Easing The House Hunting Process With AR & VR

Physical site visits for buying property may soon become obsolete. Use of immersive technology can help buyers experience hundreds of properties from the comfort of their homes

- Anand Thakur

The concept of virtual reality (VR) has been in existence for a long time but in recent years it has seen increased traction, especially in the areas of video gaming, simulations and 3D cinemas.

While gaming and cinema-related VR has focused mostly on fantasy-based recreations, simulations like flight simulators, real estate simulators have focused on reality-based recreations. Flight and military simulators are important so that an individual can experience a challenging scenario in a safe environment before they can actually handle it. On the other hand, it has increasingly been realised that VR has a very strong use case for real estate as well.

Buying a property is a long term decision. People often spend months visiting tens if not hundreds of properties before shortlisting a few. Most properties end up being rejections at first sight- too small, poor view, not enough sunlight. Sometimes one just doesn’t like the layout. This is where virtual experiences come in.

Now, before we jump into how digital/virtual experiences have/can impact this market, it is important to understand these technologies a little and how they have evolved. We will also talk about the real estate connection and what lies ahead.

In the context of this article, 3D digital experiences can be of three types:

Interactive 3D models