Impact of Virtual Tours on Home Buying
Virtual tours, Virtual tours, as the phrase sounds, are digital walkthroughs of a property that let potential buyers explore homes online, without physically visiting them. Despite its decade-long existence, this concept gained prominence in the lockdown era, when people going outdoors was restricted.
These tours typically include
- 360-degree views of rooms
- Usage of interactive software
- Video calls with agents, and
- Virtual reality (VR) experiences
From the buyers’ point of view, virtual tours are time-saving and cost-efficient and provide them with umpteen options to choose from. On the other hand, for sellers or agents, this technology makes marketing easier, attracts out-of-town customers and makes sure only serious buyers visit the property physically.
To conclude, virtual tours have gained significance in the lockdown and post-lockdown era. They’ve transformed the home-buying process into a faster, more convenient, and accessible one. And considering the rate at which technology is evolving, these tours are expected to turn ubiquitous.
Now the question arises: can they replace traditional visiting? Well, virtual tours may not entirely eliminate physically visiting properties ; they could turn into a before-one-visits-the site-in-person task. What one needs to understand is that digital walkthroughs do a fairly good job in the conventional flats segment. But when it comes to luxurious villas and high end office spaces, they may not accurately simulate in-person visits, at least with the kind of technology available to date.
One fine instance of the second case is SAS Crown – a mansion featuring ultra-luxurious flats. Crafted with utmost scrutiny and attention to detail, properties like these are meant to be visited, viewed with the naked eye, and touched and felt to get a hang of them. This is one of the main reasons why we haven’t adopted virtual tours for our flagship projects yet.
