Virtual reality and real estate go together like San Francisco and Victorian houses. A San Francisco real estate listing is a tremendously competitive, high-risk-high-reward prospect, whether selling or buying, and virtual reality for Realtors is an indispensable tool that should not be ignored.
Any Realtor will tell you that deals can be made or broken on the back of a strong open house. The same basic philosophy, albeit on a much smaller scale, governs most purchasing habits. Once a prospective buyer has held an item, made a connection, or projected himself onto a place, the odds of a purchase or a deal skyrocket.
Virtual reality, when it’s done properly, is perceived by the brain as being akin to reality in a meaningful, and perceptually impactful way.
If you aren’t already familiar with it, virtual reality is a technology that allows a person to explore and interact with a computer-generated environment in an all-encompassing way, usually by means of a wrap-around headset and some other control apparatus.
Since it isn’t bound by any kind of physical constraints, a virtual environment can be accessed from anywhere by anyone with sufficient hardware to run the program.
Virtual reality for Realtors is generally focused on digitizing an interactive 3D map of a house, a property, or some other real estate item such that anyone can explore the property, at their leisure, if they are not able to make the open house. These are perfect for potential home buyers for whom a physical tour of a property would be prohibitive (maybe they’re moving to San Francisco from New York, or their work schedules might prevent them from taking a regular booking slot.)
Imagine leading a client, in virtual space, through a fully interactive – and augmentable – property in real time. Imagine arranging digital copies of their own furniture in a new space with a simple flick of a wand and a few quick keyboard commands. So close to real that the distinction becomes irrelevant, imagine helping your clients paint, decorate, and furnish a prospective space before they buy it.
With any decent rendering engine, you’d be able to simulate the natural light in different seasons or times of day. You’d be able to model weather effects against the windows, and watch how their favorite lamp casts a shadow against the mantle when the moon creeps out from behind a cloud.
San Francisco real estate listings and virtual reality are a perfect match. San Francisco, hotbed of Silicon Valley and on the bleeding edge of the tech industry, is the perfect place to embrace the next major shift in the way real estate is traded.
Think of the benefits that this kind of technology can afford. With virtual reality, you can engender in your customers and clients a sense of ownership and familiarity that goes way beyond any open house’s potential.
Beyond furniture and lighting, you can play fast and loose with the layout itself. You can even edit the space, taking out a dividing wall or adding a partition, ad lib. You can install an outdoor kitchen, barbecue pit, pool, and more, over and over again, with zero practical cost. Your listings can reach an almost infinitely wider audience than an open house ever could. When you’re talking about the multi-million dollar real estate in San Francisco, virtual listings are an innovative way to market a property to the right buyers, wherever they be.
This technology already exists. It’s not yet become commonplace, but, like the moon, it’s already edging out from behind the clouds. As a consumer technology, your clients are already likely to be familiar with the basic premise. Indeed, open houses and property tours have already been conducted, in certain cases.
So, can you use virtual reality to showcase a real estate listing? Absolutely! While we at Danielle Lazier :: SFhotlist Team and Compass San Francisco are still learning about showcasing listings via virtual reality, you can catch one of our many San Francisco open houses in person. Check out our listings HERE for upcoming open houses and information.
