How Augmented Reality Will Shift Day-To-Day Real Estate Practices
A pinned video explaining key differences between 41 Federal Street #32 from other 1 bedroom listings in South Beach, San Francisco.
At the risk of using cliche buzzwords in the 2019 San Francisco market, Augmented Reality is about to massively disrupt communication between real estate professionals, particularly within real estate teams.
The old sole proprietor model for real estate is becoming more challenging with the shifting landscape of real estate marketing. It used to be easy for a 1-man show to execute a property transaction:
Sign a listing
Get photos taken
Write a description
Post on MLS
Send postcards to the surrounding houses
A few open houses and some signs around the neighborhood, and you’re pretty much ready to accept an offer and do some paperwork. Everyone’s happy. But...
...tech has permanently changed everything. Our industry is trending toward mobile ubiquity, cloud-based tools, social media marketing, and team-based organizational structures. From video marketing, social media distribution, ad accounts, Zillow leads, databases and drip campaigns - the individual model requires such a vast array of skill-sets that it’s challenging for one person perform at the high level that clients now expect. Fortunately, brokerages are realizing that adopting tech for process automation is arguably the most important benefit they can provide their agents, and social media marketing can be somewhat outsourced.
That leaves us with a team-based organizational structure; something most agents have a tremendously difficult time figuring out. These top producing agents are already overloaded with work and bringing team members up to speed is usually deprioritized for more pressing and immediate concerns.
Typically, top agents need subordinates to help manage open houses, client tours, showing property etc. But how can an agent know their team is showing a particular property in the most appealing, dazzling, and sellable way?
The simplest answer would be in-property training; dedicating time toward teaching other agents how to show a particular property and taking the time to write notes, which no agent on the planet has time to do, nor is willing to.
Enter: AUGMENTED REALITY.
More specifically, the Taggr AR app, which you can find in the app store.
Gueco Real Estate Group and I have become increasingly aware that certain agents simply know more about specific properties than the rest of the team. This insight led us to begin training each other on best practices and touring strategies for each building. The biggest issue: REMEMBERING WHAT WAS SAID!
Taggr has given us the ability to not only train the team ONCE, but “pin” that training in video form in the precise locations our team members need to consume it - like a digital post-it note. By pinning selfie videos that share the best practices of how to tour clients around the property, within the property itself, we’ve essentially created a Cheat Sheet for Real Estate Tours.
A video by building specialist - Tim McMullen - pinned in the kitchen of a Brannan Towers unit, explaining how to explain the variance between the three towers.
Our agents arrive 10 minutes before any given tour or open house, walk around the property consuming the videos of all the best practices; what the notable features of a home are and how to best communicate them. They can then regurgitate the info to every party as they tour the property with a high probability of demonstrating expertise.
The transfer of information now takes the equivalent of taking multiple 30 second selfie videos and posting them in the desired locations within a property. These videos remain secretly and invisibly pinned into the property, until they are accessed on-site by an agent via the Taggr app.
The applications of this technology are only just starting to become apparent. Condo Weekly and Gueco Real Estate Group will continue to pioneer the use of AR in the real estate industry until we have a product ready to scale for all agent teams. More than anything, we thrive on being able to facilitate cutting edge innovation to an industry as a whole, and it brings a buzz and genuine excitement to our team.
Gueco Real Estate Group