Jeff Turner is the Chief Strategy Officer of immoviewer, a leading virtual 360° and 3D tour technology company. In his segment, he helps you understand how you can apply virtual and artificial reality to your real estate practice. He also explores the obstacles that can hinder this groundbreaking technology from going mainstream.

The 3D Virtual Reality space

Immoviewer helps real estate professionals combine flat 360 images together to create a simple and affordable 3D 360° tour. According to Jeff, the math that’s required to do that is really interesting and unique.

That expertise and uniqueness makes it a great tool for the 3D market because of the need to document, to get a sketch, a floor plan, etc. It’s only sad that there is more value in that market for 3D models of restoration and home inspection space than in real estate, since agents still haven’t caught on to virtual tours.

In fact, the owner of a major franchise told us once about the challenge he’s having in getting his brokers and agents to embrace video. Video. Can you imagine the struggle in getting them to use technology like virtual tours, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence?

Advances in the industry 

Just last year, there has been many major developments in the real estate industry, especially in the field of tech. The chip sets that were really required to jumpstart the movement are here and the pace has just continued to pick up, it’s just staggering.

For example, the Inman Conference has been the world’s real estate benchmark for a long time, but if we go back a decade, tech didn’t really have a place in it. Today, however, there’s a whole floor dedicated to new technology alone.

So, while new technology and developments are really coming in, what are real estate professionals doing with it?

It turns out, not a whole lot.

“We did a study in a MOS upstate in New York. More homes were sold last year with either one photo or even none, than houses with a virtual tour. Agents will change when the consumer demands the change. And until that time, they’re not going to change the model or the way they market homes,” Jeff says. “I obviously think that’s a mistake.”  The real estate industry, in general, seems like it’s waiting for a technology meteor to come and turn it into a dinosaur. The industry is waiting for change to happen.

Option paralysis

Perhaps one of the factors why agents aren’t driving change, in general, is that they’re constantly bombarded from all sides with new technologies, shiny objects, and promises, that they’re not sure what to do. It’s option paralysis.

Plus, unlike in Australia where the vendor covers for a lot of the agents’ expenses, in the US, the agent covers it all up front, before a house even sells. That’s definitely a contributing factor, because they cannot afford risk as much.

Luckily, at Inman we discovered a lot of game changers and driven people who are trying to get ahead of the curve rather than just sitting back and waiting for it to happen.

Check out our other Inman videos at our home page to learn developments and tips that will improve your practice.