On March 20, Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh requested that realtors and landlords limit in-person showings during the coronavirus pandemic.
"Brokers should use photos, videos and written descriptions to showcase properties whenever possible," Walsh wrote in a letter. While in-person real estate showings have halted, many brokers have opted to use services that provide virtual options, allowing prospective tenants to feel like they are actually walking through the property.
One of these services is 3D Apartment, a company that creates 3-dimensional virtual tours for property listings in Boston, New York and Miami.
"We used to get 10 to 20 calls a day to take VR tours before COVID-19," said Rob Kagan, senior manager of customer experience at 3D Apartment. "But now with social distancing, the number of calls has gone up to 100 per day."
3D Apartment creates virtual tours that can be viewed on cell phones and computers, without the need for a VR device. The startup has also created a SaaS-based platform for property management companies and agents where they can organize all of their VR tours and promote them to clients.
"We have been gaining steady traction in the industry," said Kagan. "The pushback in the past has been that there is such a tight rental and sales market that agents did not feel that they needed to spend the extra money on VR."
With the onset of the pandemic, that mindset has shifted.
Employees who are going out to film virtual tours are not permitted to go into any house that has people living in it, and they wear masks and gloves when they visit each property. As an additional precaution, photographers wipe down any surface they may have touched before they leave. Tours take 30 minutes to an hour to shoot, and there are over 1,000 listings at any given time, Kagan said.
It's too soon to tell how many sales this will yield, Kagan said. But as coronavirus continues to make its way through the country, virtual tours have gone from an add-on feature to a necessity in the real estate industry.
"Real estate transactions have definitely slowed down but agents and property management companies are trying to get an edge in this new reality, and that is where we have been able to help," Kagan said.
