360 Home Tours and Virtual Open Houses

Hey Everyone! 

We've been getting a lot of questions from our agents regarding virtual tours, 360 tours etc. I wanted to make a post to help break down some of the options and the pros and cons. So here's kind of what we've been seeing on our end as real estate photographers. During our busy months we are shooting close to 500 homes on average so hopefully this'll give you an idea of a general industry trend during this time. 

The biggest trend right now are the 360 tours and we've also had a spike in Twilight photos. For now let's break down the most common 360 options.  The one you've probably heard the most about is the Matterport. It's a system that's been out for awhile and it works great but it's not necessarily the best approach. We were offering Matterport tours but have switched to the Zillow 3D tour platform starting this year and we are glad to have made the switch.   

Matterport

Pros

• Walkthrough video of the 3D floorplan - the tour can create a guided movie like experience where it takes the user from room to room

• Ability to mark spaces with tags

Cons

• The time for a scan can take up to 3 hours or more depending on the size of the house. This is a lot of time spent inside the home and potentially increasing exposure.

• Cost - the Matterport charges hosting fees and the average Matterport scan starts at $180 or more in the Springs with the price increasing per square footage.

• Not integrated well with other platforms. You won't be able to add a matterport scan to a Zillow listing unless you add the link to the virtual tour link.

• No seven day Zillow boost that's automatically added to the listing.

• The platform that we use and the one we've found to be more effective overall at driving traffic is the Zillow 3D Home Tour (cue eye rolls as everyone hates Zillow) - BUT - as far as increasing traffic to your listing goes, it is the most cost effective way to do a 360 scan that we have found.

Zillow 3D Home Tour

Pros

• Homes with Zillow 3D tours receive 2x more views on average than homes without 3D.

• Homes with Zillow 3D receive a 7 day Zillow boost.

• Tours are $100 addon for your typical house and $125 for larger homes over 4K sq.ft

• Scans take 45 minutes to an hour on a 4k home limiting time inside and potential exposure.

• Easily integrates into our virtual tour link so you only have to put one link into the MLS and it contains all the media

• No hosting/editing fees

• 3D tour branded with your logo/etc on the Zillow listing itself.

Cons

• No dollhouse view created

• No video of the 360 pans created

• No ability to tag objects in scans

• So these are the reasons why we recommend the Zillow 3D Home tour versus anything else on the market. What we've found is that most people don't really care about the dollhouse view anyway and would rather have an interactive floorplan with square footage and photos and 360 panos to reference back to. 

What some of our Rockstar agents have been doing is getting the photo package with aerials and the 360 tour and then maybe adding interior video to highlight the important areas if the home warrants it. Typically having a 360 home tour, with photos and aerials will give the buyer more than enough media content to make a good informed decision on the home and immediate neighborhood.  

Our agents are then following it up with a FB live open house where they share the link and media and answer any questions from potential live buyers or agents on the house.  

Either way, if you're looking for a good way to showcase a home, limit exposure to your clients and to us as photographers, this is a good cost effective way to do it.

If you have any questions on our policy and procedures during the Covid-19 outbreak you can also check out our website here: