Survey Reveals Need for Visual Technology in Real Estate; One in Five Purchased Their Homes Sight Unseen

Now, roOomy is further bridging the gap between 2D images and immersive 3D, AR and VR environments. Today, roOomy announced the results of a study exploring the behaviors of homebuyers and renters, and the pain points they experience while searching for a new home. 60 percent of respondents noted that they prefer to see homes furnished and professionally staged, or both furnished and empty, before making a purchase or signing a lease. And, nearly 40 percent of home seekers have difficulties visualizing themselves living in a space and/or finding a property that meets their preferred styles.

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“We’re enabling our Real Estate partners to transform the home buying and renting processes with the development of custom apps that allows users, both agents and home seekers, to take control of how they visualize a new space. In this digital era, consumers expect to use advanced technology regularly, including when considering one of the biggest purchases of their lives – a home,” said Pieter Aarts, CEO of roOomy.

By offering custom staging apps that allow users to place virtual furniture in their new home, as well as shoppable virtual stagings that seamlessly integrate with listing sites, Real Estate professionals now have access to nimble visualization tools that better help their clients find and move into their new homes quickly and for top dollar. The tools are also cost effective, as the platform does not require headsets or gear, and ensures their partners avoid spending considerable dollars on physical staging and photoshoots. These technologies allow consumers to see beyond the current décor or layout, quickly and easily viewing each space in multiple styles and functions, to help them find their dream home. Respondents recognized the immediate need for innovative and helpful tools in the industry, yet only 14.1 percent of respondents of the survey used AR or VR in their previous home searches, confirming the opportunity for new and easy-to-use resources.

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In addition, the survey revealed other industry-specific insights, including:

• Many people trust technology to provide accurate depictions of a property. More than seven out of ten (71 percent) respondents toured or viewed images online of the homes that they were most interested in before walking through the properties.
• As buying sight unseen continues to grow in popularity, AR and VR tools will become a necessity, not a nice-to-have, for consumers to be confident in their choices. More than one out of five (21 percent) of those surveyed leased or purchased their homes without physically walking through the property first.
• The marriage of retail and Real Estate will be bigger than ever in 2019, as consumers continue to look for new solutions to make the move-in and home furnishing process easier. When moving into a new space, 65.4 percent said their top pain points included the stress of buying new furniture at once, shopping for furniture or designing their homes, and finding furnishings to match their existing pieces.

Recently, roOomy and Sotheby’s International Realty Affiliated LLC announced the launch of Curate by Sotheby’s International Realty, a first-of-its-kind mobile AR app powered by roOomy.

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“When we made the decision to create an AR app, we knew we’d need an innovative partner who had experience with the technology and one who could deliver a quality solution in a short period of time. roOomy has been that partner,” said John Passerini, Global VP of Interactive Marketing, Sotheby’s International Realty. “We are the first Real Estate brand to take a decisive step into AR, creating a tool that will help Real Estate professionals with their home staging needs, and help their clients visualize themselves in a home. None of this would have happened without the technical skill, innovative technology and business acumen of roOomy.”

Experiencing impactful benefits, the Sotheby’s International Realty team and their sales associates have expressed the value in having access to a custom tool.

“I used Curate to demonstrate how the home could be presented to buyers with different lifestyles and design preferences,” said Nick Church, Pacific Sotheby’s International Realty sales associate. “The seller felt confident in my ability to use the latest technology to sell the home. Curate and the roOomy Virtual Staging were deciding factors in securing the listing (…) and helped secure an additional listing because of it.”

roOomy’s innovative solutions are made possible by their proprietary and highly scalable 3D modeling, CGI capabilities and state-of-the-art render engine.

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roOomy has also launched a simple tool to add incremental value and data capturing potential to the visual marketing function of a property listing page. Just like “shop the look” on many furniture retailer sites, roOomy Ready, is a shoppable image offering that provides Real Estate partners with embeddable, shoppable and interactive virtual stagings to place on their website. This technology, as well as brands featured on the roOomy platform, like Amazon, Houzz and Wayfair, will now be available to new and existing partners.

Using Google Consumer Surveys, roOomy surveyed 1,500 consumers that are currently hunting for or have recently found their new home. All respondents were located in the continental United States.

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