Virtual Reality for Off-the-Plan Properties: Why Now is the Time

This is a guest blog from our partner, Liminal.

Property developers, buyers and tenants all over the world are reaping the benefits of virtual reality for pre-sales and leasing off-the-plan apartments, townhouses and condos.

The emotional effects and enhanced visualization capabilities of virtual reality translate into higher levels of trust among buyers and potential tenants. This offers a more effective sales strategy for developers when compared to traditional methods of sales and marketing.

What is a Virtual Reality Real Estate Tour?

When wearing a headset, a potential property investor or tenant instantaneously ‘arrives’ inside the property, immersing themselves in a 360° photoreal environment. Users can navigate the property from room to room to gain a real perspective for the scale and feel of the space.

While traditional architectural visualizations used in brochures and websites serve an important purpose in the property sales process, they only manage to give a glimpse of what the property has to offer. In contrast, virtual reality provides an opportunity for a buyer to explore the entire property in their own time, enabling developers to sustain the buyer’s attention for longer durations than more traditional methods of showcasing a property in print or digital media.

Virtual reality also manages to generate more buy-in from potential property investors. Neuroscientists at Nielson confirm: when compared to a 2D screen, viewing content in VR generates 27% enhanced emotional activation and the effects last 34% longer. This is because virtual reality generates what psychologists call a sense of ‘presence’ – the feeling of actually being there inside the virtual reality environment. This sense of presence results in enhanced emotional investment in the buying experience, one of the key motivators for people to take the plunge and invest in property.

Due to virtual reality’s capacity to generate a greater sense of trust and emotional investment in the planned space, this makes for a very powerful sales tool that was previously not available before the advent of virtual reality.

“New developments, like our Coburg Quarter project, are really raising the bar in terms of its quality and design-led architecture. Until recently though, we’ve had to rely on renders and floorplans to communicate the many unique aspects of our projects.

Now with the advent of Liminal 360’s 3D virtual reality technology we can actually show our purchasers the quality of our projects in a really tactile, expressive way”.

– Ben Anderson, Founder and Managing Director, Future Estate

While virtual reality may be new to many people, Liminal 360 have been developing virtual reality experiences for architectural visualizations for over two years. One flagship product for property developers is a downloadable mobile VR app for iOS and Android.

These VR apps not only provide virtual reality tours for upcoming developments without a headset, they have also been carefully constructed to serve as lead generation and sales tools, supported by a branded user interface showcasing 2D render galleries and additional project information, such as links to project websites and Google maps. Lead qualification is identified through user registration, registration of interest and web portal analytics which feed usage data back to developers.

Using Mobile VR as a Marketing Tool

One of the key benefits of mobile VR is its accessibility. All a property investor requires is access to a Google Cardboard, and then it’s just as simple as downloading the app and launching a photoreal architectural visualization virtual tour on their phone.

Custom-branded Google Cardboards are a popular cost-effective means for property developers to share their mobile VR experiences to potential investors. Liminal 360 has worked with several clients who handed them out at launch events, expos and as gifts to prospective investors to provide immersive property marketing experiences.

The added beauty of the Google Cardboard lies in its resilience as a marketing tool. Amongst the masses of competing promotional materials, it stands out as a functional, novel, multi-purpose piece of equipment that gets used time and time again.

For a higher-end option, Google’s Daydream View and Samsung’s Gear VR are positioned on top of the mobile VR offering, yet these headsets remain highly accessible and available for under $100. Their ergonomic designs provide a very comfortable and user-friendly experience. Both headsets also come equipped with handheld controllers that allow precise interaction and movement within property spaces.

These higher-end options provide the most flexible solution for sales agents looking to secure buyers and tenants in off-the-plan sales and leasing, by creating immersive virtual experiences that turn visual concepts into realistic, immersive environments.

The success of property developers around the globe currently using VR is further testament to the fact that now is the time for developers to invest in virtual reality for their sales and marketing.

About Liminal 360

Liminal 360 is a market-leading virtual reality company based in Melbourne that specializes in developing virtual reality experiences for off-the-plan property sales, marketing, brand activations, and enterprise applications.

For further information, please visit http://www.liminal360.com or to get in touch with a Liminal representative, email info@liminal360.com.