Selling Homes Online? New Home-Shopping Tools Can Help

As the home purchasing process increasingly moves online, the quality of digital tools and the virtual experiences for consumers also become more important. And, in a tough housing market, such tools can make a real difference in differentiating a home builder’s product offerings.

In December 2022, members of the New Home Trends Institute by John Burns Real Estate Consulting spoke at and attended the Housing Transformation Summit in Seattle. Summit attendees learned about recent successes in innovative digital solutions for virtual model homes and design centers. The New Home Trends Institute compiled this list of the top five tips, including:

Tip 1: Invest in great images.
According to BoxBrownie.com, a company offering visual property marketing services, buyers spend 60% of their time looking at images, compared to text copy and other ad elements.i Use high-quality 3D floor plans and photorealistic renderings over text-based construction plans to help customers better visualize layouts.

Tip 2: Take advantage of the flexibility of virtual.
Physical model homes limit the number of finishes they can display, but it’s easy to create different versions of a virtual home tour in order to appeal to a variety of customers. Interactivity plays a big role in deepening engagement—for virtual design centers, this means being able to change finishes, flooring, etc., as customers become more emotionally invested when they’re able to customize to their liking.

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