Simplifying Guided Virtual Tours for Real Estate

From time immemorial, humans have dreamt of having a dream home at some point in their life. And when the moment of buying your own house finally arrives, everyone wants to be hundred percent sure. Earlier, people used to visit the property site to have a tour of the property. But, with advancements in technology, such physical tours have been replaced by guided virtual tours in many places. And where physical tours still exist, technology-assisted audio/video-guided virtual tours and 3D real estate virtual tours are becoming more and more prevalent.  

So, if you are a real estate agent or builder, you must be interested in knowing more about these virtual guided tours. And we are here with all the information your need! 

What are Guided Virtual Tours and What Are Their Types?

In the most simple words, a virtual guided tour is a property tour where either the customer or the builder (or its agent) will not be present physically at the site location. Sometimes, the customers might go to the site, and use some virtual audio clips to understand the property’s details. While, other times, the customers would sit in their homes and enjoy completely virtual video or 3D real estate tours of the properties. 

Now, these virtual tours can be of many types. We have listed some of them below:

1. 1. Audio Guided Tours: In this type of tour, the customer goes to the construction site but does not meet the builders or agents. Instead, they scan a QR code to open a recorded audio guide of the property, which guides them as they travel through the place. 
   2. Video Virtual Tours: In this type of tour, the builders develop a video stack that they send to their customers. The customers can see the videos to tour the property. 
   3. 3D Real Estate Virtual Tours: This AR-VR-guided 3D real estate tour is the most advanced one, where a prototype of the entire property is created using AR-VR. The customers can have a tour of it from their homes themselves!         

Virtual Guided Tours for Real Estate: Past, Present, and Future

Property tours have always had their own charm. In the past, an agent or sometimes even the builder himself would take the customer on a tour of the complete property, showing the complete area while explaining each and every detail. During this conversation, the builders often explained the purpose of the design, and how the buyers should or could use the space. 

But from the last few years, and mainly during the COVID-19 pandemic, such tours have taken a halt due to multiple reasons. But, the popularity of virtual tours started rising. In the beginning, these guided tours were in the form of decks or slides with videos embedded into them. Gradually, video tours came into being, where the customers could see the entire property. And audio-guided tours became equally popular when the COVID-19 situation improved a bit. 

Nowadays, audio-guided tours and AR-VR virtual tours are the most popular ones, which serve two completely different purposes. Audio-guided tours often prove to be a great help when the builder or its agent cannot meet the customers personally, or during the open-house days when any customer can come and visit the property.                                                                                     

In this blog, we will discuss how you can create your own audio-guided tours and video tours very easily using Muvi One. But before that, let’s have a look at some of the major benefits of Real Estate Guided Tours.    

Advantages of Real Estate Guided Tours

The Real Estate Guided Tours make the seller’s job easier, as they do not need to handle multiple customers personally. It makes the buyer’s home-hunting experience better too, as they can get a detailed overview of the property. Here are some major benefits of these tours.

1. Real estate guided tours save a lot of time for both the buyers and the sellers, as the buyers can get a quick tour of the property without any human assistance from the buyers. 
2. Compared to the other forms of real estate virtual tours, audio and video guided tours are easier to implement and get operational quickly.  
   
3. The audio guides are quite engaging for the customers, as they can tour the entire property using these guides at their own convenience. 

How to Make Virtual Tours for Real Estate

Developing a real estate guided tour involves many steps, and all of them are extremely crucial. Let’s take you through these steps one by one.

1. Develop The Initial Script

Start off with writing the script for your audio tours. Try to include all the essential design elements, routes, descriptions of rooms, and other spaces inside the property. 

2. Edit The Script 

Hire an editor who understands both your and your customer’s needs. Such an editor can form the perfect bridge between your plans and your customer’s needs.

3. Start Recording 

Once the script is ready, start recording the audio. Always use a professional mic and recording setup to get the best results. 

