There are many ways to sell a house, and a good agent knows when to use each and every one of them. Open houses and private showings, 3D renders and video walkthroughs all have their advantages. But right now, one of the hottest trends in real estate is 3D virtual tours, and for good reason.

No matter how good the photos you take, buyers almost always want to visit a property before committing to parting with their hard earned money. It’s easy to see why. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but no picture can compare to stepping foot inside a building and getting a real feel for the place. 

Buyers get a real feel for a property

While virtual tours can’t magically teleport people from place to place, they come as close as possible to the immersion of real life. They can give prospective buyers no picture or video ever could - the freedom to explore and experience a property by themselves in their own time.

Virtual tours save time – for buyers and sellers alike

Time is that one resource that you can never get more of. Luckily, virtual tours allow you to save a lot of valuable time, whether you’re a buyer, seller, or agent. 

There’s no need to travel when visiting a virtual tour. Buyers can simply log in and be ready to explore, saving them precious hours when looking for properties. 

For sellers, too, virtual tours are a great timesaver. With physical showings, either the seller or agent need to be present whenever a prospective buyer tours a house. They need to be there to answer questions, but also just to make sure that everything goes smoothly, that nothing breaks by accident, or worse. 

With virtual tours, there’s no need to be present. All you need to do is prepare the house once, prepare the tour once, and it can be used over and over while you’re busy doing anything else.

Savings on staging

Preparing a house for a viewing can be time consuming and expensive. You want the house to look perfect for potential buyers, but it’s not really sustainable to have it look perfect for all of them, day after day and week after week. 

A virtual tour allows you to go all out once and forget about it. What’s more, even if something isn’t quite right, you can always touch it up digitally, making the property perfect for viewing.

A full time open house

Virtual tours are of course not quite the same as physically touring a property, but there are advantages to a virtual visit that can’t be matched even in real life. For example, buyers get a chance to explore at peace, without worrying about the time they’re spending (or taking up!). They get to return to a property to get a second look, and a third and fourth. 

A virtual tour is like an open house that’s available round the clock. Your buyers can visit again and again, separately and together. And even when all of them visit at the same time, they still don’t get under each other’s feet.

Virtual tours help sell more

The simple reality is that virtual tours are great for selling. Recent surveys show that 90% of buyers begin their house search online. A sizable minority of them finish it online, too. But a virtual tour is, at the very least, an opportunity to stand out in a crowded field. 

Buyers spend 5 to 10 times more time on websites with virtual tours than without, and Analysis by Realtor.com shows that listings with virtual tours receive 87% more views than home listings without tours. 

Virtual tours are loved by buyers and help sellers. While they grow more popular with every passing month, not all agents offer virtual tours yet, so they’re a great opportunity to stand out.