There are several reasons why a client may not be able to tour the property in person. Our increasingly mobile and digital industry makes remote tours an excellent alternative, yet it also requires that agents are ready to sell to a client, sight unseen. The six tips below can make selling to remote clients easier and faster than ever. Master the Basics By now, you know that your website must have a virtual tour—or virtual reality tour—along with detailed a floor plan and a description of the condo. Make sure that all information is up-to-date. Even minor changes to appliances or fixtures may matter to a remote client. If any of those essential features are missing, get the tools you need for a better website. Request Client’s Must-Haves In Writing Let’s face it: you’re busy. A written list of your client’s must-haves, desires, and deal breakers is a cheat sheet for you. But most importantly, having a concrete list means that the remote buyer has a clear understanding of what he wants. This list will expedite the condo hunting process, especially if he can choose between several similar unit styles. FaceTime, Skype, or Zoom Tours with Clients The virtual tour on your website is the first step. A live video tour, however, gives the client greater control over what they see and how they see it. It’s like he gets to walk through the home himself. That greater control over the details will help the client feel more comfortable with the unit and ready to seal the deal. Send Listings with All the Local Details If your client has already said the school system, crime rate, or walkability score are important to her, why not email those details with the listings? Presenting a complete...

With the help of virtual reality, aging veterans unable to travel can get up close and personal with far-flung war memorials. As the clock strikes 11:11am on Veterans Day, the sun aligns perfectly with the Anthem Veterans Memorial in Anthem Arizona. At the appointed hour, beams of light are funneled through the monument, casting a solar spotlight over The Great Seal of the United States. Surrounded by bricks inscribed with the names of over 750 servicemen, for that one moment the seal glows on the ground, gleaming up from the shadows cast by the shrine’s five marble pillars. While thousands of visitors make the trek each year to watch the transformation live, for many aging veterans the trip is not an option. Failing health and lack of finances make travel prohibitive for many seniors. Thankfully, advances in virtual reality can now help housebound adults explore the world from the comfort of their armchair. “They can be feet away from them again, in full glory, and feel like they’re there with them,” says Sarah Hill, the co-founder of Honor Everywhere, a nonprofit organization to helping veterans see the memorials erected in their honor – either in person or via virtual reality. Losing History The average age of US soldiers during the Vietnam War was 22, and so many of that war’s former combatants are currently nearing retirement age. In addition, in the last 14 years, Vietnam veterans are dying at a rate of 390 per year. For World War II era veterans the numbers are even more staggering: 500 deaths a day and with the US Department of Veterans Affairs estimating that only 620,000 of the 16 million servicemen and women were still alive in 2016.  With an average age of 92, most of the...

Architecture is one of the great powers to enhance our lives, but it boasts some serious communication issues. Designers, even though they mean well, may present homeowners with tough to understand drawings, or renderings that don’t really reflect how to navigate a finished room. As a consequence, homeowners end up paying for space without knowing precisely how it will look. Yet, times are changing and homeowners, architects and builders have now the option to walk through a new house before it’s built. When Virtual Reality first made an appearance through Oculus, it was regarded with plenty of criticism and disbelief, but as time passed, industries started engaging in using VR in business. The real estate industry is one of the most immediately applicable to VR as it enables potential homebuyers view spaces without having to travel to them. Here’s where New York-based IrisVR enters the stage with the launch of two new apps. “Most of our team started their careers in AEC before coming to the tech world.  We pulled from our industry expertise to design tools that are comfortable, easy to use, and non-technical,” IrisVR CEO & co-founder Shane Scranton said in a prepared statement. “Our virtual environments can be generated within seconds from multiple file formats and provide true-to-scale perspectives that both inspire design and reduce errors.  We’re also seeing significant added value to our clients as they offer virtual reality as a selling point.” The startup announced that it has raised $8 million in Series A funding, which it plans to use to bring virtual reality to architecture and design. Iris Prospect and Iris Scope encompass a wide range of VR headsets. The former allows customers to take their 3D plans and blueprints and turn them into VR experiences, viewable on...

Virtual Reality is on everywhere these days—videogames, engineering, healthcare, entertainment—are just a few of the industries fuelings its evolution. More recently, VR entered the real estate market too. Allured by its many advantages, developers turn to virtual reality and enable buyers to tour units, “walking” around mock layouts and peering out windows to envision the view they might wake up to every morning (this is where drones step in to capture accurate floor-by-floor perspectives). Instead of the full-sized models of one of the units, they can now use smaller sales centers equipped with a VR headset. No more selling off blueprints. “Our whole business exists to work on spaces that don’t exist.” Jamie Fleming, CEO of Studio216 Such a development that used the VR technology to drive sales is Luma, a 24-story condominium development in Seattle. The sales team opted for an Oculus Rift headset and started offering tours of the property a little after the project had just broken ground. Studio216 of San Francisco is the digital production agency that created the simulated space for the Luma development and one of the firms currently involved in developing industry-specific application for the technology. The virtual reality market is expected to explode over the next decade. According to a Goldman Sachs research, VR will be an $80 billion industry by 2025—the size of the current desktop PC market. The forthcoming consumer release of Oculus Rift headsets to the public might rapidly improve consumer adoption. However, real estate technology is far behind where it should be. A good exemplification is that there are still real estate firms still using Internet Explorer (sorry, Microsoft) as their main browser. Using VR headsets to tour your future home, office or vacation rental is pretty straight forward: the agent connects...