5 Reasons why home buyers prefer 360 tours

Ever heard of virtual reality? For a real estate agent, virtual reality could be a boon if he or she can showcase a property or a bunch of properties without moving an inch. Taking a client around to find a commercial or residential property that suits his/her taste and budget is not as simple as it sounds. It takes a lot of leg work, time, money and energy to find the piece of property that the client has in mind. As a real estate agent, taking the customer or client on a 3D virtual reality tour instead of a physical one is much easier and has its own merits. 360 tours offers cutting-edge services in this realm and is a boon for real estate agents like you.  1. Saves time: As a real estate agent, your time is very valuable to you and we understand that a property cannot be sold or leased by showing it to a single customer. It could take ten or even twenty customers or clients before you can nail the deal. So, time is of the essence and 360 tours will help you save time by capturing and rendering each and every aspect of the property in the discussion at any time. 2. Increases productivity: It could take weeks or even months before a property could be sold or leased and as a real estate agent, you will not be focusing on a single property. With 360 tours, you can show all available or chosen properties to your customers or clients at one go. Instead of running around, you can now focus on your core competency of finding more clients which translates to increased productivity.3. Wow factor/lasting impression: In this era of gadgets, technology and the internet, what impresses a client most? Leveraging technology to save their time and money can be a great factor in influencing their decision. The wow factor that 360 tours offers you as a real estate agent is simply wonderful. In fact, a client will bring in more clients owing to this lasting impression you have created.4. 24 Hr open house: In the real world, as a real estate agent, you are a slave to the client’s calendar and will need to make adjustments to accommodate their free time. Instead, if you have an opportunity to showcase all properties at anytime and anywhere, would that be beneficial? Yes, it will save time and resources for you as well as the client. In fact, you could be showcasing a property in Singapore to a prospect while on a holiday in Bangkok.5. Generate more quality leads: What is a quality lead? For you as a real estate agent, a quality lead is a lead with a requirement for a leased or owned property and has a budget ready. While using 360 tours, saving money and resources for both parties, who do you think an existing customer will recommend? Another client who is ready to buy or lease! That is a quality lead. So by using 360 tours, you will be generating leads that qualify to buy and will not be wasting time with clients who want to visit properties for the heck of it because you are not taking them anywhere.

13th September 2017

Panopedia offers unrestricted and complete 360 views of the properties you wish to show. 360 cameras are excellent for this purpose, but as it is never truly "floating" in the air, the monopod or tripod will always be inevitably captured in the scene. With these two simple tools, we can show you how to hide your monopod/tripod in the scene.PhotoScape X (Free for download on Mac OS app store and Windows Store)https://www.nadirpatch.comTo start off, you would need to produce a circular image that will cover your tripod in the 360 photo. For this example, we will use Panopedia’s logo. We recommend the following settings for the circular image:Height/Width: 640 pixelsResolution: 30 DPIImage background: transparentFile type: PNGStep 1Once you have this image, we can start off with the patching. Go to https://www.nadirpatch.com and choose on this option:Step 2On this page, you may upload your logo in the last box of the first row (indicated by the thick red box), and any 360 photo you have taken in the second row (indicated by the thick red box). The 360 photo uploaded here is merely a reference on this site.Step 3Once you have uploaded both images, you will be able to see the simulation like the image below. The logo image at default of 50%, we find it to be too big. For most small footprint monopods, 20% is a good size while 35% is good for tripods. Adjust the size by typing into the box indicated by the thick red outline.Step 4Once you are satisfied with the size, click on Create. In the box where it says Equirectangular projection, click on Download to save the generated file.Step 5Next, we are ready to patch all our images using our newly generated patch. Open the PhotoScape X photo editor, and click on Batch in the top menu.Step 6Drag and drop your photos from your folder into the empty space in the center of the application.Step 7All your added images will be shown at the top row. On the right column, click on Insert, followed by the + icon on the first row. This is ‘pre-recording’ the actions that will be performed for all images you have added now, and for new images you will add later even after you have switched off your computer. Everytime you open PhotoScape X from now on, you don’t have to repeat this process anymore.Step 8Click on Image when the dropdown menu appears. Choose the patch we have downloaded from nadirpatch.com earlier in Step 4.Step 9Now the patch have been laid on top of our 360 image, at the top right and bottom left of the layer, hold Shift on your keyboard, click and drag it until the top and bottom edges snaps to the edge of the 360 photo.Step 10Now that the patch is nicely positioned right at the bottom, at the bottom right of PhotoScape X, click on Save.Step 11The Save dialog box will appear, make sure your JPEG Quality is at 100, and click on OK. You may also choose your save locations anywhere you like.Now, you may proceed to create your Panotours on Panopedia now! Do remember that, the next time you Open PhotoScape X, you may simply skip steps 7 to 10 as it will have already been recorded.

30th May 2020

Insta360 is a manufacturer of excellent 360 photos. However, instead of using the widely accepted and common JPG type files, Insta360 developed their own proprietary file format called INSP. This may seem like a problem when using their photos with any platforms including Panopedia, Thankfully they have also released their own Insta360 Studio that helps to convert these to JPG formats.To get started, head on over to https://www.insta360.com/download, under the list of cameras, choose your model to download and install Insta360 Studio 2020.Step 1After you are done installing Insta360 Studio, open it. On the left column, you can see Drag&drop Footage here. You may drag and drop from your folder, or click on it to select the Insta360 files.Step 2Once you have dropped the files within, you will be able to see them in the column. Press Shift and click on them to select all of them. When they are all selected, you will be able to see a yellow border around each one. Click on File(F) on the top menu, and click on Export(B).Step 3A dialog will appear, under File Name, make sure it ends with .jpg. Once all of these is confirmed, just click on OK.Step 4The export process will run, and once it’s all done, you may proceed to create your 360 Panotour on Panopedia.

30th May 2020