Real estate virtual tours allow customers to view the entirety of any property through an online platform.
With virtual tours, potential buyers no longer need to be physically present in the property. Now, they can inspect rooms and get a feel for their future home before even stepping foot in it. Virtual tours are hassle-free and convenient for sellers and buyers. They also make homes accessible to anyone in the country. It’s safe to say that in a post-COVID and technology-oriented world, virtual tours are here to stay.
If you aren’t entirely sold on the idea of creating an online tour for your property, here are some of the benefits you may want to consider:
Properties with virtual tours get more engagement
Engagement is everything when it comes to marketing online. Data from Realtor.com shows that listings with online tours garner 87% more views than properties without them. More than half of buyers tend to skip listings that lack a virtual tour option.
Other major search engines like Zillow and Redfin suggest similar preferences. The top-visited listings were homes with virtual tours stimulating an actual open house.
Both buyers and sellers benefit
The convenience of a virtual tour is critical for buyers. Anyone can go check out a three-story home at the other end of the country regardless of where they live.
But virtual tours aren’t just for your potential customers — they take a huge load off your responsibilities as a seller, too. In-person tours involve much planning, preparation, admin work, and scheduling. Even then, an offer isn’t guaranteed. Without the right tools, an open house can get hectic. Creating virtual tours dissolves many of these problems.
That’s not to say staging a virtual tour is easy. Much work goes into it, from decorating each room to investing in equipment, mapping out the tour path, and so on. But it’s also work that if you do it right, you’ll only need to do it once, and the return on investment is tenfold.
Virtual tours help homes sell faster
A University of Iowa study found that homes offering virtual tours sell 6% faster than others. They also found that these properties were able to sell for 3% more than other listings.
Also, sellers were more likely to hire agents who included virtual home tours in their marketing package.
You can attract buyers from across the country
With virtual tours, you can draw in prospective buyers from all over the country. In 2020, 5% of buyers bought a property online without seeing it in person. This number may not seem huge, but it’s double the previous rate. Pre-pandemic, only 3% of buyers pushed through with purchasing a home they’ve never set foot in.
Edge out your competition
If your property has a few competitors, investing in a virtual tour can help up your game. With the proper setup, you can gain an edge over your competitors and increase your chances of a sale.
Planning to buy or sell lakefront lakefront real estate in Washington’s Lake Chelan area? Get in touch with the top Lake Chelan Realtors here at Coldwell Banker Chelan. Call 509.682.7777 or contact us here.