Merging of VR and Real Estate

Virtual Reality, Real Estate, and the Future of the Modern Buyer

Your master-planned community is truly exceptional. Now you need to capture potential homebuyers’ attention and stir their emotions – but this can be a challenge. The static images you show them are beautiful, but they don’t give a real sense of depth, space and proximity. You may have truly remarkable features in your community, like a zip line – or world-class polo fields with accompanying horse barns, but these amenities need to be experienced to be truly appreciated. Moreover, you’re struggling to stand out in an ever-growing market – and are having trouble attracting prospects from a distance because they aren’t making the commitment to plan a visit in person.

These problems can be a thing of the past if you leverage SkyNAV technology to introduce your planned community online. SkyNAV is immersive marketing that captures potential buyers’ attention, places them into the landscape, and allows them to interact with features in the surrounding landscape. You’ll generate high-caliber leads, attract out-of-town buyers (even before construction and development are complete) – all while saving your sales team time and money. Here’s how:

SkyNAV Services: the Next Level of VR

SkyNAV captures sky-to-ground 360° 3D tours that are not just immersive, but VR ready. Here are just a few of its features: 

• Immerse your visitors completely with high-quality 3D imagery within an interactive map.
• Allow visitors to watch your entire video collection within the tour, giving them spatial perspective.
• Visitors can switch back and forth between aerial and ground views.
• Viewers can experience a SkyNAV tour on any desktop, mobile device and in virtual reality (requires no downloadable app.)

Is VR a passing fad, or something worth investing in to promote your community? Here are some quick numbers and estimates to think about:

• Augmented Reality (AR) and VR grew 25.5% in Quarter 2 of 2017, with 2.1 million orders
• The International Data Corporation predicts a growth to 100 million VR units by 2021
• The current amount of VR devices (excluding Google’s Cardboard) is about 10 million
• Market leaders in VR are currently Samsung, Sony and Facebook, with 60% combined market share.

SkyNAV in Motion: Newland Communities

Newland Communities, a leader of national community development, has embraced immersive marketing by using SkyNAV technology for several of its communities’ online tours. One of such communities is Sweetwater, Texas. Now, homebuyers who are interested in Sweetwater can fly over the community, enjoying full 360° sky views. When they see a feature that piques their interest, they can dive down for a ground’s-eye virtual tour or click on any of the info beacons that may contain video, 3D experiences, or photos and text. The Sweetwater community has made their tours truly immersive by adding ambient audio to several of the scenes, bringing even more realism to the viewer. Once each feature is discovered and enjoyed, viewers simply go back and resume their aerial journey. They can even fly over to nearby Austin, Texas to give them an enhanced perspective of the experience. The tour is programmed for WebVR, but can be viewed on any device: tablet, mobile phone, computer, etc. Best of all, homebuyers can explore the Sweetwater community at their own pace and convenience. For more Newland Community tours click here.

Does 360° Motivate Viewers to Purchase? 

An important question remains: SkyNAV and other WebVR technology may be interesting and fun, but does immersive marketing successfully motivate viewers to become homeowners? The statistics are truly encouraging.

• 58% of home buyers found their next home on a mobile device.
• 360° photos perform 45% better than conventional pictures.
• 29% more people viewed a 360° video than the same video in a traditional format.
• Users spent an average of 25 minutes longer on a SkyNAV tour than on any other page on the website.

North Carolina’s St. James Plantation, an upscale coastal community, used SkyNAV technology to introduce online visitors to its amenities and experiences. Dan Kingsbury, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for St.James Plantation confirms that SkyNAV has been a smashing success for his team. “We have more showings booked as a result of SkyNAV, and it’s only been live for 4 weeks,” said Kingsbury.

How Can You Implement SkyNAV to Increase Bookings?

With immersive 360° technology, you can use many different tactics to promote, incentivize, and intrigue prospective homebuyers… all with increased bookings and sales as the result. Here are just a few ways this can be done.

1. Take a step inside: One of the most captivating features of SkyNAV is the integration of 360° views: not just aerial, but exterior ground, and indoor tours. You can even add audio to make the experience multi-sensory. The home buyer will not have to imagine: they will be immersed in the experience.
2. Remarketing: Once your viewer has become captivated, it’s time to throw out a little incentive to motivate them. “Like what you see? Book an in-person tour now and dinner’s on us!”
3. Direct Sales: During the VR tour, invite the viewer to make a reservation to take a tour in-person.
4. Content Marketing: The imagery from a SkyNAV tour can be used on every medium you can imagine. Use 360° images on Facebook and other photo assets on Instagram and Twitter. Share videos on YouTube and Vimeo. Use images on websites, emails and other digital marketing. That’s just the beginning of what you can do.

There is no doubt about it … SkyNAV is the ultimate shift in the immersive marketing experience for homebuyers contemplating life in a master-planned community.  Your community can benefit from this one-of-a-kind user experience that is guaranteed to convert viewers into customers. We are fully FAA (part 107) certified, and NCDOT approved. Reach out to us to find out how your community will benefit from SkyNAV.

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