The National Association of Realtors reports that today, 51% of home buyers find the home they purchase online. That’s probably not so surprising. After all, more and more of our daily activities are moving online, and it’s just becoming natural to turn to the digital world first.
What you might not realize, though, is just how comfortable people are becoming with shopping online. Over the last three years, there have been sharp increases in home purchases sight-unseen.
What does that mean?
Redfin’s 2017 survey found that nearly one in four home buyers made offers without stepping foot in the home. In 2018, that percentage jumped to 45%!
One reason is that millennials are fast-becoming the largest real estate market segment, accounting for more than a third of all home purchases last year. Why would this matter? Because millennials are far more comfortable with technology than previous generations.
Nearly every home search begins online now, and with touchscreen laptops taking center stage, agents’ increased access to high-quality images, the continuous fine-tuning of search features, and the rollout of speedier online mortgage applications, more and more buyers are becoming comfortable with signing on the virtual dotted line.
The trick is to make potential buyers feel like they’ve already “seen” the property without ever going to it. How?
3D tours.
Immerse Potential Buyers in Your Property from the Comfort of… Wherever
Advances made in 3D-tour technology have made digital home search that much more immersive – something extremely important with such an emotional and expensive investment. Virtual tours can be especially vital in areas like Alaska, where we see a higher percentage of out-of-state buyers.
While the local real estate market across the state is experiencing an uptick – Anchorage, Eagle River, Wasilla, Palmer, and Fairbanks are all doing great – reaching that wider out-of-state audience only increases your potential of a sale. However, travel to Alaska can be expensive, and buyers want to be sure the trip out is worth it!
After extensive research and evaluation, we decided to go with a Matterport setup to create our 3-D tours here at DMD. The quality of the tours is amazing. We can have a tour online for our clients within a couple of hours. And the wide variety of angles and views offers potential buyers one of the best virtual tour experiences on the market.
Go ahead and take a virtual walk-through of a couple of our recent favorites below using almost any device you wish. Both touchscreen and mouse navigation work just fine.
Feels pretty darn close to the real thing, right?
Besides the home buyer’s personal experience, search engines are becoming more and more sophisticated with their spidering algorithms and how they crawl the web for the most interactive and up-to-date data. This means that a 3D home tour will rank higher than a gallery these days, getting your listing in front of more potential clients.
If you are a real estate agent who’s been considering a 3D component to your listings, we’re here to answer any burning questions, and happy to provide more detail. Just give us a shout.