Amidst stay-at-home orders and social distancing across the U.S., people are still in the market to buy and sell homes, forcing real estate agents to get creative with digital home showings.
In the last week alone, Redfin reported an increase of 494% in requests for agent-led video home tours. In light of this, Redfin has suspended all open houses and moved entirely to virtual tours.
Zillow has also reported a dramatic increase in their 3D home tours.
What was once thought of as the future of real estate has quickly become the current reality.
“Once a novelty, virtual home tours are rapidly becoming the norm in many markets,” Papasan said. “And, the spikes in virtual home tour activities in any given area seems to depend on the strictness of local COVID-19 ordinances is what we’re finding. In the most strict, the sellers themselves serve as camera operators while the agents and buyers watch online.”