Online home tours go 3D
See a house you really like? Want to see the inside? No problem – almost all residential listings in Calgary are available online, complete with price and a series of professionally shot photos. There might even be a video tour offered. In fact, you might even get a 3D tour of that home thanks to a new camera being used by the Calgary Real Estate Board.
The technology used by video game manufacturers has made its way to the real world. If you watched the Olympic Games on TV recently, you likely noticed that CBC was offering a look at the games via “virtual reality” on its website, allowing you to look all over the stadium in Rio.
The Matterport Pro, purchased by CREB® for a cool $8,000, is currently being used to capture images for online 3D tours of Calgary homes for sale. It provides such startling realism that the only thing buyers can’t do when enjoying a tour online is touch something. CREB® invested in the camera earlier this year and is trying to visit two or three properties every day to get a 3D scan. The camera is set at the average person’s eye level and the scan simulates a walk through tour of a home from that perspective. A scan takes a few hours to capture. It’s a wonderful time-saving tool for buyers and a great marketing tool for sellers.
Real estate professionals and their clients can spend time more efficiently when homes are previewed online in 3D. Rather than round up 10 homes for buyers to tour in person, the home tours help narrow the field allowing for three or four quality homes viewings. People still want to see things with their own eyes but taking a home tour before hand gives buyers more knowledge.
For sellers, a 3D tour presents a more authentic picture of what features the home has, what condition it’s in and how much space there is. Often these attributes aren’t conveyed in just flat and often filtered images.
The 3D Matterport Pro scan is not like a 360-degree home tour of a fly-through video. It gives the full context of the homes images. A complete 3D view of each level of the home gives the viewer a better understanding of the layout of the property. This view is like looking at a two-or three story doll house where the outside wall has been removed so you can see every level of the home at once. It’s the most engaging way so far of showcasing a property – it’s like a 24-hour open house.
The details are remarkably clear. Want to see how new and clean the grout is in the bathroom shower? Not sure if the white wall in the basement is drywall or painted paneling? Is that hardwood floor really in as good shape as it appears? The 3D technology allows you to zoom in so closely that buyers can see all of these tiny little details and so much more.