Memphis, Tenn: Crye-Leike Real Estate Services announces that is has launched 3D virtual tour technology, powered by Asteroom, allowing consumers to safely and efficiently tour listings without stepping foot in the home.

The pandemic has spurred creativity and the use of technology in unanticipated ways, particularly in real estate. According to a study conducted by the National Association of REALTORS (NAR), one in 20 homebuyers purchased a house sight-unseen in 2020.

Despite the "virtual tour" label that is given to many property listings, most of them are simply still photos of different rooms stitched together with a music background. True 3D tours, like the Asteroom product used by Crye-Leike, allow the online user to move through the house, understand the flow of rooms, and view "dollhouse" floor plans that provide a three-dimensional perspective. This technology not only provides a new level of convenience, but it creates a competitive advantage for buyers who can now virtually tour a home the same day it hits the market.

"Being able to offer these 3D tours on most of our listings will be a game-changer in giving buyers a comfort level if circumstances don't allow them to physically visit a property," says Crye-Leike Owner and Chief Executive Officer Harold Crye. "These tours empower buyers to tour homes on their own schedules, while giving sellers the benefit of real exposure without having multiple visitors in their homes. We can still use Zoom, Facetime or other tools to zero in on closets or special features with an agent-guided tour once someone is nearer to making an offer, but the Asteroom technology saves so much time and COVID-angst, which adds tremendous efficiency to the home search process. I don't believe consumers will want to give that up even after the pandemic passes."

Consumer demand for true virtual reality tours, which are already commonplace in other parts of the world and are regularly used by builders for new home models, has increased for resale listings by 750% during the last year of pandemic conditions. Major online portals like Zillow and Realtor.com are now featuring homes with these true virtual tours much more prominently. Crye-Leike adding virtual tour services to its long list of marketing tools provides its 3,000+ agents an opportunity to feature listings in a unique, reliable manner for consumers.

Crye-Leike is the third largest, independently owned real estate firm in the nation, providing a one-stop-shop consumer experience with mortgage lending, title closing, insurance coverage, home services, property management and national relocation services.

For more information regarding real estate in the Mid-South, please visit the Crye-Leike website atwww.clhomes.com.


ABOUT CRYE-LEIKE: Crye-Leike Real Estate Services (www.clhomes.com), a full service real estate company for over 40 years, is ranked as the third largest independently-owned real estate firm in the nation and the largest serving Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and the Mid-South. Crye-Leike has more than 3,200 sales associates, over 800 employees and 140+ company-owned and franchise offices spread across nine states. It generated $7.5 billion in sales and had 31,578 closed transaction sides corporate wide in 2020, making it the company's most successful year to date.

 

ABOUT ASTEROOM: Founded in 2018, Asteroom wants to bring transparency and efficiency to the real estate industry by offering a simple 3D virtual tour solution shot on smart phones. The company wants to lower the barrier to entry so anyone has the power to create a virtual tour without expensive hardware. A world where every property can be viewed virtually is one with accelerated economic exchanges.