By providing customers with experiences like this, builders can leap ahead of their competition. This process is modeled after what Google refers to as Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT). ZMOT is a term Google coined to describe how Amazon disrupted the retail shopping experience by allowing buyers to view a product and its options and read customer reviews in one single platform.

Avid has a digital platform that utilizes the ZMOT experience for homebuilding that combines a video/virtual tour of a property along with options from the design center and customer reviews from real buyers all in one embeddable interface.

GlobeSt.com: What are some of today's hottest digital technologies and how are builders using them to engage customers and drive sales?

Computer Generated Imagery (CGI)

Cardis: A picture tells a thousand words, but a virtual tour of a home tells millions. With computer generated imagery (CGI), homebuyers can see the home through the eyes of a programmer who creates a rendering based on the architectural designs provided. This view can simulate a “fly-through”, which gives the viewer the feeling they are walking through the house. In addition to this virtual reality experience, buyers often can change design options and see a rendering of what those selections look like.

Augmented Reality – Self-Guided Tours

Creating digital solutions for customers who search online is important, but it does not address the issue of how to engage a customer who is physically present at a builder's model or design center. A host of solutions are available on the cutting edge of technology that enables buyers to utilize their own mobile device to access product information while they are physically present in a model. These augmented reality (AR) programs create tags that sales staff can place throughout the model. The tags cue a prospective buyer that he or she can scan to access a video, learn more about the technical details, or read comments from the builder's customers, all from a cell phone. This digital experience is perfectly timed because the buyer can access information about a feature while looking at it.

Interactive & 360 Video

Interactive & 360 video offer the same features of CGI at one tenth of the price. This is possible today with the latest interactive video technologies that use HD video to capture the home and layer clickable features on top of the video. In addition to traditional video, 360 degree cameras are now able to allow the viewer to turn the camera on demand while the video is being played. Using a cell phone, one can even activate the gyro within most cell phones to enable the viewer to simply move their phone up/down or left/right to activate the movement and view the scene in true 360. This type of user control has breathed new life into video and clearly, given its low cost of image capture, makes it a powerful technology that is here to stay for a while longer.

3D Matterport

Last on the list but probably one of the most innovative technologies to impact the real estate industry is Matterport. It has grown dynamically in the last five years and simply put, it combines a 360 still camera with an infrared scanner. The result is an amazingly clear and realistic tour of a home. In fact, one of the most important benefits of using Matterport is the fact that its tours are dimensionally correct. Often with other technologies the view of the home becomes skewed due to the fisheye lens used to capture the home. Matteport uses the scan to measure the dimensions of the room and overlays the photograph on top of it, making it appear much closer to reality. Additionally, Matterport does not require any backend editing. The system automatically can stitch and create a tour, making production much easier for DIY or real estate professionals. With Mattertags, you can enable clickable hot spots whereby you can manually enter interesting details about a feature in a home. Lastly, Matterport also provides VR headset mode, allowing any tour to be easily rendered for viewing inside a VR headset.

GlobeSt.com: Can you provide us with a comparison of today's digital selling tools?

Cardis: Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) comes at a price that is often ten times more than that of other technologies because it showcases communities and homes that have yet to be built. However, for most single-family and townhome builders, the market requires them to build models before customers will commit a down payment, therefore less expensive Matterport or video-based technologies are increasingly popular choices to virtualize existing models. In fact, many builders have made the leap to owning their own Matterport camera (approximately $5,000 each) or have purchased even less expensive 360/HD video technologies and delivered a realistic customer buying experience at a fraction of the cost of traditional CGI.

GoTour is a digital platform that hosts all the technologies described above while adding critical meta-data that a consumer needs to make an informed purchasing decision. You have the ability to redeploy your options database, customer reviews, customer video testimonials, and product reviews in any of your tours without having to manually re-enter the information. It also enables you to host one tour in CGI or Matterport and another using video while providing the customer with the same interface and look with IOS, Android, and HTML 5 support. It supports AR by enabling GoTour Tags that allow your customers to view product details with their mobile device while they are physically walking the model.

GlobeSt.com: What are the key questions for a builder to consider before making the leap into using digital technologies?

Cardis: We live in an increasingly digitally-enabled world. To better engage with buyers from the start, here are three key questions that builders should ask themselves about their digital selling tools:

1. Is your model home built already? If so, consider Matterport or video-based technologies that are hosted in GoTour to virtualize your homes. If your project needs to go to market before having models available, then use CGI technologies like Rendering House or InSearch Digital Studio.
2. Does your virtualization work on mobile devices via mobile-friendly apps? If not, seek a vendor that includes this because over half of all real estate touring occurs via a mobile device.

If you are considering AR technology, be sure you connect with one that provides solutions for both onsite and offsite access to your models. For example, if you place a tag in a home that triggers a video on a customer's mobile device, what happens when the buyer wants to share his or her experience with someone in a different location? Going with a comprehensive solution is highly recommended in order to engage customers both when they visit your models and when they go home.