I’ve been working on the idea of High quality 360 VR for Real Estate

First, VR is a medium, just like photography, and you have lot’s of bad images, and some that are beautiful.

The problem isn’t just with VR, but offering the right website environment to present the product.

High quality VR WILL cost you money, or you’ll have to train the realtor and invest in the right equipment, and please, forget about mirror 360 gadgets; THESE are the stuff that gives a BAD name to VR. I tried it, you can’t offer the right experience full screen with this kind of extremely low resolution.

You’re better off with a floor-plan and a slideshow of the room from its four corners !

VR is PART of a photographic project for a house. we’re forgetting about this too.

I speak with a few realtors, (upscale), and so far, in France, property market has been booming, they didn’t have to make any effort to present their properties, they didn’t have the TIME to spend 3 hours (at least) in a house, with a tripod, to shoot good quality stills, let good quality VR. They DO like good photography bud don’t have the time to shoot properly. But the property market is now coming down in France, and they have to make more efforts and be creative.

So in the end, i think the problem is TIME and having the right website to present hight quality VR… and still photos too !

But i reckon upscale realtors will come to realize that it’s an absolute shame to present million $ + properties with a couple of stamp size snapshots…

wait until a handful start, and you’ll see.

btw, i read in some comments that realtors don’t like showing the “bad” part of a room. Well, here is another subject i’d love to hear more about:

There is a fine line between providing flattering and glossy looking images/vr from a property, then having your prospect falling depressed when actually physically viewing the site. Major anti climax!

High quality real estate photography is a real challenge, as it’s quiet easy to flatter a property, making it look like some “world of Interiors” magazine, then getting your prospect client disappointed.

Let’s stay realist, and honest, and precisely, IF there is a “bad” part of room, then don’t HIDE it !
And forget about removing cracks on walls, unsighty telephone lines, or refreshing an aging wall paint job !

But invest in 3 hours shooting and 3 hours post processing a property, BOTH in still AND VR, and you’ll have a winner !

Now that I’m taking waaay better stills (thanks to inspiration from Scott and the rest at Strobist and the RE group), the 360s are much less important than before.

However, I think they are valuable to a buyer when you can set up the shot in a doorway or opening between rooms. In other words I use it to help show the flow in a house.

Not only that but it only takes a few minutes to do these 2 shot IPIX shots, stitching is fast, and the viewer is relatively reliable. Oh yes, keys are cheap too.

No if I could only find a way to hack the 8700 so the hotshoe would not be disabled and I could use my strobes grumble grumble.

Let me know if you need anymore help larry@lohrman.com.

I think there are many real estate agents who would be willing to pay for a nice virtual tour. I am asked to make one every so often (via word of mouth) and I am going to start “officially” offering virtual panoramas in addition to still photography when I get my new website up and running (hopefully soon).

PureTools has BY FAR the best interface/smoothest motion that I have seen besides Quicktime VR. I agree with Larry about Quicktime’s penetration being far below Java and Flash’s.