All About 3D Home Tours
The Top 3D Home Tour Platforms That Help Bring More Traffic To Your Listing
Buying a home can be a daunting task, but it's even harder when you don't have a good idea of what the property looks like. Most people only get to see a property once, and that's usually when they're going through an open house. You might not be able to go to every open house in your area, and even if you could, there's no guarantee that the property will still be on the market by the time you visit. This can make the buyer's exhaustion worse. Many agents think that good real estate photos or videos are enough marketing but you could be missing out on a powerful tool to attract more clients to your real estate listing.
As a real estate agent, you know that getting your listing in front of as many people as possible is key to getting it sold. And thanks to advances in technology, there are now more ways than ever to do just that. In this blog post, we'll take a look at some of the top 3D home tour platforms out there and see how they can help get your listing in front of more potential buyers.
With so many options out there, what's the best platform for a realtor to use?
We've broken down the top platforms we've come across to help you make an informed decision on which to use. So read on to learn more!
What Are 3D Home Tour Platforms And How Do They Work?
3D home virtual tour platforms are tools that allow users to create virtual tours of homes or other properties. We even did one for an art gallery once! These tours can be created using panoramic images taken by a specialized 3D camera or even your cell phone, and they can be viewed by anyone with an internet connection and a computer or phone. These panoramas are then stitched together into a virtual world recreating the home. You can move usually move around these 3D spaces as well. Most of these virtual tours work by creating "hot-spots" or places that you can move from one point to another within the 3D space. This captures the space and can really engage your clients with a super easy way to move around the property. Most of these platforms work through apps on your phone so the software requirement is pretty simple.
The virtual tours can then be embedded into your website for your listing. It can be viewed and shared separately with its own link. A realtor can usually put it into the description of the MLS listing. It's a very versatile tool and is a self-contained site. A buyer would then click on the link and be able to take a virtual tour of the property by clicking from one spot to the next. We recommend spreading the link across multiple social media websites to increase your visitors like Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn.
The Top Three 3D Home Tour Platforms For Real Estate Experts
Matterport
- This is one of the most well-known brands in 3D virtual tours and one of the best-developed systems out there. When you search for ways to capture homes in 3D, they're usually one of the first to pop up on Google. They have a great quality product with a wide range of features. You can use their 3D camera to scan the property and create a 3D model of the property to get their famous "dollhouse view". Their images are some of the highest quality you can get for using a 3D virtual tour platform. The Matterport software also comes with some great system features such as guided virtual tours, tags, measurement modes, and the ability to show notes throughout the property. You can customize the virtual tours with your business logos and clients can explore a curated video experience as well. The Matterport can also provide a schematic floor plan with square footage. Of course, everything is done through an app nowadays and the Matterport App is no exception. You can download it on your phone or Ipad (yes it works with Android users) and rest assured it is a pretty simple system to use. The link is embeddable into your virtual tour and can enhance your presentation. The 3D scans are high enough quality that you can pull photos directly off them and use them on the MLS.
The Matterport system has been used by companies from Netflix to Baseball teams to capture their spaces and events. People can explore your business if you have an office space and it's great for restaurants to use. It helps people capture, explore and discover new spaces from museums to your average home for sale. However in my opinion it's a bit overkill if you're trying to get good results selling a home on the MLS.
The biggest drawback to using the Matterport is the cost and time it takes to scan a room. I've seen Matterport 3D virtual tours take 3-4 hours sometimes at different listings I was photographing. Especially if you get to the location and have to go floor by floor. The realtor had Matterport devices they owned in-house and wanted to make the most use of them. Understandable! But I always felt bad for the poor office staffer who was stuck moving a big clunky camera from one point to the next and taking scan after scan to make sure the 3D model was syncing correctly and that there was no data loss in the room capture. It also didn't help the seller who had to be out of their home for most of the time the scan was being completed.
Another drawback is that it's kind of price prohibitive for the average sales agent. The Matterport is a subscription-based model so even if you bought the 3D camera - you still have to pay monthly hosting fees for any listings or 3D models that you have active. Their latest and greatest camera at the time of writing this article is the Pro3 and it's a really fancy piece of tech that weighs in at $5,955. That's a hefty price tag. And unless we're trying to do the Louvre justice in Paris, there's no point in having such an advanced camera for your average real estate listings. I would personally avoid this purchase and look into some of the other platforms that can provide some free services.
Zillow 3D Home Tours
The Zillow 3D Platform is one of the better apps out there for showcasing your listing in a 3D space. The camera that it uses is the Ricoh Theta V or the Ricoh Theta Z - you can also use your Apple or Android phone with it to capture the room. The images that you get from the camera's are comparable to the Matterport, maybe slightly lower image quality but good enough to showcase the room and the views in your listings.
One of the most important features that you get using this platform is the powerful boost that you get to your traffic because it's integrated directly into the Zillow website. Homes with Zillow 3D tours receive on average twice as many visitors. Zillow and Trulia are the most popular real estate websites in the country, receiving 1.9 billion monthly visits from 195 million unique users. This is 2/3rd of all real estate web traffic.
Zillow 3D Tours maximize your exposure on both Zillow and Trulia, catching the interest of serious buyers and making it easier for them to fall in love with a home before they even step inside.
