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Matterport, the industry bellwether of digital twin creation, is bolstering its line of tools to improve how the real estate industry and consumers create and benefit from online property experiences, according to a Feb. 15 press release. The company has created the mantra “Automating the Future” to collectively brand what’s in store for users in 2024.
The latest components involve methods to leverage data within published 3D tours for additional marketing assets and information dissemination. Known as Matterport Property Intelligence, the release contains features now out of beta testing, such as automatic room-by-room labeling and dimensions, color-coded and company-branded floor plans and property reports for fully detailed physical listing insights.
RJ Pittman, chairman and CEO of Matterport, said in a statement that the evolution of the company’s tour software is rooted in helping people make better decisions about all forms of property, whether for buying a home, checking in on a factory from afar, investing in a commercial property or finding an office to lease.
“Since day one, our mission has been to fundamentally transform how people understand and access the built world,” Pittman said. “Our 3D digital twin technology set the industry standard for the virtual tour, and now we’re delivering unprecedented information and customization capabilities to our customers for any type of property anywhere in the world.”
Other features in Matterport’s latest update include a “Make Offer” call-to-action button inset on the initial screen of a tour, placed alongside the listing agent’s graphical business card. The Make Offer button is an ideal way to capture formal interest from a prospect by linking it to a general term sheet, mortgage preapproval form or other critical information needed to get a deal underway.
Another viewing option includes a live compass and “mini-map” ideal for commercial spaces or unique residential estates. Also now widely available is a CAD file option for those in architecture and construction, a feature announced in beta in November 2023, and the capability to remove furniture and declutter a scanned space, tools popular in virtual staging services.
While Matterport’s primary offering, its 3D home tours, has been seemingly commonplace for years in real estate, happenings in the industry as a whole, as well as in the greater consumer marketplace, show a great deal of prescience on the part of company executives. Immersive marketing experiences are growing more ever-present, from QR codes to virtual headsets and computer vision AI to the evolution of mobile devices, more business and consumer relationships are being created and sustained in the digital space.
Modwell, iGuide, EyeSpy360 and others all offer solid competitive products to Matterport but understandably lack market awareness, at least for now. As the use of digital twins expands at the request of consumers, options will be demanded.
Not far off from reality is the idea of home shoppers using in-home VR experiences to tour potential homes before hopping in the car to visit the best two or three options in person, possibly eliminating months of tedious home showings, an idea posited by panelists at Inman Connect in New York in January.
Zillow’s Matt Hendricks told the audience that with “emerging virtual reality technology like Meta Quest (formerly Oculus) and Apple Vision Pro, “[A home tour] could look very sci-fi.”
Consumers will be able to remodel a home to their taste while walking through a virtual 3-D rendering of a listing, he predicted, and listing agents will be able to do the same walk-through and have features automatically added to a listing description.
“In my mind, that’s awesome for the agent, because I don’t want to go show 30 houses that they’re going to immediately not like,” Hendricks said. “I’d rather show them the three or four that they already have a comfort level with.”
