How to Prepare Engaging Virtual House Tour to Close More Deals [2024]

Nowadays buyers are overwhelmed by the time-consuming process of visiting numerous properties. Successful realtors now rely on VR tours to tackle this, significantly boosting their closing rates.

– Virtual tour listings earn 87% more pageviews than house listings without tours.

– 54% of buyers avoid property listings without virtual tours.

Modern virtual house tours come with many advanced elements such as tooltips, contact forms, embedded videos, and so on. This takes user engagement to a whole new level and viewers tend to trust you more.

According to a survey, 63% of potential home buyers considered placing bids without even visiting the house thanks to a detailed virtual tour.

Today, you will learn why virtual tours work and how you can create virtual tours of properties to start closing more deals.

So let’s begin.

What is a Virtual House Tour

A virtual house tour is an online experience where you can explore properties through immersive 360-degree views. It allows you to virtually explore each room and space.

It also provides a realistic sense of the property’s layout and features. This innovative tool is convenient for prospective buyers or renters who want to preview homes without physically visiting them.

By offering detailed visuals and interactive capabilities, virtual house tours simplify the house-hunting process, saving time and effort.

Overall, virtual house tours revolutionize the way people search for and experience potential homes. It also makes the process more convenient and efficient.

How Virtual House Tours Can Ensure More Closed Deals

Maybe you still use images or videos of the properties when listing them on their websites. But, regular images can’t accurately represent a room’s lighting, ambiance, and surroundings of the property.

On the other hand, sure you can add a video walkthrough of your house. But that doesn’t feel like a real tour. It still leaves a lot of doubts in mind.

And even if the videos and images are great, people still need to give you a call to find out minor details about the house such as the flooring material, the roof details, etc.

That is why most buyers look at tons of properties, and you handle several visitations before finally finding a successful client. A virtual tour can change that.

How A Virtual House Tour Can Give The Best Experience

You can easily implement a virtual walkthrough to get the best experience. Now I am going to tell you how a virtual house tour can provide it. So let’s get started

• With a 360-degree view and full control, you can explore every inch of the virtual house at your own pace, unlike videos that limit what you see. This interactive format gives you the freedom to look around as you please. It provides more engaging and insightful virtual reality house tours.
• Today’s virtual tours are designed to provide detailed property information online without the need for a phone call. Imagine clicking on hotspots in the virtual house’s rooms to learn about dimensions or materials. You can even watch a short explainer video during the 3D house tours to understand important details about the home, just like you would ask over the phone.
• Adding soothing background music enhances the online house tour’s ambiance, making you feel welcomed and immersed in the experience. Interactive buttons can guide you to additional images or videos of features like the swimming pool, giving you a deeper perspective.
• For your convenience, there’s a button to submit bids or schedule appointments right from the virtual home tour. This seamless integration helps you take the next steps efficiently.
• By the end of your 3D virtual home tours, you’ll have a realistic sense of the property, and most of your questions will be answered. When you reach out, you’ll be well-prepared and confident about potentially making this virtual house your home.

Both The Realtor And The Buyer Will Be Benefitted

As you saw, a virtual house tour can give the best experience to the buyer. But it is more than what you think. It gives both of you extra benefits.

Benefits of a Realtor	Benefits of a Buyer
1. Significant Market Exposure The more buyers visit your virtual house tour listing, the more clients you attract to your agency. Plus, when you sell a house with such a great display, your client is more likely to share his/her experience with many others, who may then consider working with you to find homes for themselves.	1. Detailed with More Research Time Virtual home tours give buyers the freedom to get a look at the complete property more closely and help them inspect it thoroughly. Also, since it’s available online, a buyer will get more time to look at it in his/her own free time. There is no rush compared to when taking a live visitation.
2. Draw Long Distance Clients Virtual tours on your website can open the door to attract buyers even from far away. Most buyers are reluctant to travel a long way because they fear getting disappointed with the visit. A virtual tour will save them time and money to inspect a house, and they may consider buying from you even if they are from a distance.	2. Comfortable Experience Since the tour gives more control to the buyer, they will find it more comfortable to take a tour while resting on a chair or maybe a couch. And if he/she has a VR box, they can get the live tour while at home. Then there are all those engaging elements in the tour that will make them love the experience compared to watching images or videos.
3. Increase Website Traffic Once you start to reach more clients via the virtual house tours on your website, maybe via Ads or social media, your website traffic will start to increase because now, Google recognizes engaging content and ranks them faster.	3. A Better Way to Make a Decision Normally, the process of buying a house can be quite stressful at times. Browsing through several properties, visiting the place, having a meeting with you, processing paperwork, and so much more. So people often get confused about which homes to discuss further. Since the virtual tour answers most of the questions, a buyer is more comfortable moving forward with the process rather than staying in a dilemma between multiple houses.

Tips for High-Quality 360 Images for a Virtual House Tour

You must have seen various property listing websites. They sell vacant properties and focus on showing the best prices to customers.

These websites are filled up with images of individual property or a house. But the rooms are not highlighted or shown properly in most cases.

To properly showcase a virtual room tour, you will have to take images from each room’s vantage point. This results in having too many images do nothing but confuse the potential buyer.

On the other hand, a virtual house tour doesn’t cause any issues like this. You can take a good-quality image of each room and put it into the virtual tour easily.

1. Proper & Clean Decoration

As I mentioned earlier, virtual tours will highlight empty spaces and extraordinary features. But too much of an empty house can look dull.

