Online apartment rental company Zumper is teaming with Matterport to supply customers with 3D property tours.
Zumper has been pushing the rental industry into the digital realm by facilitating electronic leasing workflows and driving toward its oft-stated goal of making apartment leasing as simple as booking a hotel.
Zumper is the largest privately held rental marketplace in the U.S., measuring more than 14 million apartment seekers to its website each month. It closed on Series D funding in the amount of $60 million in March and another $46 million in 2018.
The perpetuation of the pandemic continues to pave the way for digital real estate business, ranging from curbside closings in residential sales to now, totally online apartment leasing.
Matterport tours can be viewed on desktop and mobile browsers and include the company’s trend-setting “dollhouse views.”
The tour tech also alleviates leasing agents from touring duties and conducting person-to-person business, outside of any assistance required upon a tenant’s move in.
Landlords, Zumper’s customers, can order Matterport scans through the Virtual Signature package. It will include the full range of Matterport’s product features, including exterior 360-degree views and high-resolution prints, among others.
Tours can be shared openly on landlords’ social media channels and websites. In essence, a tour can be seen anywhere a URL can be published.
Additionally, Virtual Signature customers will be given priority on Zumper’s consumer search experience.
Robin Daniels, CMO of Matterport, said in the release that “The ability to quickly, easily and safely explore apartments will be integral in navigating the process of finding a home.”
Daniels also mentioned that 3D tours offer aspiring tenants the safest way to work around the restrictions placed on the industry by the current pandemic.
Zumper and Matterport collaborated on a survey that found 72 percent of potential tenants would rent without seeing a unit in person provided a 3D tour was offered.
The survey also found 82 percent of landlords who have advertised with a 3D walkthrough were able to rent their property entirely online, and 99 perent of property owners say that potential renters would be more interested in a listing that offered a 3D virtual tour over one that didn’t.
Many homebuyers were renters first. Likely, all of them.
It can be reasonably assumed that even though a home is much greater financial commitment than a yearlong lease, those who once agreed to move into an apartment without seeing it are more likely to be comfortable doing the same with a home.
Additionally, real estate agents should consider that 3D tours and virtual showings can also help reduce the lag between initial viewing and offer. At the very least, online visits take less time for both parties and also reduce the process of daylong home tours that have long burdened the hard-working buyer’s agent.
In recent comments at Inman’s June Connect Now event, Matterport’s Daniels said the company is opening up its platform to new collaborations and partnerships.
“The best thing for us to do would be let our partners handle integrations,” he said in June. “Whatever you want to do with our platform, go for it.”
Have a technology product you would like to discuss? Email Craig Rowe
Craig C. Rowe started in commercial real estate at the dawn of the dot-com boom, helping an array of commercial real estate companies fortify their online presence and analyze internal software decisions. He now helps agents with technology decisions and marketing through reviewing software and tech for Inman.
