Personally Guidable Virtual Apartment Tours the Next Upgrade for Leasing
Coming out of the pandemic, marketers have more and better tech tools to build their virtual tours either through images, video or virtual reality.
The most advanced tool is through 360-degree cameras that can capture individual apartment homes from various angles and produce a walk-able video where the prospective resident chooses their own path, rather than a pre-recorded, set video designed for the community itself.
Leading apartment operators discussed how to leverage this technology and how its capabilities are what the future holds in apartment marketing during “Tour Talk: Enlightening the Customer With Virtual Experiences” at the Apartment Innovation and Marketing Conference on Monday in Huntington Beach, Calif.
Sarah Chezbro, Senior Marketing Manager of Greystar Development Group; Dave Seiler, Executive Vice President, Red Tail Residential.; and Kadi Mancuso, Director of Marketing for Redwood Capital and Redwood Residential; comprised the panel.
“There’s been a social shift where now all generations are comfortable with this sort of online experience and a large majority of prospective renters are not insistent on coming to the property first for a tour,” Seiler said.
Mancuso said that operators must realize that even if they only have four vacant apartments, and in this current high-demand apartment-living environment, it’s critical to be able to showcase those apartment homes to out-of-state prospects or those who aren’t ready to visit the property in person. LCP360 technology enables them to do that.
Dave Seiler pointed out - "Communities that relied mostly on images – and some had as many as 84 of the property on their websites -- visitors found that to be too much."
Here are more strong comments from the session:
- Seiler said that communities that relied mostly on images – and some had as many as 84 of the property on their websites -- visitors found that to be too much.
- The technology enables prospects to see what the pool looks like from a particular balcony or where the sun rises or sets
- These panelists use LCP360 technology, which is also linked to a touch tour, interactive map-based platform from Engrain so that leasing professionals can be sure to point to a specific unit to view and not just a floorplan.
- This lets prospects during their virtual tours to turn down this hallway instead of the other, as what happens during recorded tours.
- Seiler said that as a property buyer or investor, “I have interest in communities that are not using this technology because I know that if I acquire it there’s great ‘lift’ potential for my investment.”
- The apartment industry is red-hot right now, Seiler added, “but we know there’s going to be a downturn eventually. There’ll be that point where we’re 88 percent occupied so it’s best to use these video tools now and capture all of our units with it so that we’re ahead of the game and can be more competitive when that time comes.”
Click here to watch the replay.
Replays are $49 each or $399 for all of them.
They are complimentary for AIM attendees for the thirty days following AIM.
Click here for the slides.