Just recently, Zillow has started to automatically be syndicated to Redfin - without manually entering the link! One of the best parts of Zillow 3D Home Tours is that the hosting is free so you only pay for the services of the photographer and not a monthly cost to upkeep the site. The app is easy to use and gives the user control over white balance and timer to help with the capture.
The drawback to Zillow 3D Home Tours is that the virtual tours themselves are not as customizable as other platforms. You can't put tags into your 3D world or create video walkthrough tours. It does have the option to create a floor plan but those are considered to be less accurate than some other platforms out there.
iGuide 3D Tours
The iGuide system is a great middle choice and we see this one used as an alternative to the Matterport system quite a bit. Its setup is not quite as expensive as other systems and its software is pretty simple to use. The iGuide is integrated into its floor plan system so it's a good option for those that wish to highlight more floor plans with their business. Every iGuide is delivered with an interactive floor plan and the scans themselves go pretty quick.
Another attractive feature is that there is no subscription to use the app. The services are a pay-as-you-go sales model. You can also download a copy of the 3D virtual tour for free. The square footage for the properties is based on ANSI-Z765-2021 standards.
The iGuide platform is a good balance between expense and image quality. The one drawback that I see is that it's not internally supported by a top site like Zillow. It's still a great way to have your clients explore your listings but if want the most visitors to discover your listing, you can't beat the Zillow app.
How to use a 3D home tour platform to increase traffic to your listing
In the real estate business, one of the most important factors in selling a home is generating interest and traffic. The more people that are interested in your listing, the more likely you are to find a buyer. One way to increase traffic to your listings is to use a 3D home tour platform. By using 3D Virtual Tours, you can give buyers a realistic view of your property without them having to physically visit the property. This is especially helpful if your property is located in a different state or country from the potential buyer. In addition, 3D virtual tours are an excellent way to increase interest in your listing by giving potential buyers a unique and immersive experience. If you are looking for ways to increase web visits to your real estate listing, using a 3D home tour platform is an excellent solution.
The Biggest Benefits of using 3D Virtual Tours - Stand Out Online
There are many benefits to using a 3D home tour platform. In addition to increasing visitors to your listing, 3D home tours also offer a number of other benefits. First, 3D home tours give buyers a realistic view of your property. This is especially helpful if your property is located in a different state or country from the buyer. In addition, 3D home tours are an excellent way to increase interest in you as a realtor because sellers want someone to use the latest and greatest tech to sell their home. Data has consistently shown that more and more people want to see and explore the space they'll be buying in a 3D world. If you start using 3D tours, your sales numbers will reflect the increased visitors
Which 3D home tour platform is the best for you
The best 3D home tour platform that we found is the Zillow 3D Home Tour. It strikes a really good balance between its features, affordability and audience reach. Despite some of Zillow’s misguided attempts at actually being realtors and it’s foray into the iBuyers model - the Zillow platform is still the #1 go to platform for your average homebuyer for looking at homes - and that’s where your marketing should be. Until Zillow’s prominence is eclipsed by another aggregator site that pulls data from MLS’s all over the country - we won’t see a 3D tour as effective as it’s own homegrown platform.
We are excited to be offering 3D Zillow Home Tours as an additional package add-on to any service. We are always looking for ways to improve our agents marketing and Zillow is a huge platform that is central to many of our client's businesses.
Need a Zillow 3D Home Tour? PixVid is your solution! In addition to providing photos, videos and floor plans - we’re also a Zillow 3D tour provider as well.
Common Questions!
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A virtual tour usually refers to a single property website. The website usually hosts information about the property as well as different media like photos, videos, floor plans, and 3D tours.
A 3D tour is a type of virtual tour that allows the user to view a property in 3 dimensions. This means that you can see the property from different angles and get a better sense of the layout and size of the rooms. 3D tours are created using special cameras that capture all of the different angles of the property.
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It depends on which platform your using as well as the size of the house. A Zillow 3D Tour is usually much faster than for example doing a Matterport scan. For a typical 2-3 bedroom home, we add another 20 - 30 minutes to our time at the listing. Obviously for bigger homes, it might take a bit longer however we’re not talking hours like with some systems.
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We chose the Zillow 3D Tour platform as the service we wanted to offer our clients because we believe it has the simplest integration with Zillow and Trulia that results in the most traffic and views for a listing.
Cost is also a huge factor in our decision in that the Zillow 3D is a high quality experience that’s very comparable to the Matterport system and does not charge hosting fees. Therefore our clients can use their Zillow 3D tours indefinitely and embed them on their websites.
Simply put - out of all the 3D tour platforms we tested, the Zillow 3D Tour beat out all the others with it’s balance for quality, cost and simplicity of use.
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The biggest advantage is the priority placement that Zillow gives these tours on it’s platform. 3D Homes are marked with special tags, searchable by a custom filter and featured in emails to potential buyers.
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Yes! Most platforms allow you to embed their 3D tour into your website, virtual tour or social media.
The Zillow 3D Home Tour for example is really easy to embed into your website. When the tour is created you can use the embed code to put it on your website, share it on social media, etc. We’ve actually used the Zillow 3D tour to showcase some art installations for a local university and they were able to embed it on their website featuring the exhibit.
