iGuide, a Canada-based 3D tours and real estate floor plan proptech provider, today announced reaching a 20% market share in Canadian homes and 37% in the province of Alberta, according to a press release shared with FinLedger.
This announcement follows an ongoing proptech trend, with floor plan technology slowly becoming an integral part of property tours and growing segment of the real estate industry.
This was revealed in the National Association of Realtors‘ (NAR) 2021 Home Buyers and Sellers Generational Trends Report, which found floor plans (67%) rank as the third most desired listing feature for homebuyers, after photos (89%) and detailed information about properties for sale (86%).
“In 2021, we saw continued growth in adoption of iGUIDE on listings partly because of the Pandemic and because this was the direction the market was naturally evolving,” said Michael Vervena, iGuide VP of Marketing and Sales, in the release.
“Now looking at 2022, as the market became even more competitive, we continued to see a steady increase in sales and interaction on our platform, which to us, says that 3D virtual tools and floor plans are now staple tools for agents, sellers, and buyers alike.”
The statement says the platform provides this technology to generate home measurement data and its products include 3D tour links, embed codes, camera systems, floor plans, video integrations and other analytics such as neighborhood information.
Vervena added that the technology helps users make better decisions while choosing a home.
“The recent high demand and lack of inventory caused homes to sell extremely fast, and many top agents shared with us that using iGUIDE on their listings helped demonstrate value to their sellers,” he said in the release. “Now, as the market is shifting again, agents are telling us that these tools are becoming even more important than ever to help them compete for sellers whose numbers are decreasing in the current economic situation.”
Another example is TruPlace, Inc., a real estate virtual tour and data management company that today announced its partnership with listing service Bright MLS. It says the partnership will integrate property listing photos with captions, floor plans and virtual tour links that can to save users up to 30 minutes per listing.
“Timing is critical in real estate and agents need to get their listings online as fast as possible. This new technology will help them do just that. The added bonus of being able to use Media Sync on their mobile device gives them flexibility to update their listing from anywhere,” said Bob Cusack, CEO of TruPlace in the release.
Brian Donnellan, president and CEO of Bright MLS added that the partnership followed a “successful” testing process with TruPlace.
“Bright’s subscribers who utilize the combination of TruPlace and Media Sync can look forward to a simpler, faster media upload experience,” he also said in the release.
Recently, Finland-based property technology company CubiCasa also announced launching a free digital floor plan technology to standardize its use on American properties. The company has found that despite growing demands for floor plans, only 10-15% of American homes use them.
FinLedger also spoke with Jeff Allen, president of CubiCasa, who said floor plans are now a highly coveted feature for home buyers and sellers today. CubiCasa is trying to make its floor plan service free to eliminate doubts in the minds of buyers if they should pay for it or not.
The organization generates revenue through add-on features like gross living area calculations and furniture details.
In other recent proptech news, Marble, a rental management proptech working with smaller landlords, raised $2 million. Tour24, an interactive audio/visual apartment tour service, was selected by Landmark Properties as its exclusive provider of self-guided tours.