Real estate agents forced to sit on the sidelines during the coronavirus pandemic may return to a thoroughly changed industry.
This brave new world of 3D home tours, client meetings via video conference and even new ways of qualifying buyers was brought on by social distancing mandates, but many elements of it appear set to stay.
First, agents and brokerages alike have been making investments – in time, hardware and money. While many 3D home tours can be created using nothing more than a smartphone, some agents and brokerages have splurged for special-purpose, $300 cameras to offer an upgraded experience. Others have engaged specialty property photography firms that already own such gear to do the same.
As data from Zillow shows, features like these are proving to be more effective ways for agents to hook prospective clients as they browse from their couches instead of taking part in the traditional cavalcade of open houses.
The incentives are there for pressure from buyers and sellers to make these marketing tools “the new normal” in the real estate industry, even once this pandemic becomes nothing more than a memory.
More elaborate options like Compass Boston’s new online listings brochures take advantage of digital technologies’ ability to track customer behavior to build up solid information about a buyer’s particular interests. Even simply being able to send a buyer to view a string of virtual open houses and report back helps streamline an agent’s workload compared to trying to ferret out a client’s feelings about breakfast nooks versus separate dining rooms.
The incentives are there for pressure from buyers and sellers to make these marketing tools “the new normal” in the real estate industry, even once this pandemic becomes nothing more than a memory.
Any sudden shift can empower players who have the financial resources to deploy a new technology at scale over the – frequently smaller – players who don’t. But while many big brokerages like Compass and Keller Williams were able to rack up early leads in this arena, the basics of this industry shift do not appear costly to implement. While smaller outfits may struggle to create the same kind of media-rich online presentations that will become more and more common in high-end listings, the basic elements of a 3D home tour and Zoom calls won’t be hard to master.
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