real estate

real estate, virtual realityNovember 21, 2019

4 AI Trends Real Estate Brokers Must Use

Artificial Intelligence (AI) or the simulation of human intelligence using machines has slowly become part of everyone’s daily lives. That’s why we talk to Alexa, we drive smart cars, receive recommendations for movies and music on our smart devices, and play video games against computers. There is however a lag when it comes to real estate property selling and buying.

Real estate is considered as the largest asset class in the world. It has contributed a whopping amount of $3.5T to the US GDP. It’s good that now there are signs of AI application in buying and renting homes and offices.

The following are the top AI trends that real estate brokers must know by heart:

Alexa

According to a new study, about 48 percent of buyer inquiries don’t get responded to. An agent’s average time of response is 917 minutes. Another study, on the other hand, showed that buyers considered responsiveness as important. This is why brokers usually take turns in answering queries, but there are instances when no one is available to take inquiries. That’s where Alexa is needed, to respond to queries 24/7.

An Austin-based startup called Ojo Labs raised the amount of $71M to set up a chatbot for real estate that can answer queries on information regarding listings through text messaging. Some people are having second thoughts about chatbots due to their inability to answer open-ended questions. Ojo Labs also acquired WolfNet to improve its algorithm. Their competitors are Kelle and Structurally.

Zero Paperworks

Benjamin Franklin said that time is money. This is especially true in real estate. It takes time for a realtor to enter information about the property such as lighting, the number of rooms, location, room types, etc. This can be resolved through the use of Restb.ai. This is an AI that can automatically input information about a property based on its photos.

This tool has 30+ home scenes, 30+ high-value home features, and 16 architectural styles to classify images. This saves time and enhances the convenience of storing and accessing property information.

Leverton a start-up that is based in Berlin invested $17 million is now able to extract information from contracts, leases, and corporate documents. The broker simply uploads the documents, and AI extracts information such as rent charges, allowing brokers to find information faster and more conveniently.

Crystal Ball Prediction

It would be easier if real estate agents can easily predict who is going to list or buy a property soon. Rex is an LA-based startup with $70M in funding. It uses AI to predict buyers who are more likely to buy specific homes. It sends out targeted as to those who it considers as possible buyers. Based on the clicks, the same customer segments will be sent ads in the future.

A North-Carolina-based startup First with $7M in funds started using AI to analyze contracts and how these contracts are likely to sell in the following year. During the pilot period, First predicted more than 1,800 homes that are listed.

Reevaluate is another startup that can predict the individuals who are likely to move in the next 3 to 6 months. The company claims an accuracy rate of 36.4% as it analyzes over 200 data points based on information from spending habits and data news.

Virtual Reality Tour

A virtual reality tour can help any buyer envision the property listings of any real estate broker. A buyer can now see the internal and external views of properties using 360-degree views. This technology provides the buyer with the experience of walking through the listing, using only any mobile device or computer. This aids in their decision to buy or rent a property.

AI is not meant to replace the real estate brokers. They are here to make them more efficient. AI ensures property buyers the ultimate experience. If you want to know more about the impact of a virtual reality tour for your business, you may visit our website –Virtual Tour Easy.

real estate, virtual realityNovember 14, 2019

Rental Agencies Use VR When Viewing Apartment Units

The real estate industry makes use of multiple technologies to streamline the procedures involved in renting a property. Real estate agencies allow prospective customers to view their properties or apartment units without anyone from the agency. This move is supported by the Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism Ministry. The Ministry also allows crucial details and other issues that are relevant to rental contracts to be discussed using a video conference instead of face-to-face communication. This was the method used for completing 37,000 contracts by the end of March. The ministry also started to allow sending contracts and other paperwork through email in PDF form.

An official of the Ministry said that they are doing everything to avoid fraud which includes the use of private-sector digital signature services. The Ministry is also aiming to revise the Building Lots and Buildings Transaction Business Law for contracts to be concluded by using only digital files.

