In today’s market, in selecting a listing agent to sell their home, sellers really want to know how agents can provide a differentiated service offering - how can they get the home to sell quickly, and for as much money as possible? They choose agents who are well versed in the latest real estate technologies that can help drive exposure and make an otherwise stressful process as seamless as possible. Sellers have to juggle working from home, packing up the house, getting the pets and kids out the door to coordinate showing appointments - it’s all very chaotic. For this reason, more and more agents are leveraging technologies like Matterport to host virtual open houses and virtual private showings. This enables sellers to have fewer, but more productive in-person showings for a smoother, less stressful, seamless selling experience.

My sellers are incredibly savvy and very well educated about the selling process. Any agent can post the property listing on all major real estate websites, but what’s really been impactful to my sellers is helping them uplevel the appeal and presence of their listing. All of my listings, regardless of price point, get professional photography and Matterport 3D virtual tours. My clients have beautiful homes, and they need to be showcased as such. My sellers agree that professionally produced photos, while nice, don’t do the property justice. I leverage 3D virtual tours and videography to give my sellers a competitive edge and a massive boost of exposure to drive web traffic and buyer interest. The results are immediately quantifiable, my sellers and their listings see a huge influx of showing requests as soon as the listing goes live on the market.

We have leasing agents, landlords, property managers, and apartment community managers using our services. We’ve performed extensive studies with companies who specialize in the rentals space, and found that listings with Matterport 3D virtual tours get materially more traffic than listings without. And for those listings, up to 70%+ of renters may be willing to lease the property having only seen the virtual tour. That’s incredibly powerful, especially in an industry where time is money. By hosting virtual open houses, rental professionals can digitally show their vacant units at scale, giving them additional time to serve more clients, adding more units to their portfolio.

Rentals is a high volume, low margin business, so my fellow agents who work rentals highly prioritize operational efficiency. As tenants move out, we need to be hyper efficient at “refreshing” the property - getting cleaners, painters, maintenance crews in - so that we can put it back on the market to get the unit filled as soon as possible. Every day on the market without a tenant is a cost to the business. Using a Matterport 3D virtual tour allows me to preemptively get bids for services so that I can line up service providers to get my property back on the market immediately.

The market is quickly evolving. First, buyers, sellers, and renters are going to expect and even demand that all listings have virtual tours. It’s a better search experience compared to viewing only photos as shoppers want a rich, high resolution, immersive, virtual touring experience. Beyond the convenience and the improved search experience, I believe shoppers prefer the virtual experience as a means to do their part in reducing our carbon footprint. With the Matterport Axis motor mount, anyone with a cell phone can quickly scan a property and easily create their own 3D virtual tours. Secondly, virtual staging is rapidly gaining popularity. Studies show that staged (furnished) houses receive more views than vacant houses. Matterport platform partners do a phenomenal job at virtually staging the property within the 3D model at only a fraction of the cost of traditional staging - it’s quite impressive.

Inventory is at an all time low, and I think it’s going to continue being low. It’s a hyper competitive marketplace, so my agents and I will need to further differentiate ourselves to continue delighting customers and winning listings. Consequently, new technologies and platforms will need to be leveraged to drive a successful closing on both sides. There’s a lot of really interesting technologies on the horizon. With IOT devices, aerial photography, block chain technologies, AR/VR, Metaverse, enhancements in Google Maps and Street View, semi-autonomous driving, even new products and features from Matterport 3D virtual tours - they all seem to be aimed at transforming and improving how we live. Through a real estate lens, with the implementation of these new technologies, buyers can really get a highly comprehensive, robust perspective to make a deeply informed purchasing decision, and, frankly, a much more seamless transaction for one of the biggest purchases of their life.