4. Develop the Platform

Develop your audio or video streaming platform yourself or by hiring a developer where you can launch the audio or video guided tours so that your customers can access them. The second option is cheaper and more effective- subscribing to an end-to-end ready-to-use audio/video platform like Muvi One where you get a ready-made platform without writing a single line of code!

All features are pre-built and you can even ask for customizations as per your choice with Muvi One. Also, you save on both time and money as you don’t have to waste hours on coding and it’s quite cost-effective too. You would also have the option of having dedicated account managers for guiding your streaming journey with us and making it an easier one.

5. Upload the files to your platform 

Once the platform is ready, upload your audio or video guided tours to the platform and publish them. You can also connect the link of these tours to a QR code generated using a QR Codes Generator. This allows users to easily access your tours by scanning the code with their smartphones. Your customers will be able to scan the QR codes and enter the tour. 

Develop Your Virtual Guided Tour Website With Muvi One

Developing a very good audio-guided real estate tour becomes very easy with Muvi One, as you don’t need to write a single line of code! And you get every single infrastructure you need out of the box.  

For this, you need to first sign up with Muvi One using this link. 

Once you have registered and created your Muvi One account, log in to your CMS and follow the steps given below:     

1. Develop the front end of your store using Muvi One’s Visual Designer. 
2. In case you have business partners, you can add them as content partners. 
3. Upload the audio tracks developed by you and your partners. It would be great if you create separate audio tracks for separate properties you want to list on your site. 
4. Now create audio playlists for each listed house and generate a unique QR code for each house. 
5. Downloaded the generated QR codes from our CMS. 
6. Print this QR code for display at the venue.
7. If you want, you can share this QR code and audio tracks through promotional emails too! 
8. If you want to further ease the process, you can develop your own android and iOS apps too. Read this blog to know about the process in detail. 

And that’s it, you are now ready with your audio-guided real estate tour. And you can develop a video-guided tour too, in a very similar manner. Just generate a video playlist instead of the audio playlist. 

So, how does it work?

It’s pretty simple! Whenever prospective buyers visit/look into the property, they would be prompted to scan the QR code displayed or received

When scanned, the QR code will open up the playlist on the Mobile app of the lead (if developed) or browser (website) and play the audio tracks. The audio tracks will describe each room like the sitting area, kitchen and dining area, bedrooms, etc one by one, and the buyer can roam around the entire place accordingly. 

To Sum Up

Guided Virtual Tours are growing popular as they are extremely time-saving and convenient. The real estate agents and builders do not need to be present on spot with the customers. Instead, the customer can scan the QR code and easily get a virtual tour of the property at their own convenience. 

But developing such virtual tour platforms from scratch is difficult. That is why you can use a no-code platform like Muvi One. Using Muvi One, you can deploy your own audio and video-guided virtual tours within just a few hours. Want to try it out? Sign up to start your 14-day free trial today! And yes, it is completely free, we won’t ask for your credit card details for it ?.

FAQs

1. What equipment do I need to create a guided virtual tour?

Ans: To create a guided virtual tour, you will usually need the following equipment:

• A platform where you will release your tours (you can vouch on Muvi One for this?)
• A good audio mic and audio recording setup (in case you are developing audio tours)
• A good camera to record the interiors of your property. 
• An AR-VR setup or studio in case you want to create 3D Real Estate Virtual Tours. 

2. Can guided virtual tours be customized for different properties?

Ans: Yes, of course. You can create different guided virtual tours for different properties, and then link the properties with their respective tours. 

3. Can Muvi integrate virtual tours with a real estate website?

Ans. With Muvi One, you can create an end-to-end multi-purpose real estate website, which you can use for multiple purposes. You can create and launch virtual audio and video guided tours, or simply develop a website to showcase your property details.

4. What are the benefits of virtual tours?

Ans. Here are some of the benefits of virtual tours:

• Saves a lot of time, as your customers don’t need to meet you personally anymore. 
• You can quickly set up an audio-guided virtual tour. 
• It gives more flexibility to your customers.