Virtual apartment tours gained popularity during the pandemic but they’re here to stay
Key takeaways:
- The pandemic increased the popularity of virtual apartment tours, helping them gain market traction due to their benefits.
- Virtual tours allow people to check out new apartments from the comfort of their homes or anywhere else.
- They are convenient and mitigate health and safety concerns.
- They are also cost-effective and time-saving.
- Virtual tour technologies give access to information that can be helpful when following up with clients.
Virtual apartment tours are continuing to cause a buzz in the real estate market because of the benefits they offer. The pandemic and its resultant social distancing measures dramatically increased the use of the technology in property management and rentals/sales.
Technology in this situation made life easier. While in-person visits are becoming normal again, there are various benefits of virtual apartment tours. We talk about how virtual tours are conducted and why they benefit agents and prospective renters/buyers.
What technology is used for a virtual tour?
Virtual apartment tours can be conducted through various methods. They don’t have to be complicated. In most cases, they involve a landlord or property manager going to the apartment and connecting with the prospective buyer or renter through video technology. Some agents may want to also offer virtual walk-throughs in 3D.
It can be as complicated as buying an expensive camera to pre-record a video or as simple as taking out your smartphone and calling a prospective renter on FaceTime. The important part is that a prospective tenant is able to adequately view the apartment. Just like an in-person tour, a virtual tour should provide them with the same information.
The benefits of virtual tours
Virtual apartment tours experienced a boom during the pandemic and showed their benefits in several ways. Let’s have a look at six of them:
1. Addresses health and safety concerns
Visiting properties during the pandemic became a safety concern for potential renters and buyers, but virtual property tours provided the best possible solution. Virtual tours were used as an alternative to physical visits, which worked out well in many cases. The virtual environments allowed people to see what they would see in person without worrying about catching an illness.
Unfortunately, the pandemic is not over and there continue to be health and safety concerns for vulnerable individuals. Virtual apartment tours mitigate this risk. They are a safe way to view a property.
2. They are convenient
Virtual tours make the process of showing a property to potential tenants extremely convenient. Showing an apartment in-person to people requires adequate free time of prospective tenants. Working people will not be able to easily get to an apartment to view it during the day, and when they are looking at several, it becomes even more difficult.
Virtual tours make it possible to present the condition of the property at a much larger range of times. A person may be able to take a virtual tour on their lunch break at work, for example. These tours allow people to view many more properties quicker than they would usually be able to do.
3. Economical and time-saving
Virtual apartment tours are not only cost-effective, but they also save precious time. In-person tenant visits cost time and money, which is mitigated by employing these virtual tours. Tenants can tune in from just about anywhere, which means there is no need to spend extra money on gas and wear and tear on their vehicles. 3D virtual tours can be accessed on the internet with a few clicks and offer a high-quality immersive experience.
Whenever a property is listed, it can potentially attract hundreds of calls and contact requests. Entertaining all these requests is very time-consuming. Virtual tours present a solution that can save considerable time by making interested parties take a pre-assessment online. This means that only those clients who are truly interested in closing a deal will be visiting the property in person.
4. More website traffic
If property managers upload 3D virtual tours on their websites, they may observe higher traffic. A listed property that has a virtual tour available online will attract a lot of interested clients. This means your website will be getting more visibility, and you have an option to present yourself to a broader audience.
5. Live client-agent interactions
Better communication always brings better results. Virtual tours now have the technology to provide enhanced services to prospective tenants. Agents can now join clients on their virtual tours via chat or video calls and guide them through their visits.
Clients can ask questions during the course of their virtual journey, and the agent will be available to instantly answer their queries. This provides an opportunity for agents to inform their clients about the ins and outs of a property.
6. An option to record client experiences
Virtual tours also present the option to record client experiences so that they can be analyzed later, which helps in preparing for a follow-up meeting. The insights gained from customer experiences help in applying a customer-centric approach and closing a deal. Analytics make sales.
The benefits of VendorSmart
Now that you understand virtual apartment tours a bit better and the advantages they offer, maybe you will consider using them in your repertoire. They bring many benefits and so does VendorSmart. VendorSmart blends technology with a collective 70+ years of property management experience to bring tailored solutions to the community association management Industry. We provide solutions to property management companies to make their jobs easier.
Our VendorSmart platform and complimentary services make managing vendor compliance and sourcing vendors for your projects a breeze. We work to tailor our solutions and services to your management company’s profile and needs. Whether you’re managing five thousand or hundreds of thousands of homes, we can help make your vendor management process seamless and efficient, while at the same time minimizing the risk profile of the vendors that work in your communities.
For more information about how we can help your property management company, please contact our team today.