The problem

Purchasing a condo is a time consuming process for a buyer. Before the buyer can successfully find the right condo, they must spend so much time on researching the market and potential targets, trying to understand every aspect of a property, including the location, facilities within the neighbor, the community, amenities, condo units configuration, etc. As a part of early research, instead of browsing basic info online, buyers usually would prefer to visit the property in person to get a first impression, and then decide if it is worth to consider.

With that being said, for these potential buyers who lives far away from the property, it is hard for them to visit the property in person, thus they might have no chance to get a good first impression of the property which is important for their decision making. This is fatal for a real estate developer, because it might result in losing potential buyers.

Research and findings

To deeply understand the problem problem, we started with understand target users. There are mainly two groups of property buyers: investment buyers and primary residence buyers. Each of them has their own goals, motivations, needs and characteristics.

Current experience works ok for primary residence buyers since they always searching for local properties at where they live and it is easy for them to visit every property they are interested in. However, it doesn't work well for investment buyers, because they search for investment target all over the world thus they only visit properties that interest the most. This is the group of buyers that our client is trying to attract.

By reviewing the user journey of investment buyers, there are two opportunities being identified:
- Showcase the property remotely in a way so buyer can get senses of all unquantifiable info.
- Partnering with local agents so the property can engage as early as possible in the whole decision process of buyers.

To understand how these two opportunities can help us to solve the problem, I did a deep research on how buyer get sense of all unquantifiable info by visiting the target property and how real estate agents facilitate the process.

Buyer usually works with a real estate agent who is a licensed professional arranging property transactions, connecting buyers and sellers and representing them in negotiations. A good agent makes the whole process much easier, they helps buyers to find the right property that matches buyer's criteria and budget, and guide them through each target building.

Buyer visit the property through building tours. The building tour is a formalized presentation, it has two phases. The first phase is at the showroom, this is an independent space that has a miniature model of the building and its surrounding neighborhood, it introduce the overall design of the building, the location, the neighborhood, public transportation close by, etc. It showcases the value of this real estate development.

Then the agent guide the buyer through the actual building, here the common spaces like the lobby, concierge, amenities, are usually fully furnished, and there will be some sample apartments, so buyers can intuitively feel the overall quality of the building, including the interior design, amenities, unite configurations, materials, spaces, etc.

Ideation

Since the building tour is so important, although it might not possible to invite all potential buyers all over the world to travel to NYC, is it possible to bring the building tour to them through agents instead?

Design goals

1. Allow agents of other cities to present the property to their local potential buyers as they can do in showroom.
2. Allow potential buyers from other cities to immersively experience interior spaces of the building.

Solution for the design goal #1:

Simulate showroom through AR, so agents can present the property and its neighborhood at any where.

We cannot assume every potential buyers have AR&VR gears in their hand, however, with real estate agents, we can. These local agents bring our AR&VR gears to potential buyers. And since these gears are selected directly by development team, the quality of the virtual experience can be well controlled and highly optimized dedicated to these certain gears.

The miniature building model that was placed in showroom now can be displayed virtually at anywhere. Beyond that, the AR model is able to show more details with 3D interface, and since the whole virtual tour is interactable, users actively explore the property which makes the whole experience impressive.

Through user interfaces at different location within the space while still coordinating with each other, critical information is presented in a clear way. Other irrelevant objects are either dimmed or hidden temporarily, so users never get overwhelmed which in turn improves their experience in this tour.

Solution for the design goal #2:

Simulate available apartments, amenities, and other spaces through VR, so potential buyers can walk through the building without actually visiting.

Per our research, potential buyer visit the building to intuitively feel several aspects of the property, mainly the overall spatial scale, quality of interior design, lighting, material, apartment configurations. All those key factors can be simulated through VR visually. Beyond that, the overall experience gets improved even further via UI and whole different way of interaction. Potential buyers can always have building guides in hand, checking detail info of everything they are interested, teleport to other spaces without waiting elevators, visit  multiple times the same spaces which interest them the most (usually potential buyers hesitate to request that in real building tour).

For new developments, sales activities starts even before the building construction is completed. In order to showcase the building to potential buyers, developer have to build certain spaces in advance (e.g. amenities, common spaces, certain apartment units, etc.), thus sales schedule and construction schedule interfere with each other which causes schedule delays most of the time. Meanwhile, due to the construction status, finished spaces might get damaged or other imperfection.

Simulating the these building spaces through VR separates these two schedules completely, also avoid any construction imperfection. It mitigates management pressure for developers while improves potential buyers tour experience. Marketing team can start promote the property even earlier, which obviously benefits overall sales performance.

For new developments, sales activities starts even before the building construction is completed. In order to showcase the building to potential buyers, developer have to build certain spaces in advance (e.g. amenities, common spaces, certain apartment units, etc.), thus sales schedule and construction schedule interfere with each other which causes schedule delays most of the time. Meanwhile, due to the construction status, finished spaces might get damaged or other imperfection.

Simulating the these building spaces through VR separates these two schedules completely, also avoid any construction imperfection. It mitigates management pressure for developers while improves potential buyers tour experience. Marketing team can start promote the property even earlier, which obviously benefits overall sales performance.

Simulating the apartment units benefits both potential buyers and the developer. The former can visit whichever available units they are interested in with just one tap, explore every single aspect of the unit, instinctively feel the spatial scale with proper furnished space; the developer can easily showcase the beauty of the space with much lower cost, boost the selling.