Using Virtual Reality to Buy Multimillion Dollar Real Estate
I just went up the stairs backwards oh my god to go back down the steps remember a famous coach s super tall okay stay off the stairs you're doing great this is luxury real estate it's the closest you're gonna get to experience in the future without Doc in the DeLorean [Music] we're here at time equities a luxury real estate developer that's using VR to help potential clients see spaces before they're even built virtual reality isn't new but in today's luxury real estate market it's giving the super-rich a chance to tour properties without having to see them in person we went to Manhattan to see just how this technology's changing the way the wealthy buy property the idea of the company came when my wife and I were shopping for a home and it was frustrating to look online and find limited tools for plans and those weird fisheye photos and we realized quickly that we wanted something that would help us empower us really to explore real estate in a more efficient and practical way it's a time and convenience function just saying as ordering off of an online retailer and if you could then go to in a office with your agent and sit down and look through dozens of properties within minutes that's the savings of hours and days so when we go to create a project we start with the four plans in the client and we create the walls we create the floors it's all CGI so we start with a blank black universe and everything that you see in it is our custom creation we priced out at about $1 to $3 per square foot of visualized space and that includes an entire visualization package of 2d renderings and interactive experience with the oculus rift and HTC vive right now VR is used for luxury properties that haven't been completed yet it's also made for foreign buyers who don't necessarily want to fly in from Dubai or Hong Kong to check out a new investment to see how this works we looked at 34 print Street a building in Manhattan with apartments starting at 7 million dollars it's still under construction but ready to be sold to the highest bidder this is a 2d rendering of the print Street property so none of this is actually real but it's just supposed to show exactly what somebody would be getting now this is a work in progress so you're gonna get a sense of before we've actually finished it this is sort of one of the first stages so this is the front door which will be a front door that you can't go through good you're doing totally you're doing awesome I didn't play video games as a kid and now I regret it are you ready time ride the rift I'm so ready let's do it okay just get that on nice and snug okay so slowly what I want you to do is look around make sure I don't bump into anything really feels a little like Mario Kart oh I love Mario Kart I put a lot of that in college so I'm looking around the living room there's a really cool painting some sort of Modern Art painting the most surprising thing is how much you get a sense of the space here and also how clear the textures are I feel like when real-estate agents no offense Stephanie sometimes show you pictures and things they look a lot bigger than they actually are when you get there I completely agree with you oh gosh I can't get through this store though touring an apartment and virtual reality can have its drawbacks the biggest being that even touring one space made me feel nauseated a common side effect of VR the sea has a virtual tour compared to the real thing I met with Javier a realtor from time equity's who's in charge of selling the units at 34 Prince Street this is your kitchen area okay I remember going through this so you have beautiful views this neighborhood is definitely better than I thought it was gonna be in VR so that's definitely a benefit of real life yes how much did it cost your company to use the service like the VR experience this apartment is 3757 square feet um so maybe 10k probably something around that but I think it's worth it virtual reality could help investors looking to accumulate more square footage and it's a different way to visualize a place that hasn't been built yet but the technology still doesn't quite replace the experience of seeing a building in person we definitely envision this going into the everyday market $200,000 homes there are tons of applications and we see a big bright future for virtual reality for real estate so this is only the beginning of where you're going to see virtual reality in our lives
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