Virtual Reality and Commercial Real Estate

Technology has been impacting commercial real estate since the beginning of time from websites, to emails, to CRM’s, to drones, and now it seems there is a new technology buzz in the industry. Of course, in such a competitive business, brokerage companies are always looking for the best way to get a leg up on their competition. It’s looking like virtual reality could be that new tool.

Now more than ever it seems that visuals are important when marketing a listing. A lot of brokers have started using drones to capture all aspects of a property. Brokers have also been making virtual tours where you can go online and click through every room of a property. It makes sense that virtual reality would be the next up and coming way to market properties.

For those that aren’t familiar with the concept, virtual reality is a newer technology where a person can put on a special headset that encases the eyes and tracks your motions and gives you a 3D visual of any space that you can physically walk through and look around. You can even communicate with other people in the same virtual room.

How can virtual reality change commercial real estate? For one, if you have clients from out of town, or even from across the globe, with VR they can tour a property from anywhere. Just slip on the headset and they are in the space, without have to spend any money or time on traveling.

Not only can you show clients space from anywhere in the world, you can set up conferences with team members who are all from different areas. Conference calls are great, but why sit on a call when you can put yourself in a room and see and dialogue with your team via virtual reality?

Think about having a space that a buyer or tenant wants to completely renovate or a property that hasn’t been built yet. With virtual reality technology you can build out an incomplete space or building and actually walk through it. You can see what a new office space will look like for tenants. Or investors can look at what apartment units will look like after completed.

The high costs of virtual reality is preventing many brokerages from taking the leap to use the new technology. Although many people are saying that the effectiveness of using VR in marketing make it worth it. Virtual reality may help people fill space up quicker, so owners don’t have to continue paying for vacancies which can be quite costly. How can you see virtual reality impacting the industry in the future?