{"id":1818,"date":"2016-06-24T11:17:31","date_gmt":"2016-06-24T18:17:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/?p=1818"},"modified":"2024-04-01T10:49:09","modified_gmt":"2024-04-01T17:49:09","slug":"virtual-staging-vr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/virtual-staging-vr\/","title":{"rendered":"Virtual Staging 2.0: New Technology Fuels the Future of Selling Homes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most conversations around virtual reality in the commercial space start with a focus on games. Maybe that\u2019s intuitive, since immersing our eyes and ears in another world probably appeals to our love of story. In the real-estate market, too, however, sellers and agents know that story can be a crucial factor to closing a sale.<\/a><\/p>\n

Now, using VR to create next-generation approaches to virtual staging, technology is foregrounding immersive narrative opportunities \u2014 showcasing properties with powerful you-are-there experiences.<\/p>\n

Going far beyond already familiar 2-D virtual staging software<\/a>, apps that dress digital photos with furniture and the like, the new VR-fueled version of virtual staging allows sellers to create fully furnished, fully realized environments that buyers can enter via VR headsets. Home-seekers can then move through these spaces (using handset controllers), and they can see and experience first-hand how furniture and decor shape and change rooms.<\/p>\n

In the sections that follow, we look at how VR virtual staging works \u2014 what sellers are doing with it, and what agents see as its ultimate value \u2014 as applications of virtual reality and real estate continue to evolve.<\/p>\n

The Nuts and Bolts of Virtual Staging<\/h2>\n

Using scanners that can photograph 360-degree 3-D images, sellers such as Matthew Hood, working with Sotheby\u2019s International Realty, recently told Fortune<\/a> of his firm\u2019s efforts to communicate spaces to buyers using Samsung\u2019s Gear VR technology.<\/p>\n

Once a property is imaged into the VR space, accessed via its headsets and software applications, Hood can lead a VR-based tour remotely, even adjusting details along the way. In this aspect, the potential opens wide. For example, is the kitchen counter not to the client\u2019s liking? A seller or agent can address it in the virtual space as one would in person, in conversation, but VR technology also allows sellers and agents to change it on the fly \u2014 displaying a series of options in front of buyers in real time.<\/p>\n

These are critical conversations to have, says Kevin Pickett<\/a>, residential real-estate agent at Keller Williams Realty, in San Francisco. Speaking to HomeLight, Pickett identified the effect of moving potential buyers into a personalized experience with the spaces they\u2019re considering \u2014\u00a0one that comes down to identifying sentiment and seriousness around a given deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf someone is trying to measure out the size of their furniture and trying to fit it in a room, and move it around like a puzzle, I think you’re definitely dealing with someone who would seriously consider purchasing the property,\u201d Pickett says. “I think that if you can take a photo and swap out the color of the cabinets, or swap out the color of a counter-top, I think it \u2019s extremely valuable, even for investors. They can go into a property, they can see what it looks like in its current state, and then what it could look like before doing the work \u2014 measure it out, remove walls, open up space \u2014 I think will be extremely valuable now.”<\/p>\n

Valuable as it may be, how much does all this cost?<\/p>\n

Hood says some $300\u2013$700 per home, in terms of scanning the rooms with a VR camera and setting up the program to show in a headset unit. Other instances peg setup prices at $3,000 to $15,000, CNBC<\/a> reports. Larger commercial spaces can cost significantly more as well. The upshot is that agents and sellers are likely approaching a certain category of properties first, given the pricing of VR virtual staging: Hood told Fortune he focuses on high-end inventory in Los Angeles, New York City, and the Hamptons, for example.<\/p>\n

Next-Generation Virtual Staging: Selling Across Time and Space<\/h2>\n

The impact of virtual staging in the VR space, for real estate, is not confined to flexible environments and the ability to fill them with furniture, color, and textures. The technology\u2019s potential spans space and time as well.<\/p>\n

Leasing agents in Manhattan, for example, last summer used VR virtual staging to showcase a 40-story office tower that was still under construction. Sage Realty Group,\u00a0turned to $199 headsets so their clients could tour the tower\u2019s forthcoming Sky Lounge in a finished state \u2014 complete with VR-rendered greenery, conference areas, and wet bar. The technology even lets the client peer over a rooftop railing and get a sense for the property\u2019s place on Madison Avenue.<\/p>\n

Similarly, says Brad Cohen, a broker interviewed in the piece, \u201cThink about CEOs overseas [who] need to make the real decisions, and they can\u2019t get on a flight for another two weeks.” In other words, showcasing the property can start earlier, and take place from far-flung locations, going further than what a purely physical process can allow.<\/p>\n

Key Players: Startups Bring VR Virtual Staging to Real Estate<\/h2>\n

The startup companies developing and deploying the technology that puts these virtual-visit options into the hands of sellers and agents include Floored, Inc.<\/a>, Studio216<\/a>, and VR Global Inc<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"a<\/a>
Source: (Richman21 \/ Shutterstock)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Another company, Matterport<\/a>, in California, raised $30 million last year to expand its VR platform, according to VentureBeat, and its chief executive says it\u2019s already sold thousands of the cameras needed to photograph the immersive walk-through to real estate professionals. The applications, as Matterport sees it, extend also to the independent seller: they too can use the technology to communicate their space in the virtual world.<\/p>\n

Other apps include Smart2VR<\/a>, TourslerVR<\/a>, and YouVisit<\/a>, reports GearBrain<\/a>. Even YouTube offers VR virtual staging videos, though it is, compared some of the industry-specific toolkits in our preceding examples, at the beginning stages of offering immersive functionality.<\/p>\n