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This is a smart, technically-advanced virtual home content creator that can be used with confidence by first-time tour makers to top-producing luxury agents.
Top selling points
- Proprietary Planix camera
- Interactive digital floorplan, scans simultaneously
- In-tour interactive tags
- Agent branding and contact information
- Simple room measurement tool ideal for interior design, staging and contractors
Things to consider
Ultimately, competition. Also, the state of the market has made a number of common marketing efforts somewhat obsolete, making me ponder whether some agents will eschew virtual content as homes fly off the market. Remember though, content like this lasts, and so does one’s reputation for the effort they put in to marketing a property.
This article was last updated on April 5, 2022.
iGuide, developed by Planitar out of Canada, is one of the most used and longest-standing companies in the proptech category of 3D capture, or digital twins, as modern parlance would suggest. Its namesake cameras and industry-leading accompanying floorplans create high-end walkable home tours and simple-to-navigate virtual property content ideal for listing marketing, commercial property marketing, interior presentations and a host of other digital real estate content forms.
At the heart of iGuide’s value proposition is its multi-view, multi-party tour interface, the newest iteration of which was released on April 1. The last update came in 2018.
The latest version boasts a few very useful updates, as well as the ability to host tours in stunning resolution, using iGuide’s proprietary camera, the Planix, which, when scanning a room, is simultaneously measuring the space to produce its eponymous interactive floorplans. Yes, there’s a lot going on.
As before, you can cursor your way around a room, up, down, forward and back, jumping between hotspot perspectives and even teleporting to different floors via a floating icon that appears near stairwells.
The adjacent floorplan view, which now offers more control to the user, remains a highlight of an iGuide-produced tour. It can be collapsed into the corner, made larger and even moved around in its own window. Click on a camera position dot jumps you to that angle in tour. There’s more clarity and definition to it, as well.
Tours come with a small set of tools to help viewers measure horizontal and vertical distances, and descriptive tags to any item or space in the home, great for highlighting appliances or fixtures that will convey with the home, among other uses.
The toolbar also contains the Share command for getting the tour out into the market, and a tour settings module.
Above each tour is a revamped menu bar to accommodate agent branding, link to additional home photos, related video, room-by-room measurements and a map.
A small “person” icon slides out a digital business card for the listing agent, complete with headshot, website and pertinent contact information. It even has direct links to social media accounts and an email address.
On top of the sharp updates to the fun part of touring a home online, iGuide’s new software comes with some critical technical highlights, too, namely ANSI Z765 standards across the board. This will become particularly useful as Fannie Mae rolls new rules calling for them on all transactions it backs.
iGuide’s inclusion can provide agents and transaction stakeholders confidence in knowing a room dimension won’t lead to a closing being put off for a week. It should help hasten appraisals, too.
After a tour is assembled, which can be done in about an hour for a 3,000 square-foot home, it can be used in perpetuity.
Agents can encourage buyers to use iGuide during escrow instead of scheduling multiple walk-throughs to measure rooms and windows. The same for interior designers and contractors.
Inspectors and appraisers would also find value in its data-rich visuals.
Because the tour is published to an open URL, it can be viewed and fully navigated on mobile devices.
Embedding a completed tour in your website is easy stuff, as iGuide’s engineer-founders built the front-end to satisfy their own goals for simplicity.
Upon initial review, I lauded iGuide for its technical wizardry. Seven years ago, this was top-level stuff, rivaled really only by Matterport. Today, its visuals and user experience has caught up to what’s happening inside the hardware. iGuide tours look terrific, offer an array of valuable features and can make any listing look better online.
In summary, this is a smart, technically-advanced virtual home content creator that can be used with confidence by first-time tour makers to top-producing luxury agents.
Have a technology product you would like to discuss? Email Craig Rowe
Craig C. Rowe started in commercial real estate at the dawn of the dot-com boom, helping an array of commercial real estate companies fortify their online presence and analyze internal software decisions. He now helps agents with technology decisions and marketing through reviewing software and tech for Inman.
