Virtual viewings enable buyers and tenants to experience your home without physically visiting.

Many buyers make decisions to view houses based on the information they see on the property portals and often end up viewing properties that are just not right for them. With Covid now, it is more important than ever to ensure that all marketing properties have a virtual tour. Virtual tours also help to remove the need for purchaser reviews with extended family and visits from tradespeople.

It is envisaged that if every property on the market had a 360-degree virtual tour that it would be one of the buyer’s first port of call. Certainly, you would expect and make its policy that a buyer would look at the virtual tour prior to an in-person viewing took place. This undoubtedly will save time and expense for buyers, sellers, and agents. As in the lockdown of the spring 2020 agents were reporting that sales were being agreed remotely using just virtual viewings. If there are further lockdowns, having a 360 virtual tour in place at the outset of marketing would avoid having to re-visit the property.

Virtual viewings are becoming  part of the vetting process to help reduce time wastage on travelling to multiple properties. Buyers are using virtual views to vet properties first, in order to find the most ideal home(s) for them to view physically. They are becoming a key stepping stone for booking in a physical viewing – which in turn brings to the door a higher engaged buyer. Potential Buyers and renters are using virtual views that a 360 degree offers, to focus on a smaller number of properties.

The Power of Virtual House Viewings

If you’re still unsure about whether virtual house viewings, consider the following:

• The number of property sale adverts on Rightmove with virtual tours increased by 77% between mid-November 2019 and mid-May 2020. If you want to stay ahead of the competition, virtual tours are a must.
• Estate agents have reported between 30% and 70% fewer wasted viewings due to video tours, which allow people to vet properties before booking a physical viewing
• Recent research has found that when a property listing includes a video tour, 60% of visitors click to view it.
•  By offering 360° virtual viewing you can get a real feel for the property before committing to an in-person viewing. This means that any physical viewings only include buyers who are really interested in the property, and is also a much safer option now that we are all trying to minimise the transmission of Coronavirus.
• It will also open up a much wider geographical area enabling any potential interested parties, the opportunity to view the property wherever they are in the world.