6 advantages of using CGI for property marketing
House builders are beginning to use CGI technologies to showcase property before its been built. It’s a trend that’s rising and rising in popularity. You’d be hard pressed to find a UK housebuilder that isn’t either using CGI to market their property, or wanting to use CGI.
We’re all familiar with CGI, the tech itself has been around for a while. But with recent innovations in hardware and software; the quality, flexibility and availability is greater than ever before. And house-builders are cashing in.
Exterior CGIs For Property Developers
An image says a thousand words but an image you can interact with, says a thousand more. Ok, that might not be saying but we’ve just created it. Before the CGI revolution hit the housing sector, potential buyers had to rely on housing brochures or a single showhome to get a feeling for their dream home. There’s nothing bespoke about that.
At EyeSite, we create digital twins of every house type on your development. Which means buyers don’t need to ‘make do’ with the showhome. Our CGI exterior renders perfectly depict the building in glorious 3D, which helps the buyer visualise what the property will look like when its complete. Our product selector features will even let them toggle furniture, kitchen and bathroom finishes and more.
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>Customise Showhomes with Interactive CGI
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We’re leading the way for property CGI and our clients enjoy the latest CGI technologies and the highest quality exterior renders for their developments. Lets get stuck into the 6 advantages of using CGI for property marketing 👇
1. CGI is a better tool than photography for property marketing
We’d go as far to say this: if you’re still using photography only to promote your property, you’re already being left behind. With photography, both interior and exterior, many factors have to be in place to land the perfect photo. The time of day, the lighting, a trusted photographer, the right editing style, these are all tricky variables that are difficult to be consistent with and costly if they go wrong.
CGI also helps housebuilders during the development process. With a photography method of promotion, housebuilders don’t enjoy the same level of flexibility. Using CGI housebuilders can iron out any design concerns before the build is rolled out to the public. Once the build has finished, design changes would be out of the question.
Using CGI also allows you to plan ahead and start selling earlier. You won’t need to wait for showhomes to be built to showcase them, or wait for snow to capture that festive scene for your December marketing calendar.
2. Exceed your customers expectations
The modern buyer’s needs are evolving. As the services in their day-to-day life become more digital and more accessible, so too should the house buying process. By bringing in CGI to your promotion arsenal, prospective buyers will be able to view every detail of your listing without ever having to visit the site or even wait for the project to be completed.
We know how it works with new build developments. Often a brick hasn’t even been set but the expectations are to sell every listing. This is only possible with CGI. It’s been proven to vastly increase interest and sales from a range of buyer demographics. All we need to get started is the development plans and architectural details and we’ll begin rendering out digital twins of every property type.
This ability that CGI offers to property marketing means developers see results faster, and homes are sold earlier.
And as we all know, time = money.
3. 3D is better than 2D
Some of us remember when property was sold using generic images of house types and 2D floor plans. Thank goodness those days are over. Just as the lightbulb replaced the candle, CGI innovation has marched on and created a more interactive, engaging and informative house buying experience for the client.
Our processes have streamlined too, here’s our creation process:
- We begin by creating a 3D model from the 2D architectural plans. We add materials, lighting, details and depth to create an accurate model of the final build.
- After receiving feedback from the developer, we’ll make any required changes and create a second draft for final review.
- Following final tweaks, we’ll render out the finished digital twin as both an explorable ‘interactive’ render and as a set of statics for a marketing toolkit.
With these developments, how can we expect buyers to visualise kitchens, bathrooms and gardens from small material swatches pulled out of a draw in a marketing suite?
We live in a 3D world, so people relate to 3D imagery. Modern technology is here, and you’ve got to embrace it as soon as possible to get the first-mover advantage, and stride ahead of your competition… don’t get left behind.
4. Show off your quality with a toolkit of assets
Months and years of hard work go into planning and designing a housing development, it’s a huge feat of design and construction. Why build a gorgeous site of 60 new homes, and don’t showcase exactly what they’re going to look like before they’re built?
CGI unlocks showing this off to the world before the development has even been built. It puts the listings in the best possible light before a buyer can actually step across the welcome mat.