An event that is related to rental housing took place at the Tokyo Big Sight in Koto Ward, Tokyo during the end of July. At the tech company Nurve’s booth, the real estate people were connected to the box-shaped VR devices for inspecting the interior of a property located remotely.

Almost 4,000 real estate agencies have introduced the use of the VR preview services. Mitsubishi Estate Co. has also launched a VR service for its group rental properties so that customers don’t have to visit the real estate office personally.

Customers reserve online for viewing a property through a virtual reality tour. They can use the smartphone to get into the property. It comes in a self-service means that requires nobody from the real estate company. Potential renters will be able to check out the properties even on a weekend or holidays when the agency is closed.

Tablets are put inside the property for visitors to have access to information about the property and other related matters. Cameras are also installed to record the property’s interior to prevent problems. There are further initiatives implemented in the real estate industry that are intended to enhance customer service and promote reforms on the style of work through enhancing efficiency.

You can create your own virtual reality tour now. Visit Virtual Tour Easy for more details.

real estate, virtual realitySeptember 23, 2019

Virtual Staging Adds Real Impact to Multifamily Marketers

To provide a realistic sense of a home or an apartment unit’s potential, it is important to ensure virtual staging. Multifamily developers try to rely heavily on this tech-driven method to set them off from the residential properties. Virtual staging requires the integration of immersive elements and 3D components. There is a long list of techniques to choose from when it comes to real estate marketing, but most marketers choose augmented reality and virtual reality.

Augmented reality is expected to become a $133.78 billion business by the year 2021. Virtual reality and augmented reality enable renters and property buyers to visualize the property they want to buy. According to the National Association of Realtors, 77 percent of the buyers expressed that it was easier for them to buy a home by going through staging by virtual tours.

The following are some of the best benefits of virtual home staging:

Allowing for More Interactive Experiences

The usage of virtual tours and augmented reality in virtual staging is high. These enable property buyers to have a more realistic experience of the properties while the developers can bring virtual staging to a higher level. It enables future owners of the property to walk around and experience the property personally.

Buyers can also shop while virtually roaming around the property by clicking on the furnishings and properties that they can find while on tour. Virtual reality and augmented reality enable multifamily marketers to showcase their portfolios to diverse markets.

Can Help Cut Cost

Virtual staging helps increase profits from real estate properties. It also aids in cost-cutting. Physically staging a home can be expensive. With virtual staging, it only costs as much as the furniture being delivered. Virtual staging can also replace the model units which can be rented or sold to add more to the profits. The average amount of expenses reaches $20,000 to $24,000. This is based on the monthly expenses of renting a one-bedroom unit as a model.

Many Staging Options Available

Virtual staging is highly scalable which makes it easy for developers of multifamily properties to market various properties, each with unique characteristics and features. Each type of property will be ready for virtual interaction with property buyers. Virtual staging can feature an open-floor concept with minimal designs. Another unit may be more opulent with grand entrances and statement details.

If you are thinking of starting a virtual tour for staging a property soon, you can get a free virtual tour when you sign up to Virtual Tour Easy.

real estate, virtual realitySeptember 16, 2019

Newest Technology Trends Shaping Cities in the Future

Thirty percent of the total amount of energy consumed by the world comes from the commercial and industrial structures. It requires smart systems for building construction to help control climate change. Innovations in technologies involving the built environment are slow to come by compared to other industries. Across a lot of regions, cities are trying to test different ways to improve air quality, reduce traffic congestion, and to be able to supply clean and sustainable energy to the residents. The following are the top trends that shape the future of the built environment as discussed by experts in the field:

Pop-Up 3D-Printed Houses

3D printing is the more affordable, faster, and a highly innovative means of building in the construction industry. It is not impossible to see 3D printed houses becoming mainstream in the next few years. Using 3D printing, construction time could be cut short by hours to weeks. Customized components are likely to become cheaper as well. The best advantage of 3D printing is that it allows for more temporary and flexible accommodation. The idea is for people to be able to build homes in 24 hours and stay there for a couple of years. In 2018, the technologies construction company Icon came up with the first 3D-printed home in the US. This year the company aims for a first 3D printed community.

