Are You Still Giving Rental Property Tours on Site?

There’s no question that choosing a home to live in is one of the most difficult decisions. It determines your lifestyle, your commute and the comfort of your day-to-day life. It’s also a lengthy process, which translates into a lengthy sales cycle for single family property management companies. Anything you can do to speed that process up is a definite plus.

Fortunately, virtual reality is now in a position to do just that.

After years of promises that virtual reality will change the world, it’s here. There are several VR headsets to choose from in all budgets—from Google cardboard to the Oculus Rift—that will literally put you in someone else’s shoes. To film, anyone can pull a smartphone out of their pockets and add a camera attachment like the Insta360, even shooting in 4K.  When you’re ready, you can upload to YouTube360, a platform designed for the full immersion video that VR provides. It’s all there, on budget and ready for action.  If you’re ready for a bigger production, you can hire a crew or put together a GoPro rig that will give you a higher production value.

Regardless of your video’s quality, virtual tours can simplify the single family leasing process. Imagine a prospect doing a virtual tour of the property he or she is interested in renting and signing the lease right away. The benefits of providing property tours are overwhelming—the time savings, the increased interest in your property (prospects that take a tour are much more likely to lease), and the captive audience.

In terms of time savings, not only does a virtual tour save travel time to your property, it also cuts down on cross talk when scheduling, not to mention the convenience of touring a property from one’s own home. Once the tour is done, you’ve essentially immersed the prospect in the features of your property, creating a connection viewing photos doesn’t quite reach. Finally, there’s the captive audience. Virtual reality is so immersive that it’s like being engrossed in your favorite TV show. These make up a unique value proposition.

Don’t forget, there’s always the possibility of renting one of your other properties if the one they found doesn’t fit the bill. In addition, as your prospects are watching the VR experience, you can carefully monitor the metrics to find out where they pause with interest or end from apathy.

Finally, with VR, you’re appealing to a younger generation that is not only comfortable with technology, but also expects you to offer more innovative features to make life easier. And while VR could still be considered as in its early adoption phase, the tools to exponentially speed up the leasing process are available now.

With 25+ years of marketing communications experience and 20 years of digital, Brett Moneta is a consultant, strategist, and writer with a web, video, social media (and even print) background. Growing up with a family-owned swimming pool construction business, he learned the ins and outs of construction and real estate well. Brett has built content strategy for Fortune 50 companies and has been a national blogger for Talent Zoo’s Digital Pivot magazine. Presently, he works in Marketing at RealPage, Inc., a leading global provider of software data analytics to the real estate industry, where he’s been since 2015. Brett holds two bachelor’s degrees from the University of Texas at Austin: BS in Radio/Television/Film and a BA in English.