They key benefits for housebuilders are:
-They’ll get a detailed and visual understanding of how the builds come to life in relation to the surrounding area.
-The signature details and architectural details will come to life before your eyes.
-You’ll have a digital twin and a virtual tour of every listing type for buyers to explore and peruse at their own leisure.
-You’ll also have a suite of professionally crafted images for marketing material such as on-site and in social channels, helping you drive interest in the development before a brick has been set.
Creating professionally crafted images for marketing material, before the
infrastructure is built
You should be proud of the development, and show the site off to the world months before building has commenced – and CGI lets you do this.
Using a quality CGI provider is vital. It’s worth bearing in mind that the best CGI may not be the cheapest, so high quality CGI is well worth the investment to receive the maximum value.
Using poor quality CGI devalues your product, so be sure that your CGI provider offers the quality that matches your brand. Your customers deserve it.
5. Sell off-plan quicker and earlier
How do housebuilders get buyers into homes that aren’t built yet? It almost sounds like a riddle, or the start of a tricky exam question. But house builders who are waiting for show homes to be built before they sell, are missing out on a new generation of prospective buyers.
Through the power of 3D house tours UK and Virtual Showhomes, EyeSiteView are enabling house builders to sell property off-plan quicker. A 3D house tour visualises every detail & dimension of your plot, providing access for the modern buyer to view from the comfort of their sofa.
At EyeSiteView we’ve delivered over 10,000 Virtual Showhomes, enabling the UK’s leading house-builders to take listings to market before a brick has been laid.
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>Sell Property Quicker with 3D House Tours & the Virtual ShowHome
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6. Versatility
Most property developers are already using CGI. You typically see it in varying quality on their websites, social media, marketing suite and print media.
However, CGI can still go much further than just still imagery. In creating CGI, we generate a highly detailed, 3D model of your development. This asset can be used to generate other types of CGI services:
Animations
According to HubSpot Blogs research, 66% of consumers have watched video content (i.e., product demos, reviews, FAQs, unboxings, etc.) to learn about a brand or product. This shows the way modern buyers are interacting with educational content is changing. They expect content to be built video-first.
Video walkthroughs are an exceptional way to ensure a listing promotion is video first. Walkthroughs are essentially sizzle-reels of a listing, showcasing the best bits and giving the buyer a fuller picture of the physical space.
Augmented reality (AR)
The blend of virtual and physical is where the leading housebuilders are operating. Creating a seamless link between virtual tours online and the physical sales centre, ensures the buyer stays fully engaged through the purchase journey.
Tools like EyeSiteViews ViewStation & Vantage are bridging the gap between the virtual and the physical. The leading house-builders in the UK such as Redrow and Story Homes have moved their sales centres into the customer experience space.
Virtual reality (VR)
In essence, a CGI Virtual Tour is a collection of 360° computer-generated images (CGI) combined together with the functionality to navigate between them.
Many of these tours have navigation similar to Google Streetview, meaning there’s a familiarity when operating these platforms and are even easy for technophobes to function.
Interactive CGI
Product selectors, kitchen visualisers, and animated CGI’s are all examples of this, and can benefit your customers by allowing them to have a customised experience that’s individual to them.
This initiates a relationship being built between yourself, the developer, and your future new home buyers.
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>Find out more about the value of interactive CGI
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Final Word
Property developers using CGI to market and sell new builds isn’t going to go away anytime soon. But how do developers build a lasting and genuine relationship with customers who view property from behind a screen?
The honest truths of real estate will always stand the test of time. The right buyer needs the right property and building a relationship with the customer is still the most valuable and effective approach to selling new builds. Trust is essential.
The modern buyer needs the same things, they’re looking for a real-world experience but through their smart-phones, tablets and laptops. That means new build developers need to be on those devices, with CGI tools to build lasting and genuine relationships with these customers.
Taking back control and providing the ability to show off exactly what something will look like before anything’s been built are the core benefits of CGI to every industry and sector.
The CGI train is pulling out the station, time to hop on board.
Find out more about EyeSiteView.