Co-living and Co-working Spaces on the Rise

Co-working and co-living spaces have been revolutionizing the property market. This sharing economy has been constantly on the rise. Many service tenants and buyers are always looking for more flexible and affordable residency options. When it comes to the co-living market, real estate startups have been dominating it. These startups are known as Proptech companies. These companies develop space-efficient, tech-ready, and affordable for professionals and students who prefer co-living. The whole process from booking to generating a contract is done online. This means that anyone can simply book online and move into a flat share. Utilities and Wi-Fi are included in the setup.

One of these Proptech companies is Medici. Medici offers an apartment and hotel hybrid units which can include en-suite bedrooms with kitchens, laundry areas, living areas, gyms, and workspaces that are communal. Buildings erected by Medici have weekly networking events and an app that residents can use to book comprehensive services and use smart-living technologies. Another company WeWork offers super sleep workspaces in Manhattan including all amenities from IT services and coffee. This follows the community model which enables tenants to network with entrepreneurs and innovators.

Electromobility for Smart Cities

Berlin is a smart city and it has committed to let out 1 million electric vehicles on the road on 2022. You can find electric cars around Berlin with different charging stations around the city. You can easily find e-bikes and e-scooters around Berlin. E-buses are also currently tested. Electric vehicles offer drivers cleaner and more affordable transport particularly when cars are charged with renewable energy. Smart cities are also encouraged the electrify public transportation.

Big Data Use in Building Maintenance

In the next decade it is expected for buildings to run on a digital backbone that can control and measure all the facets of the structure. An intelligent building starts from the construction phase when a sensor is built in each brick which in turn will make the house a data-collection mechanism. This almost translates to automating building maintenance. You can easily notice when a new roof or certain parts of the house will be rebuilt. This technology can also be extended to cities that use data for revolutionizing their spaces. Sensor data can help control almost anything from monitoring parking spaces, full trash bins, and intelligent streetlights. Cities may also have automatic irrigation and transportation systems.

Photographer: Jonathan Chng | Source: Unsplash

Eco-friendly Smart Buildings

An eco-friendly smart building today is nothing like those in the past. You can find buildings that can purify the city air and housing developments that create more energy instead of simply consuming it. Smart buildings have some common elements such as intelligent energy systems for controlling temperature, security, and air quality, recyclable construction materials, and renewable energy sources. Andreas Koster, from Garamantis which is an interactive digital installation firm, said that various buildings in the future will ensure that various sensors are placed in each room. This enables the management to control the settings and maximize the use of energy.

VR Site Visits

The traditional use of pencil and paper in building design is still dominant in real estate but it is slowly changing with the help of technologies such as virtual reality and artificial intelligence. The entire structure of the building can be visited like in its actual physical space through a virtual tour. Virtual Tour Easy enables companies to create a virtual tour in just five minutes. This will enable you to enter the structure, look around, turn your head and head on to the next room. It gives you the complete sensation of being in the building yourself. This is advantageous to property buyers who barely have time to travel.

As a real estate agent, you can use these trends to help build a more productive community. Start by using the virtual tour for your property listings. Contact us here for more information.

real estate, virtual realitySeptember 9, 2019

A Highly Advanced Tech That Changed the Real Estate and Construction Industry

During the housing market crash in 2008, an entrepreneur plunged into the real estate industry without buying properties. Glenn Sanford started eXp Realty which is the first cloud-based real estate brokerage.

The eXp Realty built its mega-campus virtually with the help of VirBELA. The company showed the impact of a dematerialized workspace. It cut down the cost and also redefined the term “real estate.” After 10 years, eXp Realty already has 14,000 agents across 50 US states and in 3 provinces in Canada without the company setting up a physical office.

Virtual reality and Artificial Intelligence or AI have been working hand in hand to revolutionize the entire real estate and construction industry. That’s why you have flying cities and driverless cars. They are also removing the middleman in the process. A forecast for the global construction industry is for it to surpass 12.9 trillion dollars in 2022. Last year’s total value of the housing market in the US was $33.3 trillion.

