Virtual Reality In Real Estate

According to MediaPost’s IoT Daily, the Real Estate industry is moving into Virtual Reality. It may be an opportunity for stock photographers looking for a way to diversify their businesses.

In a presentation at a recent MediaPost IoT Marketing Forum Anthony Hitt,, CEO of Engel & Völkers, a luxury real estate company based in Germany with over 9,000 real estate advisors in 750 locations around the world said that 171 million people will be using VR hardware and software by next year, making it an attractive option for his firm.

Engel & Völkers built a VR platform for a new experience. Then for less than $1,000 per location,  they outfitted each North American sales location with a Ricoh camera to create the VR experience. The offices were also provided with Google Cardboard viewers, Engel & Volkers branded, of course.



“Something happened about a year ago that changed the landscape,” Hitt said. “The New York Times distributed 1 million Google Cardboard viewers to the market. A lot of us in the virtual reality space believe that was the tipping point. That’s when, all of a sudden, there were enough consumers out there for this to make sense.”

Now, real estate shoppers go into any Engel & Völkers office, put on the viewers, and tour  any of the real estate the properties listed by the company via virtual reality. The real estate broker simultaneously sees what the shopper is seeing on a separate screen, so they can aid in the virtual tour.



The company decided to get 90% of its listings on VR within the first 90 days of launch, and is now halfway there and halfway through the time. The process involves re-photographing every listing.
 
Stock photographers looking for a way to expand their businesses might want to get up to speed on this equipment and then check out their local real estate brokerages to see if they want to make it easier for their clients to review and consider their available properties.