A new marketing approach for new homes

Drive around any city or town and you’ll soon see hoardings advertising brand new developments. It should come as no surprise, as the current house building target in the UK is 300,000 homes every year. The rapid rate of construction, however, isn’t confined to just one country. With the world’s population growing by an estimated 82 million per annum, the need for more places to live is a global issue.

Whether the tenure is owner occupier or build to rent, a common thread unites housing building and that’s the desire to get people reserving units before they are even built. Off plan marketing activity is now the backbone of any developer’s marketing strategy – presenting a style of living and communicating a sense of space before ground has been broken.

A glossy brochure or site model will only inform a prospective buyer or tenant to a certain level but from there on in lies a huge gap – one between a marketing promise and a physically built property.

Virtual tours bridge that gap, providing the closest viewing experience to actually visiting a finished property. For house builders, the process starts by creating a portfolio of virtual tours that illustrate every house type in their portfolio - using existing stock and current show homes as the basis. Each property only has to be scanned once - fully furnished, if desired – which can help solve the costly problem of creating numerous show homes to illustrate different house types at one development. 

The result is a legacy marketing portfolio that provides a tangible return on investment. The relevant virtual tours can be integrated into specific development sales strategies over a period of months – even years - especially during pre-launch and off plan phases. Plus, Matterport’s virtual tours are fully compatible with the leading property portals, so they can be used as striking online listings that compel home movers to click to explore. 

What’s more, virtual tours keep working hard for house builders when staff have moved off site and the show home/marketing suite has shut. Our virtual tours will help sell those last few units when resources are diverted to another development.

While there are immediate advantages for local buyers and tenants, virtual tours are an essential tool for house builders who are preparing a targeted international launch, as they give people the chance to explore each property type from anywhere in the world.

As well as the tour itself, which is easy to navigate by the user, Matterport’s virtual tours offer the ability to add extra details. For house builders, it’s easy to embed aspects such as: a url to the development’s reservation or data capture page; a site map showing the home’s position on the development; a PDF detailing the specification or even a local area video to give people a flavour of the community in which they’ll live.

Also adding extra clarity is Matterport’s fully interactive 3D doll’s house view, which is an automatic byproduct created when using our cameras to scan a property. Every house builder knows floor plans are a crucial element of marketing new homes and our 3D models elevate the humble 2D floor plan to a new level, without any extra work on the house builder’s part. 

The 3D digital twin dollhouse view where any area of the space can be interacted with

As if this wasn’t enough, our virtual tours also create HDR-quality still photographs, accurate 3D measurements and high-quality scale drawings from one single property visit and one piece of equipment.

If you are a house builder, developer or agent responsible for marketing off plan and new build properties, contact Matterport to add virtual tours to your marketing toolbox.