Even today, location is still the primary consideration with regard to finding the right property. The limitations of land increased the cost of land, and urbanization has continuously caused problems. Today there are two mechanisms that are known to have been driving the creation of brand-new locations: floating cities and flying cars or autonomous electric vehicles.

Floating Cities

These are offshore habitation hubs. This has been seen as a solution to the rise of sea levels. If this becomes a success, this will entail abundance in real estate, recreation, commerce, education, and scenic living. A good example of this is the Oceanix City which was created by the Oceanix BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group. This would be a galaxy made up of hexagonal floating modules which are built as satellite cities of the coastal urban locations and run by renewable energies.

A 4.5-acre platform can sustain 300 people. The hexagonal modules are linked to the 75-acre tessellations that can sustain up to 75,000 residents. They are anchored to the ocean floor with the use of biorock. Electric boats and flying cars will bring you to work. Meals will be supplied by vertical and outdoor farming. Share economies will provide the goods.

On Sunday, I was exploring my girlfriend’s workplace business centre in Bangsar South City, Kuala Lumpur. Come to my surprise there was nobody in the area and I have my camera with me back in my car. The idea of the photo was initially making her looked like she is dancing in the sky, it was until she was starting to land on the ground I took another chance to take another picture. I find it looked like she is floating in the air, took some edit and this seems to be the best photo I took. — Photographer: Marque Tan | Source: Unsplash

Flying Cars or Autonomous Electric Vehicles

With today’s real estate properties, location is valuable when the property is near the workplace, the best schools, or the business district. This will all change when you have driverless cars that will bring you to the workplace. There will also be autonomous ride-sharing services that will do away with parking problems and will remove you from the steering wheel. You can also choose to go via aerial taxis. Uber has plans of setting up the UberAIR airborne taxi project. By 2023, it will roll out its first drones in Dallas and Los Angeles. Drones flying over the rooftops would be able to accommodate passengers at 1,000 to 2,000 feet at about 100 to 200 mph speed.

The Disappearance of the Middle-Man

Buyers would aim for a continuous and personalized preference-tracking that can only be provided by an AI. Over the next decade, AI will be the agent while VR acts as the medium. Around 98 percent of the home searches would be conducted right from one’s couch through the use of a virtual tour. When you have keyed in all your preferences, the AI will seek for the best fits to your search.

There would also be new construction materials to use in the next decade namely the nanomaterials, upcycle materials, and the self-healing infrastructure. If you want to know more about how VR, AI, and how virtual tours can help you improve your business, you may visit Virtual Tour Easy

real estate, virtual reality, Virtual ToursJuly 1, 2019

These 8 Trends Will Let You Think How Great the Real Estate Industry has Changed

There are real estate trends that have been foreseen in the past; they are deemed to have staying power as well. There is a golden rule in this. If you want to tap into potential new buyers today, you have to go where they go online. Doing this will set you off from your competitors who use the traditional methods. It is crucial for the success of the business to bring it to social media and to various websites. The following are some of the trends that real estate businesses have to take advantage today:

Virtual Reality and Virtual Tour

VR is relatively new to real estate, but it has become life-size and highly accessible that potential buyers demand to see a virtual tour of a property before they even entertain the thought of viewing the actual property. One of the great features of VR is the ability for the potential buyers to view the home in various styles. Through VR, they can change the interior paint, add new furniture, put new bathroom tiles, etc. Buyers can easily get a tour of their preferred properties without having to go there.

The Use of Mobile Devices

This means one thing: the real estate website has to be mobile device friendly. It means that you need to ensure that the website can be totally viewable and that it can be navigated through a mobile device screen. A website that loads long or is not responsive on a smartphone may lose visitors fast.

Social Media Can be a Venue to Promote Real Estate Services

A 2017 study conducted by NAR (National Association of Realtors) revealed that 80 percent of real estate industry players use Facebook to promote their services. They also use LinkedIn, YouTube, Google, and more. Social media offers the cheapest and fastest means with the widest reach for the real estate agents to put their messages out there. There are also several platforms that possess several functionalities such as instant messaging tools and sharing options.

