Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty’s more than 800 agents will showcase sellers’ homes using 3-D virtual tours that give buyers browsing listings online the feeling that they’re walking through the home.
Rand Realty says it’s the first brokerage in New York’s Hudson Valley to provide Matterport’s 3-D Showcase tours, which are produced by scanning a home with the company’s camera. The camera is placed in different locations around a house, allowing it to rotate 360 degrees to capture 2-D and 3-D data. Matterport processes the data into a model in about 30 minutes.
Rand Realty said it plans to offer clients the ability to take room measurements and virtually renovate homes as Matterport’s technology advances.
“This groundbreaking technology allows the consumer to walk through the home from their computer in a big, bold, immersive experience,” said Rand Realty managing partner Matthew Rand in a statement. “It lets you zoom in and out and creates a digital floor-plan view of the space. With everything Matterport has to offer, we can’t wait to get this technology in the hands of our homebuyers.”
For the moment, 3-D virtual tours are a way for agents and brokers to differentiate themselves, although they could become the norm as their cost plummets and user experience improves.
Matterport’s equipment is currently the most popular 3-D camera among real estate professionals — Redfin is using the company’s technology to produce 3-D virtual tours for all of its listings.
Redfin co-founder David Eraker has started a new brokerage, Surefield, with a business model built around its proprietary 3-D tour technology.
Floored uses its own cameras and software to produce 3-D models for clients including real estate brokerages.