Have suggestions for products that you’d like to see reviewed by our real estate technology expert? Email Craig Rowe.
EyeSpy360 is a virtual tour property marketing platform.
Platforms: Browser; iOS, Android
Ideal for: Listing agents, teams and brokerages wanting to embrace virtual tour marketing
Initial review: July 2020
Updated: October 2023
Top selling points:
- Live group remote viewing
- On-screen content and labeling
- Lead-gen form overlays
- Auto-generated promotional teaser video
- Swap user control of tour
Top concerns:
The software’s newest feature, an AI-produced avatar of listing agents, could be seen as distracting when pitched to a seller.
What you should know
EyeSpy360 rose to attention as COVID-19 shut down in-person business almost four years ago. Its presence, as well as its many colleagues in the immersive tour space, did a lot to keep business moving and, since, changed consumer expectations about how a property can be seen. The application has a number of features that remain compelling methods for showing a property from afar and help sellers understand new ways to market a property.
The app can allow for up to eight people to “tour” a home at the same time, making it an ideal way to capitalize on collaborative search and ensure that influential stakeholders, like parents, are part of the process. Agents will like its call-to-action form that presents itself on the screen at scheduled moments during a tour, as well as the ability to create a tour from a number of different devices, meaning there’s no proprietary equipment to buy. Naturally, a tour would look best if captured by a Ricoh Theta or Matterport Pro3.
There’s also a feature that creates a 25-second teaser of a home for use in other forms of outreach, such as social media and web pages. Users can apply dynamic tags to items within a house, as well. Upon login, four icons on the screen offer options, such as an aerial tour (if available), a summary of the listing, a map and the surrounding street view. Each informational snippet can be customized to link to brokerage sites, landing pages or even video files. It can also be used to create and host pre-recorded tours and swap between static images, such as documents and still images, while presenting a property.
There’s little doubt that EyeSpy360 is one of the most feature-laden and sales-driven tour applications out there. I attribute this to the fact that the company applies its tech to much more than the real estate industry, with good reason. They’ve done work for hospitals, museums, colleges and a range of other organizations that rely on large spaces as critical components of business. You can learn a lot about how consumers interact with physical spaces, which is evident.
The company’s newest feature does give me some pause, as I sort of beat up a startup competitor of theirs, PropertyTour AI for the same thing: Talking agent avatars. Like PropertyTourAI (which may have gone out of business, as its website is not accessible), a virtual presenter can be dropped into the viewer’s screen to narrate a home tour. It can be a person totally invented by a generative AI tool or an actual clone of you, the agent. With about two minutes of self-recorded video, EyeSpy360 can plant you directly within a virtual tour helping people stroll, pan and browse a digital twin.
On this topic I’m mixed. I’m not sure if I was wrong about PropertyTour AI, or if EyeSpy360’s entrance into this odd space means that the market is responding to it, which is what I was told is the case, evidenced by the company rolling it with two major brands in Europe.
I need to recognize that this company has proven itself an innovator and that the avatar can be distracting and the company be correct about its effectiveness at the same time. The concepts can co-exist. I don’t have to like it for it to be good. There’s also a lot to be said for its widespread multi-lingual capabilities. So, sell to anyone, anywhere.
Thankfully for me, the company is still offering a number of great tools for producing engaging online home tours, like its crisp dollhouse views with ceiling perspectives and room measurements, as well as dynamic floor plans and exterior shots.
EyeSpy360 enables agent or broker branding on the viewer’s basepoint, too. That is the circular logo or indicator at the “feet” of the viewer.
What really helps this platform stand out among its competition (which is growing by the day) is its on-screen dynamic labeling of home features.
Interactive hot spots throughout the tour can open up descriptive copy, pictures, links to outside resources and video files. The options are many and demand creativity. Everything from unique artwork intended to be included to a promotional video about the surrounding neighborhood could find its way into an EyeSpy360 tour. Talk about immersive.
Recorded tours resting on a listing page or in a social media promotion can be viewed via EyeSpy Play and narrated by a recorded agent voiceover.
Additionally, agents can choose to make themselves available at any time with the touch of a button through the EyeSpy Live feature. This is a terrific option for virtual open houses and touring a small group and offers a nice touch of personalization. There’s no risk of bandwidth drag because the tour isn’t streaming, and after each Live event, guests can share the tour.
The company can assemble a tour from two images per room, but often one is enough, especially for smaller rooms. The Ricoh Theta V is a common capture option, but the latest iPhones can work, too. If you want a rotating tripod, EyeSpy360 likes the VRkit. You have plenty of options.
Although EyeSpy360 isn’t as well known in the U.S., its tech is behind two major real estate brands’ 3D tour products: eXp and RE/MAX in the U.S. and Canada. It’s also now part of Lone Wolf’s Marketplace, as well as the Californian Association of Realtors (C.A.R.) and the Greater Boston Association of Realtors (GBAR).
The company is also very active outside of real estate, working with insurance companies, construction firms, facility managers and even cleaning companies.
My opinion of robotic avatars aside, this remains a leader in its space. Even though we’re not held down by an Earth-shaking bug anymore, we are being run over by a market freeze that in some ways, can be blamed on that bug. The point is, you still need to market your listings and maintain the ability to adapt to what the few buyers out there want. And what they want is to see a home online before they visit in person.
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.
