When you think of virtual tours, what comes to mind? Maybe it's an image of the British Museum or the streets of Paris. But some of the most exciting developments in virtual tours are happening much closer to home in the hands of ordinary people. 

The real estate industry was one of the first to realize the potential of virtual tour technology. Many real estate professionals have gone all in, leveraging innovative technology to sell more homes.

But what are virtual tours, anyway? And how are they made?

How virtual tours work

The most basic virtual tours are simple 360-degree panoramic photographs stitched together with special software to create an experience of a walk through a property. More advanced tours involve advanced design and rendering techniques to create a more immersive experience.

Either way, virtual tours are nothing if they are not shared with clients. And most tours can be experienced by prospective buyers either through dedicated software or through a web-based interface. VR tours exist as well, but so far they haven’t gained popularity with sellers or buyers.

The advantages of virtual tours

Virtual tours offer several advantages to all sides involved in real estate transactions. One major benefit of virtual tours is time savings. If you’re wondering how much time? We can say confidently: a lot.

Put yourself in the shoes of a client looking to buy a home. On average, first-time home buyers view 15-20 properties before finalizing a deal. Each property needs to be viewed several times, each time requiring travel, time off work, and enough time to inspect the property. In the long run, it adds up to dozens of hours prospective buyers waste before they close.

For agents, time expenditure is even bigger. After all, every time a prospective buyer sees a house, an agent shows it. Many hours each day can be wasted on traveling from one property to the next, showing them again and again until a deal is made. 

Virtual tours let you eliminate travel time almost entirely. Of course, a buyer will usually want to see a property in person before buying. But for a first time viewing? A virtual tour is the perfect solution. 

How virtual tours are made

Until now, there were two main ways to create real estate virtual tours. 

The more basic method requires little more than a camera capable of taking panoramic images (like most smartphone cameras nowadays) and special software to convert these images into 360 degree views and combine them into a walkable tour. 

The simplicity of the process means that agents can do it themselves, although many do opt for professional help with such projects. After all, messing up a tour can mean that a property goes unsold for far too long, and that’s a risk many don’t want to take.

There are several disadvantages to this method. First, it’s almost impossible to make any changes to a tour after it’s been completed. The only way to change it is to do it all over again. 

Second, these kinds of tours are limited to property that is ready to be sold – all completed and staged. Preconstruction or occupied properties need to be cleared and prepared before you can make a tour.

And third, quality varies a lot. The quality of a tour made this way depends on the camera used, the lighting, and on the software used to create and display the tour. A problem in any of these can mean that a tour needs to be remade.

The second method is much more versatile, but also much more labor-intensive, requiring 3D designers to spend many hours (and even several days) on placing cameras, making connections between them, and troubleshooting the viewers’ routes. The results are usually visually stunning, but not without limitations. For one, the manual nature of the work limits the number of viewpoints a visitor can see throughout the tour, which in turn downgrades the realism of the tour. Luckily, there’s a better way.

A new way of making virtual tours

The MaxTour plugin by Vizit.co lets 3D designers turn architectural scenes into fully interactive virtual tours in only a few clicks. With MaxTour, designers only need to mark floors, steps, obstacles and trace the tour’s route, and the plugin does the rest. MaxTour analyzes the scene and camera positions to make connections between them, allowing designers to place multiple viewpoints per room. This makes for a much more immersive experience, in which prospective buyers can feel as if they’re really walking through their future homes. 

With MaxTour, everyone comes out a winner. Buyers enjoy a true-to-life visiting experience, limited only by the quality of the renders; real estate professionals benefit from a unique sales multiplier; and 3D designers open up new revenue opportunities with very little additional effort.