Drone Videography

There are multiple tasks related to real estate that drones simplified. All of these drones can capture aerial video and photography. It will not be long for drones to show live videos of the construction and renovation procedures. This is essential for tracking the home’s progress.

Outsourcing the Editing Process

Editing the photos and videos can be time-consuming. Outsourcing the editing process of the output can help you save on time, money, and effort. All these will enable you to take more photos, search for more new clients, and devise more marketing strategies to upscale the business.

Photographer: Francesca Tosolini | Source: Unsplash

Virtual Staging Means Power

Staging is one of the most important steps in shooting a property. This involves enhancing and totally preparing the property for it to be sold in the market. The major purpose of staging is to make the entire property more attractive to potential buyers. The upcoming solution to this is virtual staging. This entail filling empty spaces with superimposed realistically rendered 3D furnishings and decorations. Virtual staging is a more affordable means for the buyer to plan, decorate, design, and think of the space before buying the property.

Potential Buyers Search for Real Estate Listings and Services Online

The traditional way of looking for listings on magazines and newspapers is all in the past. Potential buyers now look for listings on the internet instead. According to Google and the NAR, 90 percent of buyers go online. In the last four years, there has been an increase of 253 percent on different real estate related searches. Another thing is that local search terms are important for buyers.

Collaborations between Photographers and Real Estate Databases

Zillow and other real estate databases offer mutually beneficial partnerships with photographers. This is important knowing the traffic that sites like Zillow have.

No one knows until when these trends will stay, but every real estate business has to take advantage of its perks or else it will be lagging behind its competitors. All the aforementioned trends are crucial to running a business, but on top of them all is the virtual tour. For a virtual tour software that covers all your real estate needs, try Virtual Tour Easy. It's also free!

real estate, virtual realityJune 24, 2019

The Future of Virtual Reality for Real Estate in 2020

Those who have experienced buying and selling property certainly know the workings of real estate. It used to work traditionally in which case the real estate agent presents the client with a list of properties to choose from, negotiation follows, and then the final visit to the physical property itself. Virtual reality has truly changed the way the rules of the game. VR technology offers several benefits to real estate. It helps them develop their business, gather more clients, and provide high-quality services. In turn, it also helps clients to save time, to accomplish global searches, and a lot more.

These are the ways in which VR technology can aid several people in the real estate industry:

Listing agents: It allows them to show 3D virtual tours on their site, email, and social media sites. VR also encourages sellers through 3D technology for it to generate sales for them. It also enables the real estate agents to win more listings through a differentiating factor.

Real estate brokers: It also attracts several progressive agents. It also offers a factor that differentiates buyers, sellers, and agents over their competitors. VR can also be used to expand the offerings presented to developers and builders.

Buyer’s agents: This allows buyer’s agents to give live 3D virtual tours to buyers anywhere and anytime. It also enables them to sell homes regardless of the buyer location. This also allows for an exclusive buyer contract with a buyer through the offer of a premium service.

Photographer: Laurens Derks | Source: Unsplash

For 2020, these are the trends that you can expect from virtual technology:

Virtual staging will be on the rise. A survey revealed that 72 percent of real estate companies affirmed that staging can help to generate more leads.

Virtual commerce is expected to grow. Virtual commerce enables real estate agents to make changes in the home’s interior by checking the virtual store and picking the right furniture or furnishings to add on it.

There will be developments in the virtual instructions for owners and tenants. Virtual instructions about the property will be more popular since it can be totally annoying for tenants to keep on calling asking for certain instructions especially for those who operate short term rental properties. This is certainly beneficial to vacation rentals. This technology can help improve the customer experience in these properties and it provides ease of business with the realtors too.

