Ellie Wald, an agent at Halstead Property, dons a Samsung Gear headset at the brokerage firm’s Manhattan headquarters. Credit Jennifer S. Altman for The New York Times The goggles were strapped to my face like a scuba mask. Only instead of fish, a
studio apartment was wavering in my field of vision.
I moved forward, trying to enter the bathroom. Feeling slightly seasick, I hit the
wall. This was embarrassing. I tried again and smacked into the door frame.
“Are you teleporting?” asked Jason Darcy, a data scientist and software engineer
who works for Halstead Property.
I’d come to Halstead’s Manhattan headquarters to test the virtual reality
technology that the company is developing. I’d already perused a 400-squarefoot West Village resale using a Samsung Gear headset.
But the Halstead team was most excited about a four-story building in Astoria,
Queens, that did not yet exist. Halstead had hired a company called Virtual
Xperience to create a virtual rendering based on the architectural plans. The idea
was to have potential buyers wear an Oculus Rift headset and “walk” around the
building. The more realistic the experience, the more likely a client might be
willing to pay the asking price of nearly $1.98 million for the building before
construction crews even broke ground — at least that was the hope.
“We sell based on emotion and attaching that
emotion to a vision,” said Matthew J. Leone, the
senior vice president of digital marketing for
Terra Holdings, the parent company of Halstead.
“Imagine a buyer walking out onto the terrace
and thinking: ‘If I bought this home and was
having breakfast here, this is exactly what I’d
see.’ That’s incredible. For a salesman, it’s a
dream come true.”
So was I teleporting? I kept bumping into virtual
walls because the headset was making me
extremely nauseated. The Starship Enterprise
this was not.
Halstead says it will introduce three-dimensional
displays and virtual-reality headsets to its offices
this year, and the brokerage isn’t alone.
Greenland Forest City Partners and Douglas Elliman Real Estate are also hoping
to add virtual-reality technology in the coming months, as are individual brokers
looking for a competitive edge. Digital design firms charge tens of thousands of
dollars to create virtual customizable spaces for high-end buyers.
This technology is expected to transform the real estate industry and, some say,
make house-hunting more efficient. It can help to reduce the stress of relocating
to a new city or buying from abroad and also allow buyers to visualize properties
in development.
A Samsung Gear headset can be used to “walk” around an apartment and check out its view without ever having to set foot inside. Credit Jennifer S. Altman for The New York Times Virtual reality videos show the water views that will be available from the Turnberry Ocean Club Residences in Florida. Credit ARX Solutions In some cases, the excitement of providing virtual-reality technology to clients
has created an outsize sense of the technology’s importance. One company was
keeping its VR prototype secret, lest a competitor try to steal it. But whether the
technology is ready for widespread use — and whether consumers really want it
— remains an open question.
What is now available to consumers and growing more popular is the 3D walkthrough. This is an updated version of the panoramic camera shots that were all
the rage a decade ago. There’s no headset. Users move their mouse or arrow keys
from their computer keyboards and devices to navigate through rooms and zoom
in on apartment features. Halstead has 3D walk-throughs available for 30
listings, including one on Cornelia Street in the West Village, but its goal is to get
its entire inventory online. Mr. Leone said that people stay on a page with a 3D
walk-through 10 times longer than those without.
The Boerum, a 20-story condominium at 265 State Street in Brooklyn, won’t be
finished until late this year. But at the showroom of the developer and designer,
Flank, brokers pull up renderings of specific apartments on a large-screen TV,
using an iPad to move around. They can even take potential buyers over to the
window to see the exact view, captured via drone. Buyers will know, for example,
if their view might be blocked by another building.
Some virtual renderings are even more complex. Gonzalo Navarro, a principal of
the digital design firm ArX Solutions, creates 3D walk-throughs showcasing
specific furniture, artwork and fixtures for multimillion-dollar apartments.
Virtual reality videos show how a development in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, will fit into the surrounding green space. Credit VUW Studio/Greenland Forest City Partners “Imagine that you’re sending a check for $30 million and you have nothing to
see,” Mr. Navarro said. “Our work is the closest you can get without having to
build it. You feel the size. You get the textures.” His drones don’t just take photos
but also capture video. So if there’s a lot of street noise, “I can’t lie to you,” he
said.
The virtual apartments created by Mr. Navarro cost nearly $100,000 to make and
take months to build. They can be viewed with an Oculus headset, Mr. Navarro
said, but most clients don’t use this option. When presenting images of the 54story Turnberry Ocean Club Residences in Sunny Isles Beach, Fla., to the
developer, Turnberry Associates, Mr. Navarro used a giant video wall to let the
company’s executives virtually walk around the building without goggles. “We
didn’t want the guy coming to write a $70 million check to get dizzy on us,” he
said.
Jeffrey Hummel, the chief technology officer of Douglas Elliman, said that while
virtual reality has a certain “wow” factor, as with any new technology, there are
lessons to be learned. In his previous career as a financial services executive, Mr.
Hummel gave his programming team pairs of Google Glass to test. “We had an
outbreak of pink eye among all those people,” he said.
A quick fix for this, of course, is the Google cardboard headset, which typically
costs less than $10. Randy Baruh, an associate broker for Corcoran, ordered a
handful of these headsets and is planning to have them branded with his contact
information and the Corcoran logo. He said he would distribute them at open
houses along with his show sheets. (A quick response code on the sheet will start
the VR app.) He has contracted with ProMedia, a New York-based production
company, to create a few VR-capable listings. “It’s a way to set homes apart in
this hypercompetitive environment,” he said.
To create a three-­‐dimensional effect, several camera angles are seamlessly stitched together in a listing for the Corcoran Group. Credit Michael Canzoniero/ProMedia Mr. Leone of Halstead says virtual reality could eventually eliminate the need for
open houses. “If you can see the homes remotely and be more educated before
you actually make a trip, you’ll make the process easier,” he said.
At Douglas Elliman, Mr. Hummel said it would be better to put large-screen
curved TVs in select offices until the headset technology “comes of age.” He says
the goggles might be better suited to international buyers so they can evaluate a
property “before taking an expensive plane ride.”
Greenland Forest City Partners says its fully immersive VR is ready to go. Later
this month, buyers who come to the sales office for 550 Vanderbilt, a new condo
building in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, will be able to don headsets and take a
virtual tour of the eight-acre public park planned around the development.
As for my test at Halstead headquarters, even after I took off the Oculus headset I
was feeling a tad queasy. Meanwhile, Mr. Leone and his team discussed possible
enhancements to the virtual experience. Later this year, haptic technology, or the
science of touch, will let users see their own hands in the virtual world, allowing
them to open closet doors and feel hot water from the faucet. Mr. Darcy said
smells and tastes were also being developed.
Mr. Leone added, “Freshly cut lemons and baking cookies would create the same
experience as you’d have in a real-life home.”
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