Virtual reality opens new doors for property dealers
Scouting for a new home is no longer a lengthy or cumbersome process, all it involves is little more than a headset
Looking for a new home used to involve driving around to look at dozens of prospects, the majority of which were eliminated minutes after walking through the front door.
These days, however, scouting for a new home involves little more than a headset. “We wanted to give people the ability to assess a property without having to physically go there,” said Bill Brown, CEO of Matterport, which creates 3D models of properties.
Such tools are increasingly being adopted in the global real estate market. Matterport, for example, was recently used for a Los Angeles-area home designed by Richard Landry: click on the link from any computer or mobile device and you are right in the space, walking through rooms, going outside to enjoy the views, or zooming in to see the position of an electrical outlet on a wall.
Some agents use it as a way to sell high-end homes to time-strapped billionaires. “I have a US$85 million [Los Angeles] home that I’m doing as a virtual-reality listing because I assume my buyer will be international,” said Los Angeles-based real estate agent Aaron Kirman.
His approach is a bespoke one: a specialist took two days to film the estate and its grounds, which was then uploaded to a specific virtual-reality platform. Upon request, Kirman sends an Oculus Rift or similar headset to his list of high-end buyers, a third of whom are in Southeast Asia.