Galliard makes its first sale using ‘walking tours’ virtual viewings tech
House builder has won its first reservation from a buyer after launching the platform last week in response to the Coronavirus lockdown.
A leading house builder has achieved its first reservation since the Coronavirus crisis began using a virtual viewings platform.
Galliard Homes, which has embedded fully-immersive 360-degree tours into its sales process across the company’s entire £3.6 billon portfolio of 1,000 newbuild properties, has won the reservation at its 420-apartment The Stage development in Shoreditch, central London.
Built on the site of Shakespeare’s Curtain Theatre, prices start at £685,000 and the tours are being used to sell the final unsold 250 units at the site.
Galliard launched the virtual viewings service in partnership with supplier Reevo 360 in response to the government’s guidance last week that no one should move home unless contractually obliged to do so.
Walking through tours
The viewings platform enables developer and estate agency sales agents working from home to walk buyers through each property via a virtual accompanied viewing.
Galliard says the system represents the biggest changes to its sales and marketing procedures in the company’s history, and that the nature of its stock has made it relatively easy to implement.
The nature of new homes means filming properties represents a very low risk to Galliard and Reevo 360 staff as the properties are empty, and the developer’s sites currently have only security staff in attendance, although the current tours were filmed prior to the lockdown.
“We have launched this new service for clients because, despite the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, over the past month we have continued to have 20 sales per week across our London portfolio, double last year during the Brexit stagnation,” says David Galman, Sales Director at Galliard Homes (left).
“Our buyers want to view properties, yet stay safe from Coronavirus; so this roll out of virtual viewings is an innovative solution to help meet this demand.”
Read more about virtual viewings.
It will be really interesting to see how this plays out – having wasted many an hour visiting the ‘wrong’ property well executed virtual viewings which in some shape and for have been around for over 25 years, may really get traction.
Especially in the new home sector, when selling off plan, but also if buyers are a long distance from the properties they wish to view.
In a fast changing world, where ‘content’ especially filmed content is increasingly becoming king, maybe this medium may come of age, especially with the quality of the content having risen so much due to technological advances.