Buyers Believe 3D Home Tours are Essential During the Pandemic

COVID-19 has changed things. A lot of things. Folks have had to adjust to elbow bumps in place of handshakes. Or smiling with their eyes because the rest of their face is covered with a mask. We tend to avoid crowds, limit the sizes of our gatherings, work remotely rather than commuting to work, and view homes for sale through 3D home tours .

Some of the changes are less than desirable, and we hope that they disappear as quickly as they appeared. Too many workers have lost jobs. Too many small businesses are going out of business. There is even talk about “cancelling” Thanksgiving. Or Christmas.

But not all of the changes are for the worse. For instance, some jobs that have been performed remotely during the pandemic just might remain that way after it is in the rear view mirror. People are discovering new ways to stay in touch through social media and video conferencing. And digital tools have revolutionized the way business is done.

That is especially true in real estate, where drone photography , social media, and 3D virtual tours have changed the way that buyers view a property, sellers show a property, and agents sell a property. Rolling restrictions for in-person property showings due to shutdowns, stay-at-home orders, and safety concerns over potential exposure to the coronavirus , have given rise to the need for – and reliance on – virtual solutions.

 Matterport , the leaders in spatial data capture and the developers of the “ Digital Twin” recently teamed up with powerful online real estate brokerage Redfin to explore how the preferences of home buyers and sellers has shifted since the onset of the pandemic. Here are some of the details that they discovered.

Better for Buyers

At the outset of the pandemic, Matterport surveyed a thousand home buyers and learned that those buyers were no longer satisfied with static 2D photographs of a property and would “overwhelmingly opt” for a more immersive experience .

Now, more than seven months into the health crisis, nearly eighty percent of home buyers say that they are choosing to view more properties online with a virtual tour because of safety concerns, according to their new survey with Redfin .

But the advantages listed by buyers do not stop there. As important as safety might be, when asked to rank the top benefits of 3D tours , home buyers identified 1) the ability to view the floor plan of a home; 2) the ability to visualize the entire home in Dollhouse view; and 3) the ability to measure rooms, walls, doors, and more. Those were their top three features of a 3D tour.

Buyers also indicated that they were more likely to trust the images in a 3D tour over static photos. Seventy eight percent of buyers were concerned that those photographs might be enhanced, “Photoshopped”. On the flip side, they felt that a virtual tour offered a more realistic view of a property – at least eighty two percent of them did (even more sellers felt the same).

And that confidence in 3D tours leads many buyers to consider purchasing a property sight-unseen. More than seventy percent suggested that they would do so. That is an increase of sixteen percent since Matterport asked the same question earlier in the pandemic .

Better for Sellers

Safety was also on the minds of home sellers when they responded to the survey. But that was not always the case. Almost seventy percent of sellers who did not believe 3D tours were necessary before the pandemic now feel that they are. That statistic is even more pronounced in non-urban communities.

At a time when it is difficult to schedule in-person showings and, as the New York Times suggested, “the open house is dead”, 3D tours offer an alternative that keeps everyone safer. They also put more of a home in front of more eyes in the marketplace.

That includes casting for buyers outside the local market. The pandemic has made it risky for buyers to travel to see listings in other communities or states; 3D tours allow sellers to not only receive remote “visitors”, but also to consider a timely offer in a competitive market.

Sellers have picked up on the tendencies of home buyers. Eighty three percent of sellers now think that their home could be purchased sight-unseen (indicating an eleven percent increase in the last several months). Of those sellers who, at the beginning of the pandemic, would not have accepted a remote offer based on a 3D tour alone, sixty four percent would now do so.

Top reasons to trust a 3D home tour among sellers? Attracting more serious buyers and selling their homes faster. Safety concerns, although important, took a back seat, as did closing at a higher price.

Advantages for Agents

If it is true that ninety percent of home buyers begin their journey online, then the first impressions that they have of your listing is essential. That may likely start with high-quality and professional 2D real estate photography , where nearly every searcher’s initial experience with a home is through the first picture you post in the listing. That image gets about twenty seconds worth of consideration.

Assuming you grab their attention with that first image, your potential buyers are interested in a realistic representation of the property. To many of them, that equates to a virtual tour.

In a market where scheduling in-person tours is a challenge, open houses are few, and online opportunities are many, 3D tours stand out as a virtual open house that can be viewed 24/7, nearly anywhere on the planet. And buyers and sellers have come to expect them.

Just ask Redfin , who offers Matterport 3D tours with ninety four percent of their listings. The number of virtual walkthroughs has increased by almost five times on their site since the beginning of the pandemic.

3D virtual tour technology is doing more than filling in for more traditional forms of real estate marketing. It would seem that buyers believe virtual tours are here to stay.

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