Tech Like Videos and Digital Signs Have Changed Real Estate

The aftermath of the pandemic is still impacting businesses as they fight for survival with high inflation. Office costs have been reduced with remote working. Most industries have accepted staff not in the office as technology has made it possible to still manage them remotely. However, it’s not the only impact experienced by businesses in health, travel, leisure and real estate. Before the pandemic, the workplace also included rooms for meeting and assisting clients. Plus, for real estate agents, it’s not just what happens in the workplace but also how they conduct home visits and viewings.

Lockdowns and subsequent social distancing rules changed how real estate agents could show prospective buyers around properties. Purchasing a home is a big-ticket item insofar as most of us only do it a handful of times in our lifetime, and we’re not going to buy a home unseen! Yet lockdowns made the practice impossible.

Plus, covid didn’t dampen buyer demand for property. If anything, it strengthened it. In some countries, for example, the UK, the number of homes sold went up, not down. Demand was robust in the USA as people rethought their lives and moved.

Homeowners realising their home was not ideal for remote working, and all inhabitants sharing the same spaces for 24 hours a day have been keen to move on. Plus, some homeowners realise living with Covid may be a way of life now.

The must-have list of requirements for a new property include:

• Backyard or rear garden
• Indoor-outdoor living
• Workable interior design for remote working

To get homes with gardens, and more usable space, a move from inner-city locations to urban and rural areas is popular with prospective buyers. Plus, being closer to family or friends is also a driver for selling up and moving to a different location should future restrictions on travel apply.

Technology To The Rescue

During Covid restrictions, Agents could not show people around homes, yet property sales rose in some countries. This will undoubtedly perplex many people as very few buyers will sign deals and purchase agreements on a property without the walk around.

3D videos

Technology in the form of online 3D videos came to Real Estate Agents’rescue. When the vendors (sellers) and their families were not at home, Agents could video the property and post the 3D videos online for prospective buyers to view. While the in-person open home walk-around is and will always be preferred to viewing home tours online, in the absence of it being possible, the videos are the next best thing, and the upturn in sales is the proof.

Real estate agents have jumped on board with collaboration tools like video chat for communicating with buyers and sellers. Plus, pre-Covid consumers may have seen the odd video clip of a property for sale but nothing like what they are witnessing now. No longer are drones used just for high-end luxury properties.

Covid has made the videos the go-to for all property listings – mainly where the sellers are highly motivated for sale. What’s more, videos are the norm now in marketing, even with the return on in-person home viewings. We all prefer video to static images anyway, so video home tours to provide the property’s first impression was always going to happen even with the laggards of the technology adoption curve.

Digital screens

Not only are the videos found online but also on digital display screens. Digital signs for real estate businesses are now an investment worth doing as prospective homebuyers get out and about in shopping areas.

Real estate agencies can set up digital display screens in their windows to show shortened versions of the 3D home viewing videos that attract foot traffic and follow-up inquiries.

Using digital screens to share information about the area and news and property listings keeps shoppers viewing the digital display screens for longer.

Using collaboration tools, video home tours, and digital sign screens are just some of the ways real estate agents are moving into the future with technology.