Enhancement in architectural visualization is ensured. It is a challenge for realtors to market a property that has not been constructed yet. Through VR, architectural visualization becomes cheaper and highly immersive. Through VR technology, it is possible for realtors to show the interior and exterior of a property that has to be constructed yet. This gives the buyer a clear image of what he will be buying.

The prediction is for virtual reality hardware to reach 2.8 billion in market sales by 2020. Soon it will be possible to walk inside and around a potential new home. There are also technological developments that enable stimulation of the different senses such as smell and taste like the use of baked cookies or lemons. Haptic technology will also be available for buyers to use their hands when opening doors and feeling other sensations while inside the virtual property.

These are the things that you can expect from virtual reality in 2020. It is a must for any real estate agent to make full use of VR technology. Start your very own virtual tour now.

business, real estate, virtual realityMarch 19, 2019

Top 5 Businesses in 2019 That Are Virtual Reality-Based

It is tough to look for the right business idea. It must be something that you like doing. This entails brainstorming for ideas, and taking the first steps can truly be challenging. The usual options are some high-quality goods or internet marketing services and to adapt the use of virtual reality solutions. The best part about this technology is that it can be applied to any existing type of business you have been considering setting up.

Virtual Concerts

Since people tend to choose to do everything online, an app now is available for people to attend a concert without leaving the comfort of one’s home. Many musicians and concertgoers consider VR technology as really exciting. By way of a VR concert solution, it is quite easy to connect with musicians and other fans and supporters. Some of the artists who now use VR technology are Coldplay, Kate Perry, and Paul McCartney. There are many popular tools to use for watching a concert in VR, but you can come up with your own by adding features you intend to use.

VR Events

Virtual reality events will soon become as popular as the actual events that require you to go there. Online conferences, in fact, are popular today since they can instantly connect the attendees to the speakers without incurring travel costs. You can come up with a platform for virtual reality live events, and you will have a huge income stream to use anytime you want.

VR-Based Education

Education is a basic need for every society. People are always in search of means to make knowledge transfer easier, faster, and more efficient. Majority of the education plans follow the same old format. Some people find it difficult to retain and process information which can be remedied with the use of virtual reality.

You can come up with a unique niche that will offer a virtual reality training course wherein students won’t be limited to word descriptions and illustrations. Through VR, they will be able to understand the topic in-depth and be able to see how things are when they are put together. Through the use of VR, learners are given the chance to have a practical application of their knowledge instead of merely reading.

VR Shopping

Most online users have already gone online for their shopping. It would be great to have a retail ambiance for the shoppers. Sometimes merely browsing online is not enough. Those who still prefer to get to a store and shop would love this. VR is the third most popular solution for shopping that has the highest technological evolution next to desktop and mobile devices.

VR Property Sales and Leasing

Virtual Real Estate Tours has been transforming the real estate industry for quite some time now. Virtual reality platforms, interactive visits to the actual site, and virtual staging allow for more publicity in the construction business. Majority of the VR experiences left a great impression on the customers. For anyone who likes to start a real estate business may need to choose virtual instructions, virtual commerce, and architectural visualization in general for clients to be able to view the property in a highly enhanced format.

It can help to increase sales especially for hosts and property owners since clients don’t have to physically check the properties before they decide to purchase one.

You can start creating your own virtual tour by signing up to Virtual Tour Easy. It’s free!

real estate, virtual realityJanuary 16, 2019

A Question for Investors: Would You Buy Property without Visiting It?

High-end real estate agents said that smartphones have transformed how they do business in real estate. Wealthy people make decisions based on 360 virtual tours. Affluent foreigners spend as much as £25,000/week to rent luxury homes in London without having set foot in them.

Increasing Demand

The overseas demand for super-prime properties is high that the very affluent around the globe agree to rent properties after just viewing them on FaceTime or WhatsApp. An agent said that a South African investor agrees to rent a seven-bedroom Hampstead mansion for £12,000/week after simply watching FaceTime.

An unnamed tenant referred to by the agent as a global superstar agreed to rent a seven-bedroom terraced house that overlooks the Regent’s Park after simply watching a live video tour on his iPhone. Henry Pryor, the real estate agent, said that he went live streaming for 45 minutes. There were three properties shown and the superstar picked the seven-bedroom one.

