by Rosie McLean 
Property viewings can be a time-consuming process for everyone – for the agent, there’s the time spent travelling to and from the property, as well as showing possible buyers around. For the seller or landlord, the challenge of ensuring your property is presentable for every prospective buyer or renter – whenever they want to visit. The time of buyers is also precious. Is it any surprise that virtual tours, which came to prominence during the pandemic, are continuing to grow both in popularity and success?
The benefits of a virtual tour
The virtual tour helps to eliminate the time spent on viewings, since a prospective buyer or tenant who has already conducted a virtual tour of your property is more likely to be serious about actually buying or renting your property when they come to see it in person. Potential buyers or renters will have already done their homework at their convenience – such as taking a look around your property over a glass of wine after dinner. That means they are more prepared with questions at a physical viewing if they decide to proceed.
It can also prove useful for buyers or renters who may have a particular interest in, or special requirements, for more significant rooms such as kitchens and bathrooms as it can give them a more realistic view of such rooms and whether they suit their needs than photos alone. And that cuts out wasted viewings of properties that may not meet their criteria.
Boosting sales and rentals
Engaging buyers or renters remotely through virtual tours has various cost-saving benefits, but for sellers it can also help to boost the sale price of your property since there will be more serious buyers or renters in the sales funnel as a result. In research conducted in 2021, a guided virtual tour resulted in a 19.4% higher conversion of sales than listings without and a 5.62% increase in the selling price.
In the lettings space meanwhile, nearly 70% of lets took place after one guided virtual tour and two-thirds of these were without a follow-up physical viewing, meaning the property was let on the merits of the virtual tour alone.
Ensuring quality virtual viewings
To ensure success, a virtual tour needs a similar amount of attention to detail that a physical tour will encompass. Virtual tours will bring a property alive and can range in sophistication from a video walkthrough of a property that can be done on a mobile phone with a small amount of editing to more interactive options such as a 360-degree virtual tour which stitches together photos, to 3D virtual tours which can be the ultimate viewing experience. The latter will offer the closest experience to physically visiting the property but can mean increased costs of production so may better suit higher-value properties or those where there may be significant scope for development, perhaps.
Future demand
The 2021 research was done during the pandemic when physical viewings were tricky. While the market has normalised since then, the increasing sophistication of virtual tours, and the time and cost-saving benefits they can provide for both sellers and landlords and potential buyers and renters mean that virtual tours continue to be popular. Research in 2022 suggested that virtual tours still have a valuable role post-pandemic in converting interest, with 59% of all homes listed on the market with a virtual tour having an offer made on them or having sold subject to contract.
At Chimneypots, we know the importance of marketing your property at its best – whether that’s in person or virtually. As the market is currently somewhat less buoyant than it was when the research is done, you need to use all the tools at your disposal to get the right buyer and the best price. Do get in touch to find out more.
