While it is no surprise the first step in the home buying process nowadays is online search, it is hard not to stop and think about the actual numbers which paint a picture of the need for real estate marketing to utilize the online environment and innovative approach to visualization as much as possible.  

According to NAR’s 2020 statistics, 95% home buyers used online tools in the search process. For 41% of the recent buyers at the time of NAR’s survey, the first step in the home buying process was to look online at properties for sale.  

When it comes to the need to pick up the pace in architectural visualization, recent statistics from the real estate listings website Realtor.com could be a particularly good guideline, not only for existing properties, but also those in planning or under construction.  

Namely, Realtor.com’s survey found that virtual tours are at the top of the list of most helpful technology for home buyers, followed by detailed listing information. According to the statistics, 61% of home buyers find a virtual tour of the home to be the most helpful with 58% also voting for accurate and detailed listing information.  

Perhaps the most interesting figures from this survey are those showing that 31.3% of buyers younger than 35 indicated they would be willing to buy a new home sight unseen and tend to rely on detailed photos, virtual tours, or live video instead of an in-person visit. This is true for 28.3% of home buyers in the 35-54 age group and for 15.7% of those in the 55+ age group. 

These figures are a result of the listings website’s survey into the changes the Coronavirus pandemic brought to the real estate marketing and sales landscape, which are likely not going to reverse as we move forward, given the continuous progress of technology and greater use of online tools.  

Looking at the figures, they might reflect what we already intuitively knew to some extent, given the increasing utilization of online technology and the move towards ease-of-use.  

This was also the driver behind many property visualization and real estate marketing tools that we see today, including our xTend platform and xTend RE app.  

As we were developing our solution, ease-of-use for both sellers and buyers was our leading thought. This brought us to combining gaming approach with 3D visualization and virtual reality tours of properties yet to be built in our app, and to incorporating marketing functionalities into the xTend platform.  

With a solution that enables easy app download and navigation, buyers can access a seller’s properties offering and take virtual tours at any time, from anywhere, and get all necessary information by themselves, avoiding multiple back-and-forth meetings to find out more.  

Through the platform, property sellers can use all the tools at their disposal, including sharing access codes via social media, in newsletters or in descriptions on listings websites, and during trade fairs to allow wider public to browse their offer and take virtual tours.  

xTend also comes with an built-in email tool for direct invitations to contacts a seller has in their contact list.  

No online solution is complete without an analytics tool, so we also added this feature to help our clients inform their tactics and strategies and to assist in reaching real estate sales goals.  

And what about visual content for social media and other channels? Well, with the way we digitalize properties and with the way our 3D visualization and animation is done – there is already plenty of room to make numerous property videos and high-resolution images.  

To explore our architectural visualization as well as the xTend platform and the xTend RE app, feel free to browse our website. And if you have any questions, or would just like to have a chat to find out more, drop us an email at [email protected]