Thanks to technology, even the age-old world of Real Estate has become modern. Virtual tours help the Real Estate industry stay current in today’s time. But did you know that not every virtual tour out there actually delivers?
In fact, only a few fit the needs of the buyer market. Why? Because not all of them are actually a proper and interactive virtual tour. They’re labelled as virtual tours but are actually video walkthroughs, navigable 3D models of a home, or simply slideshows.
Let’s say yours is a proper one, there are still areas where you might be overlooking which can sabotage your own work. To get the best result from a virtual tour, here are some tips that you’d want to learn and implement.
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Go For A Happy Medium When It Comes To Home Staging
We can all understand that you can’t just shoot a property as-is and turn it into a virtual tour. It needs to be arranged—staged if you will. This helps potential buyers imagine themselves living in the house. However, more often than not, people overdo this part. Not a lot of clients enjoy an overly staged virtual house tour. Aside from that, it may also be distracting for them. You need them to focus on the space, not on the decor.
So you’ll have to strike a balance. Decorate but do not fill the entire space with random items. If you can, try to stage in a way that will highlight how much space there is if it a big room. If it’s a small room then don’t put huge furniture that will emphasize that even more.
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Make The Tour Self-Guided
As mentioned above, a virtual tour should be interactive. The person taking the tour should be able to have full control over how they want to see each view. They should have the ability to move around between rooms at will and control their viewing angle within each position.
This allows them to enjoy the experience which then results in a prolonged engagement. The longer they stay touring, the higher the chance for them to develop a high interest in the property. This is always a good thing as it usually leads to a site visit which then results in a sale because they remembered the tour so well.
This is where Matterport Virtual Tours shine. Matterport technology has revolutionized the traditional virtual tour to a whole new level offering a more interactive and immersive 3D experience with easy-to-navigate features allowing its users to gain a real-world perspective of a space where they are not present. With its high-end 3D technology, Matterport is compatible with an array of 3D cameras, 360 cameras and even works with iPhone meeting all your virtual tour creation requirements—convenience, size, scale, and complexity.
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Think About Human Perspective When Choosing View Points
Since virtual tours are supposed to give their users a virtual reality experience of open houses, then they should feel as close to the human perspective as possible. Let’s say, instead of always positioning at the same exact centre of the room, how about a stop at where a person would naturally do when looking at different areas of the house.
People will be able to feel out space much better and decide if they like what they see in terms of needs and preferences if they can linger at different corners of each room.
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Always Check For Continuity Errors
If you can prevent any changes to the staged objects or any movements near the cameras while capturing the space, all the better. Movement shows up as an ugly blur in all panoramic photos, especially 360° ones. Reshoot if you have to instead of making do with those continuity errors. It may not seem much, but virtual tours without those just look so much more polished and professional.
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Reduce Load Times, Latency, And Crashing
In this time and age, even the least tech-savvy person has zero patience for technology that doesn’t work. 3D virtual tours are supposed to be a pleasant and convenient experience. Make them so by ensuring faster load time through optimized files. This and navigation without errors can also be ensured if you work with your web hosting company.
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Ask For Reviews From Homeowners And Real Estate Agents
What’s a better way to improve your work than gather feedback from those who have tried using your technology? This is the reason why the good old surveys are still around. Ask questions like:
- Did you view the virtual home tour provided on the listing?
- How many times did you view it?
- What type of device did you use to view?
- If using a mobile device, what was the brand name and model?
- What was your favourite or most memorable room/view on the tour?
These simple questions can tell you a lot. The data you gather can be used to improve on performance and approach to your future works.
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SmartView Media