This summer, Zillow® is bringing its self-tour feature to all Zillow-owned homes. It allows shoppers and agents to use the Zillow app to unlock and tour an unoccupied for-sale home on their timeline, minimizing person-to-person contact. While piloting the feature in Phoenix, self-tour homes sold six days faster than homes without the feature.
Zillow says they accelerated the rollout of self-tour technology to help shoppers and agents follow social-distancing recommendations and feel safe while touring a home in person. A Zillow survey found a majority of U.S. adults (55 percent) say they’re less comfortable touring an occupied home during the current coronavirus outbreak.
Zillow is also updating its 3D Home virtual tours with floor plans that include room dimensions to help shoppers better understand the layout of a home and quickly visualize how their furniture would fit in the space. In the coming months, Zillow-owned homes for sale in all 24 Zillow Offers markets will feature a custom digital floor plan. In the future, the automated floor plan generator could be a feature on all homes for sale with a 3D Home virtual tour on the Zillow platform.
A Zillow survey finds nearly 80 percent of buyers (79 percent) say they’re more likely to view a home if the listing includes a floor plan they like, and more than 70 percent of buyers (71 percent) say a dynamic floor plan would help them determine whether the home was right for them.
Zillow Premier Agent Cynthia Wallace says a floor plan attached to her for-sale listing in Eatonton, Ga., gave a Tennessee-based buyer the confidence to make a full-price offer on the home sight-unseen.
“The floor plan enhances everything,” said Wallace, an agent with the Algin Group. “It allowed the buyer to visualize how the home was set up. With the floor plan combined with a Zillow 3D Home virtual tour and an enhanced video tour, it’s like you’re almost there in person.”
“Zillow has been developing cutting edge tools that make it radically easier for people to move, and up until now, those tools were being adopted at a slow and steady rate. Now they have become essential for buyers, sellers and agents looking to move forward and stay safe,” said Zillow President Jeremy Wacksman. “We expect these tools will quickly become the new standard, and we’re already envisioning other ways we can help to enhance the online home shopping experience. ”
Zillow expects the future of home shopping will include:
– Virtual tours in many more listings. Zillow survey data suggests 3D home tours are here to stay as shoppers look for an easier, more convenient way to view a home and narrow down their options.
– In April, listings with a Zillow 3D Home tour attracted 66 percent more visitors and drove 90 percent more saves by users than listings without a 3D Home tour.
– A Zillow survey found three out of four U.S. adults want the option to tour a home remotely through virtual or video technology if they were home shopping right now.
– In a survey of select Zillow Premier Agents, 86 percent said they started or continued to use virtual or video home tours during the coronavirus outbreak, and 72 percent said they are likely to continue providing those tours after the current outbreak has ended.
– Virtual staging. Virtual staging will let shoppers see how furniture looks inside a home, starting in select markets.
– Custom options. Zillow imagines a future in which buyers have more options to personalize their home shopping experience to match their lives. For instance, buyers of Zillow-owned homes could choose cosmetic changes, so the walls are the perfect color when they move in.
– Industry-leading safety standards. At every stage, safety is a top consideration for everyone involved in the process. Zillow’s Move Forward. Stay Safe. initiative includes new protocols guided by the principles of: Clean. Protect. Distance.
“COVID-19 has required us all to adapt our activities of daily living to stay healthy and that includes changing the way we shop for a home. People are looking for a way to tour their next home safely, whether virtually or in-person, and that means using new technology,” said Zillow Health Advisor and former U. S. Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin. “Zillow’s digital tools support a broader health and safety initiative, which is designed to give home shoppers a level of confidence that will move real estate forward into the future, right now.”
For more information, please visit www.zillow.com.
