ‘walk through’ houses virtually to see if it is sufficiently Feng Shui for their tastes.
Virtual reality is getting closer and closer to being actual reality. As the technology improves and the prices come down, real estate investors would be wise to start using it.
Gimme a Shout
What do you think about this virtual technology? Tell us your thoughts below.
Produce Quality Advertising – You can have the best property in the world – but if you don’t showcase all its great attributes, you won’t sell it for the highest price.
Go the Extra Mile – Create virtual tours, take quality pictures and videos and take time to write your ads so properties will sell.
Take Advantage of Technology – Buyers want the experience to be as easy as possible. Use technology to make their buying decisions that way.
JP Moses
is a real estate investor in Memphis, TN, with experience ranging from land lording to note buying, rehabbing, and wholesaling. However, wholesaling is the area that he enjoys most and where he bring the most experience and expertise to his students.