Don’t be surprised if you begin to see more 3-D content popping up on listing portals in the near future.
DIAKRIT, which produces 3-D renderings for listings that appear on websites including NJ.com, NOLA.com and Syracuse.com, has rolled out a 3-D-centric sales and marketing platform for listing portals featuring 2-D and 3-D floor plans, photo-realistic 3-D renderings, 3-D panoramas and property details.
Listing portals that adopt the platform acquire the ability to charge developers for 3-D enhancements to new-home listings.
“D-Showroom,” which is mobile-compatible and combines 3-D renderings with an interactive Web interface connected to a live sales feed, was “born out of the insight that portals today are not monetizing the lucrative new construction and development segment,” said Dick Karlsson, executive vice president chief sales and marketing officer of DIAKRIT, in a statement.
Screen shot showing “D-Showroom” of an iProperty.com listing.
IProperty Group, the owner of a network of Southeast Asian property portals, is one of the first companies to integrate DIAKRIT’s “D-Showroom” into its site.
“It gives our developer clients a new platform to showcase their developments to property buyers and investors as well,” said Georg Chmiel, managing director and chief executive officer at iProperty Group, in a statement.
DIAKRIT will sell three different versions of D-Showroom at a wholesale price to listing portals, “then it’s up to the portal to set the price, or bundle it into their existing advertising packages, as they please,” said Damon Madia, a spokesman for DIAKRIT.
Madia clarified that listing portals could either build new-home advertising packages from scratch using D-Showroom, or weave it into existing advertising offerings “with little to no impact on their existing user interface.”
DIAKRIT claims in a marketing brochure on the product that “D-Showroom is so cost-effective that the wholesale price can be marked up significantly and still be accessible to all builders, big or small.”
Unlike 3-D models produced by the likes of Matterport, InsideMaps and Floored, users can’t stroll around virtually in DIAKRIT’s 3-D visualizations. Instead, DIAKRIT lets users virtually teleport between 3-D panoramas (360-degree renderings) of different rooms.
Madia says DIAKRIT consciously chose that approach over a “video game-style” experience because focus group tests conducted by DIAKRIT showed it was more user-friendly.
DIAKRIT said it’s been piloting D-Showroom with a number of leading property portals around the world, “all with positive feedback.”
In August, DIAKRIT began providing 2-D and 3-D visualization tools to Advance Digital Inc., which includes AL.com, Cleveland.com, GulfLive.com, LehighValleyLive.com, MLive.com, MassLive.com, PennLive.com and SILive.com.
As of June, the company also had generated more than 260,000 floor plans for RentPath, the parent company of ApartmentGuide.com and Rent.com, allowing all RentPath advertisers to show prospective renters the layouts of nearly 7 million housing units.
The 2-D floor plans include a “room planner” tool that allows users to choose and arrange virtual furniture.
That tool is also included in the D-Showroom platform.
“The tools provided are easy and fun to use and we believe that property buyers will have fun illustrating their vision on how their desired home should look like,” Chmiel said.
