When Virtual Reality (VR) was first predicted in the late 80s and then created in the early 90s although many people could foresee its uses in Medicine, Engineering and of course Gaming fewer people could see some of the more niche uses that it would be applied into.
One of the biggest is the use of Virtual Reality in the selling and designing of homes, this activity has taken on a much larger audience since the introduction of light weight and portable VR kit by the likes of Valve and HTC partnership with their Vive headset and also manufacturers such as MSI with their portable VR Backpacks.
This allows people to view and walk around properties that have been scanned with a 360Cam (A camera that takes videos or pictures in a 360* degree view) and then rendered into a fully immersive 3D virtual reality layout.
Buying off plan.
When it comes to being used by building and large developers, this gives a whole new meaning to the term, Buying off plan.
Now rather than looking at some architectural drawings and a few mocked 3D images, you can have a fully immersive sales experience, the agent could walk you around your new home before it has even been built, allowing you to fully customise your building before they even start digging the foundations.
Imagine being able to walk around your dream home and change the wallpaper or the carpet, placing light switches or even the appliances that you want to have installed, How about windows? How will they affect the lighting in the living room?
Cannot decide on all these features, why not use a template that the developers could have mocked up.
As a developer, do you want to add different finish levels, a basic one for those first time buyers, how about a more upmarket one for those of your discerning clientele.
Rather than building 2 or 3 show homes they can now do it all within a digital sector and reuse these styles time and time again.
In the next 10 to 15 years VR technology is going to become so second nature that we won’t know how we coped with making these choices without it.
Selling your current property
How about when it comes to selling your property, don’t you get exhausted with so many different agents and possible purchasers walking around your home, making sure it is show home ready when you have 3 rampaging children and a dog that can’t seem to stay away from the mud, when you have a viewing in 15 minutes or maybe you have a company such as National Homebuyers coming to view the property, with a standard smartphone you could do the 3d walk through and send it straight to your agent, or they could come in and do a walk through with some higher end equipment, they can then have potential buyers come into their office and do the whole viewing from the comfort of a chair with a coffee and biscuits.
Conclusion
In conclusion since the invention and to the current level of refinement that the VR technology has reached, this will change the home buying and selling landscape forever, and not just for the seller and the big developers, but also for those of us who would like to sell independently.
