Virtual-reality house hunting: It’s almost like being there

From Philly.com

At first blush, local broker Brett Furman’s listings seem like many others: There are pricey properties and cheaper ones; some close to the city, and some far away. Million-dollar English Tudors and $175,000 townhouses sit side by side on his website, waiting to be snatched up by buyers.

But unlike most brokers, Furman can show you all of them, in a matter of moments.

No, not pictures. Actual walk-throughs of homes. One minute, you could be inside the master bedroom of a $1.4 million Bryn Mawr property, making your way through a walk-in closet. Ten minutes later, you could be in Malvern, examining countertops in a new kitchen.

All with one silly-looking scuba mask.

Actually, it takes a little more than that: Furman is one of Philadelphia’s first to embrace virtual-reality real estate technology, a burgeoning industry that’s already made a splash in such markets across the nation as San Francisco and New York.

Though it’s still in the early stages of adoption in this region, industry observers predict that virtual reality could transform the real estate field’s days of open houses and blueprints into a future of more efficiency and ease.

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