Add enough furniture to make the virtual luxury home tour. But avoid adding unnecessary items inside a house tour which can make the space seem untidy.

2. Set Up Appropriate Lighting

Take the 360 panorama image in bright and appropriate lighting. The rooms will look dull if you take the photos in dim lighting or at night time.

Not only dullness, but less lighting can also make a room appear smaller or congested than it is. Raise curtains and switch on the necessary lights to increase the intensity of the room.

3. Keep The Image Location In Mind

Try to take the image from a perspective where a person will be standing. This varies from room to room.

But placing yourself in the precise center of the room is the best approach. The whole room with windows and roofs is covered when each room tour image is taken from the center.

So when your clients take the tour, they’ll feel like they’re standing right in the middle of the room.

4. Display Exceptional Features & Outdoors

Always show off the exceptional features inside virtual house tours. Make different tours indoors and outdoors to make your customers understand how big the house is with front and backyards.

Let’s say a listed house has a pavilion or a swimming pool in the backyard. Make sure to highlight these exceptional features in the virtual house tour.

5. Optimize the Photos

Don’t forget to check the images of the rooms before adding them to a tour. Check each image if they are good enough for creating a virtual tour. You can use 360 cameras to capture good images.

On top of that, you will need to take high-caliber images for your virtual house tour. As a matter of fact, you can even use an iPhone for great panorama images.

You can even use an iPhone or an Android app for your mobile. You’ll be able to take great images and optimize your photos without any prior experience at all.

How To Use A Virtual House Tour in Your WordPress Site

There are many virtual tour software available in the market. But one of the best Virtual Tour tools available is WPVR. It has both a Free and a Pro Version available.

WPVR is one of the most user-friendly virtual tour builders available. You can convert a 360 panoramic image into a virtual house tour within a few minutes.

It lets you optimize virtual tours for both smartphones and desktops. Make the tour load time and transitions fitting for the clients.

Also, the WPVR Pro Version will help you make a comprehensive virtual house tour with all the necessary elements you need.

Must-Have Features of a Virtual House Tour

Here are the features that will help you to create an engaging Virtual House Tours:

Hotspots

The first and foremost thing is to add hotspots to your virtual house tour. Hotspots are usually used to pinpoint an element with details, change scenes, or add a product/contact form to a tour.

Imagine, you have cabinets in a house for different use. You’ll be able to give details of each cabinet with images or videos using hotspots in a virtual tour.

Gyroscope

Increase the comfort of your potential buyers by offering a virtual house tour on smartphones.

With the Gyroscope Feature enabled, your clients can check out the house through smartphones whenever they want.

Scene Gallery

Each house has its own uniqueness with multiple rooms. With the Scene Gallery feature, add the individual room scenes into a single virtual house tour.

Your clients will enjoy the 360 tours of each room distinctly. Scene Gallery feature displays all the rooms in a gallery section.

Your clients don’t have to look here and there to go from one room to another. They can switch to any scene from the gallery within seconds.

Compass

Many house buyers prefer the north view of a house whereas many like the east view. They can determine the side of a window or door in a room using the virtual house’s compass feature.

Company Information

Your clients need to know about your agency and real estate company before making any purchasing decision.

With this feature, showcase your company logo as well as give a brief description of your company.

Explainer Videos

Explainer Video is the video that your clients can enjoy when they’re taking the house tour.

This feature will let you add a video inside the tour. You can explain the unique attributes of a house and what your clients will gain by purchasing that particular house and all the details you want.

So your users will be able to take the tour and watch the video at the same time.

You can also add tour background music, zoom controls, and many other attributes to a virtual house tour.

Conclusion

To close more deals with an engaging virtual house tour, You should utilize its immersive capabilities to showcase your properties.

By allowing viewers to explore each room from multiple angles, interact with embedded content like videos and informational hotspots, and even experience the ambiance through background music.

They offer convenience and flexibility. It also enables buyers to view properties remotely at any time. This saves time and attracts more serious prospects.

Ultimately, It can lead to quicker sales cycles, higher conversion rates, and a more satisfying experience for both buyers and sellers. So Consider using WPVR to create virtual house tours.

** FAQs **

How can virtual house tours benefit me as a buyer?

• Virtual house tours allow you to explore properties in detail from the comfort of your home. You can guide through each room, look at features closely, and get a realistic feel for the property’s layout and ambiance. This saves you time and helps you narrow down your choices efficiently.

Are virtual house tours as effective as physical visits?

• Yes, virtual tours are designed to provide a comprehensive viewing experience. They offer interactive features like informational hotspots and embedded videos that enhance understanding. While physical visits provide a hands-on experience, virtual tours can significantly reduce the number of properties you need to visit.

How do virtual house tours help sellers close deals faster?

• Virtual tours increase buyer engagement and confidence by providing a detailed, immersive experience. They allow sellers to showcase their properties 24/7 to a global audience, attracting serious buyers who are more likely to make informed decisions and submit offers quickly.

Can virtual house tours replace traditional showings entirely?

• While virtual tours offer a convenient initial viewing experience, many buyers may still prefer physical inspections before making a final decision. However, virtual tours can significantly reduce the need for multiple showings, saving time and effort for both sellers and buyers.

What features should I look for in a virtual tour to maximize effectiveness?

• Look for tours that offer high-quality 360-degree images, interactive elements like hotspots for detailed information, compatibility with mobile devices, and easy sharing options. These features enhance user experience and increase the probability of closing deals efficiently.