Virtual Tour vs. In-Person Showing: What Homebuyers Should Know

House hunting has always been a two-part process; narrowing the field and then getting your eyes on the homes that survive the cut. What’s changed is how powerful that first part has become. A well-built virtual tour can now do in twenty minutes what used to require a full weekend of driving around. However, a virtual tour and an in-person showing aren’t interchangeable, and buyers who treat them that way tend to either waste time on homes they’d have screened out or, more consequentially, skip the visit entirely on a home that had problems no camera could catch. Whether you’re browsing homes in Phoenix, AZ or shortlisting apartments in Nashville, TN, here’s what each format actually does, and why you need both. What is a virtual tour? A virtual tour lets you explore a home remotely, usually through a video walkthrough or an interactive 3D experience. Unlike listing photos, which show individual rooms from selected angles, an immersive tour can help you understand how those rooms connect and how the overall layout works. “Virtual Tours are an amazing way to showcase a home listing – whether it’s a video or an immersive 360 tour (such as Matterport), a virtual tour shows the layout ...