Crest Nicholson Case Study
Crest Nicholson Creates a More Connected Off-Plan Home Buying Experience
Client: Crest Nicholson
Development: Arden Oaks
- Active Siteplans
- 360 Streetview Tours
- Flythrough Animation
- Sales Centre Touchscreen Integration
Buying a new home off-plan requires buyers to make important decisions often long before they can experience the finished home or development.
For Crest Nicholson, the opportunity was to give buyers greater clarity and confidence earlier in that journey, helping them understand not only the home they are considering, but the development, individual plots and wider environment around it.
Building on our existing partnership and the interactive Housetype Configurators already delivered for Crest Nicholson, we have taken that digital experience to development level, creating a connected suite of interactive sales tools powered by live development data.
Through Active Siteplans, 360° Streetview Tours, Flythrough Animation and CGI visualisation, buyers can explore developments before they are built, understand individual plots in context and access existing digital assets such as floorplans and Matterport tours as part of one connected buying journey.
And because the experience is connected to live pricing and availability, buyers and sales teams are exploring information that remains accurate and current as the development progresses.
Building on Crest Nicholson's digital sales strategy
Our work with Crest Nicholson began with digitising the choices and upgrades journey through our interactive Housetype Configurators.
From a buyer’s perspective, the configurators provide greater clarity and confidence when personalising a new home. Rather than viewing individual choices and upgrades in isolation, buyers can see how different finishes, options and upgrades work together visually within their future space, helping them make more informed and confident purchasing decisions.
For Crest Nicholson, the technology transforms what can traditionally be a manual process into a consistent, centralised digital experience. It also creates valuable insight into buyer behaviour, providing analytics around which upgrades are most popular, the value of options being selected and how customers are engaging with different choices.
By giving buyers greater confidence to visualise the end result, it also creates greater opportunity to increase options and upgrades revenue.
The next stage of our partnership was to take that same principle of clarity, connectivity and insight beyond the individual home and apply it at development level.
Because when buying off-plan, understanding the development, the available plots and the environment around your future home can be just as important as understanding what’s inside it.
What we delivered
Rather than creating standalone digital assets, we developed a connected development-level experience that brings together immersive visualisation, live property data and Crest Nicholson’s existing digital content.
Each layer of exploration connects to the next, allowing buyers to move naturally from understanding the wider development, to exploring individual plots and live availability, through to floorplans, virtual tours and ultimately the home itself.
The result is a more joined-up digital journey that gives buyers greater clarity and confidence earlier, while helping Crest Nicholson maximise the value of its existing digital investment.
Interactive 3D Siteplans
Interactive 3D development plans connected to live plot data, pricing and availability, giving buyers an intuitive way to explore the development with accurate, current information.
Buyers can understand individual plot positions, explore how the development changes at different times of day and seamlessly transition into 360° Streetview Tours to experience their chosen plot and surroundings at street level.
360 Streetview Tours
Immersive street-level exploration that allows buyers to virtually move through the future development, experiencing individual plots, streets and surroundings in context before they physically exist.
Buyers can interact directly with individual plots to view live availability and pricing, explore floorplans and access Matterport tours where available, creating a seamless journey from exploring the development to discovering a specific home.
Flythrough Animation
Bringing the wider development vision to life through animation, with the site realistically integrated into its surrounding environment using the latest visualisation technology and production techniques.
This helps buyers understand the scale, setting, architecture and overall character of the development in context, creating a more believable and confidence-building view of how it will feel once complete.
Architecturally accurate CGI visualisation
Accuracy matters when representing a home that is yet to be built.
For Crest Nicholson, we created an architecturally accurate 3D digital twin of the development from the technical drawings, carefully recreating the homes, streets and wider site rather than taking visual shortcuts.
This detailed 3D environment forms the foundation from which we can create accurate Housetype CGI, streetscenes and wider development visuals, ensuring consistency across every customer touchpoint.
By working directly from technical information, we help Crest Nicholson present future homes as accurately as possible while supporting the increasing importance of accuracy, consistency and compliance in new homes marketing.
Creating clarity earlier in the buying journey
This connected approach becomes particularly valuable during the earliest stages of an off-plan purchase.
Before showhomes are available and while a development is still taking shape, buyers can already begin exploring the site, understanding the differences between plots and discovering which homes meet their requirements.
Through the Active Siteplan, they can see current availability and pricing while understanding exactly where each home sits within the development.
From there, they can explore the surrounding street virtually, access floorplans and existing virtual tours, and continue into the housetype itself where interactive content is available.
Each interaction provides another layer of understanding.
Together, they reduce how much the buyer is being asked to imagine and create greater clarity at a point in the journey where confidence can have a significant influence on decision-making.
Supporting more informed sales conversations
The connected experience gives sales teams a more powerful way to guide buyers through the development, bringing live availability, pricing and rich visual content together in one place.
Rather than moving between separate plans, price lists and digital assets, sales teams can explore the development alongside the buyer, compare plots and instantly access the most relevant information and visual experiences for the homes they’re interested in.
This creates more informed and personalised conversations from the outset. Buyers gain greater clarity and confidence in the homes they’re considering, while sales teams can focus on understanding individual preferences, answering meaningful questions and guiding buyers towards the right home.
As the digital journey evolves, these interactions can also create valuable insight into buyer interests and behaviour, opening up opportunities for more relevant and effective follow-up.