5 Reasons to Use Virtual Tours to Sell Properties

Technological progress has very dramatically changed people’s attitudes andthe culture of how services are rendered, and generally how business is done.

People have expectations about the speed of services – they want results yesterday. And, with the widespread reliance on mobile devices to provide some sort of solution to almost any problem, there is almost always a “there must be an app for that” approach to any manual activities.

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In the real estate industry, a client who wants to view a property will have to think about finding an agent, making a phone call, booking an inspection, and then actually making the time for a possibly long trip to see a property that they may not even be incredibly keen on. Surely, there must be an app for that?
Virtual tours have been a real game changer in the real estate industry. In this article, we dive into why this is the case and, if you aren’t already using it, why you should be offering real estate virtual tours.

#1 Interactivity by Design

Shopping habits have changed over time. People want the freedom to make the choice for themselves. 

A distrust of often misleading marketing tactics has driven people to do their own research and make their minds up by themselves. By offering virtual tours, you give clients the space to explore your properties on their own, at a pace comfortable for them.

Clients can pay attention to the finer details that are important, all without the pressure of having an agent talking up the property to them.

The interactivity of virtual tours puts control in the hands of your clients. From the business’ perspective, it helps marketing efforts by enriching your content, improving the customer experience, and keeping clients engaged for longer. This longer engagement will help your content, whatever platform it is on – mobile, web, or others – to rank higher and reach a wider and larger audience. This, in turn, helps you gather more data about the preferences of your audience and improve your offering.

#2 24/7 Access For Home Buyers

A virtual tour is always available and will not require coordination with the realtor, tenants, or other interested parties who may want to visit the property. 

Your clients are not limited to the business hours of the realtor and are not limited in the amount of time they can spend looking around a property. Unlike real-world visits, with virtual tours your clients can return to the property at any time they want, and however often they need to. Contrast this with the 45 minute conducted tour that usually occurs with a realtor who will point out the aspects that they think are most important to the client and then hope they assimilate and retain this information as they consider their final decision.

#3 Save money and time

People are always looking for ways to be more efficient with their time. Being able to walk yourself through a property in a matter of minutes is a much more attractive prospect than having to waste half a day going through it with a realtor. 

From the realtor’s perspective, there is a greater assurance that a person who requests a visit to a property is a more serious lead who is likely to convert. So the inconvenience is worth the effort on the part of the client, who has a serious interest in purchasing, the realtor who has to invest time and resources to facilitate this, and, in some cases, the homeowner, who may have to vacate the property for the duration of the visit.

Providing virtual tours for your properties will therefore result in time and cost savings

On the marketing side of things, by improving the quality of your leads, you also improve the return on investment you get by not wasting resources on leads that don’t show much promise of converting.

#4 Versatility

Virtual tours can be incorporated into a mobile app, can be offered on a website, or deployed in many other ways. This means you have the flexibility to enrich a range of marketing materials and leverage this versatility to improve the impact of your marketing efforts.

Virtual tours also give you the ability to visualize properties that have not yet been completed. This gives you the ability to show what a space will look and feel like after completion, or renovation, or simply to pitch an idea. This greatly improves communication and brings greater clarity to all stakeholders involved, and puts everyone on the same page by setting expectations.

For the client, there is the convenience of being able to view the property using different types of devices and from practically anywhere, and also being able to visualize and better understand concepts that a developer might be proposing.

#5 Reach More Potential Buyers

Virtual tours will typically attract significantly more views and better engagement than just images or text.

Their versatility means you can incorporate them in more marketing and presentation materials. This means you can boost organic traffic to your content just by using virtual tours.
Also, the amount of detail you can pack into a virtual tour far exceeds that of media like pictures or text. This helps you to sell the advantages of your properties more effectively. It also means that inquiries that you get after your leads have virtually explored your property are more likely to be real potential buyers than just curious information seekers.

Conclusion

Virtual tours take the persuasive power of your marketing and presentation materials to a whole new level.

Providing state-of-the-art visualization, marketing and IT services for real estate companies, industry-leading experts can help you showcase your real estate in impactful and compelling ways, and equip with the digital assets to really make your work stand out and bring your vision, the way you see it, to the eyes of your stakeholders and clients. With extensive industry experience, you can also benefit from tested know-how on how to capture audiences and get them to convert.