Real estate virtual tour: houses, condos, apartments and commercial spaces

A real estate virtual tour, as seen by a buyer

A couple from Quebec City is looking for a condo in Montreal for their daughter, who is starting university. On a Tuesday evening, they open the tour link in your listing: the lobby, the unit, the view from the living room, then the dollhouse view to understand how the rooms fit together. The mother measures the bedroom wall: the double bed fits. They consult the floor plan, send the link to the grandparents and take the tour again the next day.

When they call you, the question is no longer “what does the condo look like?” but “can we visit on Saturday and make an offer?” That is what a real estate virtual tour does: it takes care of the first showing, the one that mostly serves to rule things out, so that your time goes to serious buyers.

For residential: brokers, developers and owners

A house or a condo for sale

The 3D tour opens in a browser, with no app. The link is added to the property’s Centris listing, your website, your emails and your social media. The floor plan for each floor is included, and any visitor can measure a room in the tour. A buyer from outside the region sees the property before hitting the road; the one who comes to visit already knows it interests them. According to Matterport, a 2020 American study links 3D tours to sales up to 31% faster. Professional HDR photos, real estate video and aerial drone views can be added as needed, from the same provider.

A condo project and its model unit

For a developer, a single captured model unit lets people tour the whole project, even before delivery. That is what we did for SKYBLÜ Condos, at Cité Mirabel, and for the Tour des Canadiens, in Montreal: buyers walk through the unit room by room, see the volumes in the dollhouse view and consult the floor plan from their phone. The sales office receives visitors who are already convinced. Branding in the project’s colours completes the tour.

An apartment or rental unit

For a landlord or a residential property manager, each apartment type is captured once: the one-bedroom, the two-bedroom, the corner unit. The link goes into the listing, and applicants tour the unit before booking a visit: they check the view, measure the bedroom and see where the fridge goes. You show the unit in person to people who have already chosen it, and the same link works for every turnover.

For commercial: lease and sell from a distance, document the building

For a property manager or a landlord, the virtual tour of a commercial space for lease, an office floor or a light industrial space shortens the leasing cycle. The prospective tenant tours whenever they want, measures the clear height or the area of a conference room, and shares the link with their partners before requesting a showing. That is what the tour of 4200 Saint-Laurent Boulevard does for Antrev, and what our property management clients, such as Groupe Forum, use for their marketing and leasing. According to Matterport, Colliers cut its in-person showings in half and JLL sped up its transactions by 85%.

Three uses go beyond leasing:

• Due diligence. An unlisted link, shared with investors, lenders and inspectors: they tour, measure and consult the floor plan without multiplying trips.
• Tenant fit-out. From the same model, 3D building scanning provides the point cloud and the CAD drawings to the architect.
• Condition report. A dated capture at the start and end of the lease, or before work, documents the condition of every space.

Since a commercial space or an office building is a non-residential location, its tour can also be published on your Google Maps listing (+$100); see the Google virtual tour. Your leasing team can receive editor access ($150 per year) and keep the information tags up to date itself: available area, availability date, PDF spec sheet for the space.

Software, camera or photographer: can you make a real estate virtual tour yourself?

Many brokers ask, and the answer depends on the property.

• With a phone. The Matterport app can capture a space with an iPhone that has a LiDAR sensor. According to Matterport, its free plan allows a single active space at a time: for a second property, you archive the first one (it is then no longer visible) or move to a paid plan. The result suits a small, well-lit condo.
• With a consumer 360 camera (Ricoh Theta, Insta360…) and virtual tour software, free or by subscription. You get a 360 tour that links panoramas, at best a rough dollhouse view, but no reliable measurements.
• With a professional photographer. At Panosphere 360, the Pro3 camera measures the space by laser, handles windows and backlighting, and delivers the 2D floor plan with the tour. For a multi-storey house, a high-end property, a commercial space or a condo project, the capture is done in a single visit, with no retakes, and the broker can focus on selling.

The math is simple: at $395 for a property under 1,500 sq. ft., floor plan and first-year hosting included, a professional capture often costs less than the hours spent learning, capturing and fixing it yourself.

Why trust Panosphere 360 with your real estate tours

• A single person, from the quote to delivery: Marc Durand Bréard.
• Real estate clients: Royal LePage, RE/MAX Extra, Gestion immobilière Groupe Forum, SKYBLÜ Condos, Tour des Canadiens and OCRAM Group.
• Over 1,000 tours published on Google Maps since 2015.
• Matterport Service Partner, Pro3 camera, certified drone pilot.
• Captures in the evening and on Saturday mornings, when the seller or the tenant is away.
• Public prices, a written quote, a volume package for brokers and service in French across Quebec.

Marketing a hotel? See the virtual tour for hotels. Is your project still under construction? The 3D virtual tour for construction page covers site monitoring and the handover file. See also the Matterport 3D virtual tour, our prices and our portfolio, or request a quote.