If You're Not Using Augmented Reality in Your Home Showings, Why Not?

Photo by Mateusz Dach from Pexels

Augmented reality, or AR, is available to anyone with a smartphone, which makes it an ideal tool for realtors showing unstaged homes. Why would someone show a home that hasn't yet been staged, you might ask? Depending upon where the home is located, staging can cost thousands of dollars, while an AR app is free to anyone with the technology capable of running it. How's that for incentive? 

AR Personalizes the Home-Shopping Experience

Many of today's realtors are already using AR technology -- have actually been using it for awhile, now -- because it's a cheap, convenient way to personalize the home-shopping experience. Prospective buyers are able to view the home while adding in the decor and furnishings that fit with their own tastes and ideas. No expensive goggles are required with AR, as they are in virtual reality (VR) tours. The technology is readily available and non-invasive enough for anyone to use. This makes it appealing to buyers from all age groups. 

The AR Experience Is Expected to Grow

While it's fun for potential homeowners to tour a home while adding in virtual tables, chairs and sofas that speak to them, bigger things are on the horizon for the home-show industry and its collaboration with Augmented reality. At least one real estate company is working on exterior for sale signs that allow interested buyers to scan the sign and change the color of the home's exterior on their mobile app. And it's theorized that AR could even become useful to home inspectors, who would view a home's major systems such as electrical wiring and plumbing virtually. No crawling under the house or exploring attics required. 

See a House Where No House Exists

Stuck with showing an empty lot? An AR app can set a home on those empty acres, giving a potential buyer the opportunity to envision his dream home up close. Change out front porch styles, trim colors and more at the touch of a screen and give any buyer a full experience that would otherwise exist only in his imagination. It's much easier to sell a home that's seen than once that's only envisioned. With augmented reality, it becomes possible to show a home that's yet to be built -- no model home required. 

If you're not using augmented reality in your home showings for both the interior and the exterior of the home, why not? It's a free, high tech and decidedly fabulous way to go.