What the Agents Have to Say

According to Pryor, the capabilities of smartphones transformed the agents’ approach to selling and site visits or lettings. Super rich clients often have the money, but they don’t have the time. Apple and the iPhone enable agents to have a client on one ear while another one is being shown around. The tenants can be anywhere around the world whether in a yacht or a mountain.

Pryor said that it is a lot of money to spend on rent, but many affluent overseas individuals prefer to rent properties for them to save on the stamp duty imposed by the government on homes owned through offshore companies.

Renting properties allows individuals to keep their privacy intact. It was known that 200 wealthy foreign investors prefer to pay more taxes than disclose their multi-million worth properties. This is seen in the rise of costly rentals in the middle of a reduction in the sale prices of prime Central London properties. The real situation is that those individuals who considered buying may now rent for four or more years and the cost is equivalent to that of the stamp duty on a comparable home. This leaves them in a better shape to buy the property given the right timing. This is according to Marcus Dixon, the head of research of LonRes. The number of high-end rentals has been increasing gradually for the last two years yet high-end rentals have become a regular thing.

Georgina Bartlett, director of Savill’s prime Central London team, revealed that she was able to let some of the most expensive properties from all over the world using only WhatsApp. According to her, it’s not only about the top-end properties but the net worth value of the buyers. These are people whose time are more worth for other things than property viewings. Bartlett said that it used to be that personal assistants or representatives are sent to do viewings on their behalf, but today they simply use advanced technology like virtual tours to do so.

real estate, virtual realityJanuary 7, 2019

What Awaits Virtual Reality in 2019 and the Future?

You must have heard of virtual reality (VR), but most of the time it is associated with computer games. The specialists in VR expect the VR to be used for different purposes. This means further associations, networking, connections, and highly immersive encounters. VR also gives us a brighter perspective as to how we progress with PC collaboration.

The Potential of VR Outside Computer Gaming

At this point, it is said that VR users have just started to break through the surface with VR technology. The developments in the interactive video and photos have made it possible for users to visit places which are not possible for them to do physically. Its primary use is in computer gaming, but it has shown great potential for business. That’s why it is used by different tech organizations namely Google, Samsung, Foxconn, Apple, Microsoft, HP, Intel, IBM, and others.

VR and Branding

Virtual reality can be used to serve the purpose of a brand or product more efficiently and also to engage the customers. It’s also through virtual reality that the consumers can be enticed by standalone product ads. It’s also through VR that products can be seen to blend with the consumers’ lifestyle which will encourage them to use them.

VR and Its Benefits Across Industries

There are various professional fields that are interested in VR: travel, tourism and adventure; home design; education; live events; movies, records, and videos; and of course, gaming. By 2020, VR is expected to provide $30 billion revenue. The total of active users who make use of VR is expected to rise at $171 million by 2018, $2.3 billion from hardware and $4.7 from software.

VR and the Users’ Expectations

Studies also revealed that 73 percent of Gen Z-ers expressed their interest in VR. About 66 percent of consumers want to go VR shopping while 53 percent of adults prefer to shop from brands that have virtual reality technology in its online shops.

The future of virtual reality will involve not merely headsets and game controllers. Users can also expect the VR to be more physical in the future. In its beginning, the VR is seen to cater to the visual senses, but experts in the field expect the VR to become more sensory oriented through the introduction of better touch controls. Frank Azor of Alienware said that when VR caters to the rest of the human senses, you will likely feel temperature-wise, body-wise and even smell the actual thing, the reality element of VR is strengthened, and its virtual aspect starts to fade.

Hugo Barra of Facebook said that VR and augmented reality will continue to work together since each of them has a different purpose. Virtual reality enables users to immerse while augmented reality enables users to interact with the environment. These two technologies will continue to connect people regardless of where they are located.

Find out more about the benefits of virtual reality tours. Sign up to Virtual Tour Easy Now for FREE!