Despite massive advances in technology, of which Virtual Reality has been a direct consequence, the real estate market still operates on mechanisms that have largely remained unchanged. That may soon change as developers start incorporating VR into their showcases and development strategies.
Part of the reason why the real estate industry still clings to traditional methods of a customer and agent physically visiting homes and buildings is because the item in question is usually the largest purchase an individual makes in their lifetime. So there is good reason to not take any shortcuts that technology may offer. For example, in the past, websites have now been able to display vast amounts of information, from interactive maps, to dozens of pictures of the property, statistics and details. But all of this doesn’t remove the need for the customer to visit the site to get the real feel for the property.
This is exactly where VR comes in. This is the first technology as it relates to real estate where it can reasonably mimic a visit to a property, and this is why firms like Evara can really provide the type of VR technology that can finally transform the real estate industry.
We humans, generally speaking, are a highly visually biased species; and that is strongly apparent in the process of browsing through properties. The majority of the exercise is almost entirely visual; looking through the pictures, visualizing where your stuff will go. The problem with the pictures is that the industry has become very clever in the way things are photographed, and everyone knows the tricks to make things look better than they are, or make rooms look larger than life, and various other clever photography tricks. On the other hand, if the property was available in a VR headset, then a potential customer can now browse through the property with a proper realistic feel. This is a potential huge time saver as it reduces all the open houses, all the driving to properties only to dismiss 90% of them outright, the mental fatigue of the whole exercise. It really is an exciting time for real estate.
But there’s even more than that. Companies like Evara are already providing the ability to easily arrange virtual furniture, change flooring, change wall paint colors, imagine the building at different times of the day (night or morning), all by just putting on a VR headset. Developers and sellers will be able to more easily reach out to customers all around the world who might not have the ability to visit the property in person. For those that wish to dig in deeper, VR offers the ability to tag and accurately make notes about certain features of the house, like the final inspection notes. Let’s say there was a crack in one of the rooms, a VR interface can make that very easy to find along with accurate notation associated with it.
In other words, VR is not just for games and events.
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