New Orleans CityBusiness: Technology trends: Drones, virtual tours in realtors’ toolkits by NAI Latter & Blum

Technology trends: Drones, virtual tours in realtors’ toolkits 

By: Andrew Valenti, Reporter

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November 6, 2019

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The real estate industry is an ever-evolving business, changing at an even faster pace as brokers and realtors leverage technology to help list and sell residential and commercial properties. At Mirambell Realty, 3D virtual tours give potential homebuyers another way to view a property. Owner Craig Mirambell said the firm has been using the technology for the past eight years and likened it to Google Street View, which provides interactive panoramic views from different positions. He said the brokerage chose this listing method because customers were starting to look at listings online before they even stepped foot in a house. “You basically have an open house every day of the week,” he said. “We made a pretty big investment in this and are committed to using it for all our listings.” Mirambell said all photos for listings are now taken by in-house professionals and then sent overseas for editing, rather than the company’s previous practice of using smartphones. The brokerage also recently started using drone videos for its “luxury” homes listings – anything above $750,000 – as well as waterfront properties. The drones can better capture images of larger sites, he said. “You list a 1,300-square-foot ranch house on a 50×100 lot, there’s not really much to look at,” he said. But it’s a roll of the dice on which technology prompts a sale. The company still uses social media, redirect advertisements, virtual staging and email marketing. Mirambell doesn’t want to risk discontinuing one because the 3D virtual tours could sell a property one day, while the next day a redirect advertisement could work just as well. On the commercial real estate side, Patrick Beard, who works in support services for Latter & Blum, said the firm uses drones and pictures as well as a software program called Matterport that allows a prospective buyer to see a property from a 360-degree view. First, the realtor takes pictures of the property every six feet. The software then stitches it all together to create full floorplans and allows the client to walk through it digitally. Beard said this method has closed many significant transactions. The firm also uses Buildout, a software program that automates marketing materials for different properties. He said it helps standardize and raise the quality of material that Latter & Blum rolls out. “These tools definitely help us close larger deals because they’re able to synthesize a lot of information into a useable and easily digestible format,” he said. Real estate firms are increasingly looking to tech companies for help. Hunter Bankston, CEO of Hammond-based ecko360, said he’s been helping realtors use technology to sell and list homes since 2016. His company specializes in photography, videography and aerial drones. Bankston said Matterport remains the most popular method for his clients. He said statistics show that 80% of buyers are more likely to buy a property if they view it through a virtual tour with an agent. “It really helps the agent stand out from the crowd,” he said. “Many times, a person will view one of these virtual tours and purchase the property without ever stepping foot in the house.” Bankston said this technology is transitioning into what he terms as “reality capture,” with internet speeds and hardware progressing to the point where environments can be recreated. Looking toward the future, Mirambell said “virtual living” could be added to his company’s toolbox. The concept allows a potential buyer to take photos of their furniture and appliances and plug them into software to see how they look inside a particular house. He also sees more automation where a prospective buyer walks into a house and an electronic voice starts describing the home. That would help selling agents who may not know every feature of the property, particularly when a listing agent is not available. “It would basically be like a virtual listing agent,” he said. To sign up for free CityBusiness Daily Updates, click here.

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DRONES

REAL ESTATE