Nodalview Partners with Matterport to Help Real Estate Agents Boost Commissions by 25% with Premium Virtual Tours

Nodalview has set out to convince real estate agents that technology is an advantage, not an obstacle, to their success. With Nodalview solutions, agents are finding new ways to increase their efficiency while highlighting their added value for buyers and sellers in every transaction.

Since 2016, the company has worked with more than 10,000 agents to market more than 30,000 properties per month. Nodalview was founded to fill the gap for high-quality real estate content online, helping agents gain new leads and deliver better digital experiences. More recently, Thomas Lepelaars, CEO and Co-Founder of Nodalview, noticed a growing demand among agents and home shoppers for premium, immersive content. To extend more robust capabilities for high-fidelity virtual property tours to clients, Nodalview partnered with Matterport.

Matterport Developer Tools Enable Enhanced Interactivity

Using Matterport APIs and SDK, Nodalview can layer customized, state-of-the-art features on top of Matterport digital twins. The technology partnership is foundational to Nodalview’s newest Property Tour 3.0 offering. The guided virtual visits let agents control the presentation of a 3D virtual home tour while interacting one-on-one with a buyer via live video conference embedded in the platform. 

Nodalview enables agents to find ways to amplify Matterport-powered tours through a variety of online and offline channels, from QR codes on for-sale signs to ads on real estate portals. A link might allow buyers to initiate the beginning of a tour by themselves on the Nodalview platform, then require that they fill out an inquiry form to gain access to see the rest of the home. 

“The gated tour content using a lead generation form kicks off a valuable experience where agents can seamlessly interact with prospects. It's a transformative, new lead gen channel that helps agents develop relationships,” says Lepelaars. “We’ve found that offering instant appointment bookings for virtual showings can double conversion rates.”

“Agents could use standard or even 360-degree images, but with our Matterport virtual tour, they can provide a superior, in-depth, cohesive experience. It allows richer interactions that build trust with customers,” says Lepelaars. The guided tour re-creates the feel of an exclusive, private showing to meet the needs of modern and discerning home shoppers. 

“We’re giving the power to real estate agents to reinvent the journey of selling and buying a home, enabling stronger connections with potential buyers in much more immediate, personal ways online inside of these 3D models,” Lepelaars says. 

“Real estate agents can thrive in this digital era by offering immersive, online prequalification visits, which help buyers understand if properties that look interesting actually correspond to their requirements. Today, people want services faster than ever and our solution elevates the added value of agents who can understand a buyer’s needs and efficiently guide them on spectacular virtual tours to discover their ideal home,” he says.

The Nodalview platform makes it easy for agents working with buyers to show multiple properties online in one session and in a short amount of time, with driving distances between homes no longer a concern. Buyers and sellers appreciate the resulting efficiencies. After virtual tours on Nodalview, typically only buyers with demonstrated, genuine interest visit a listing in person. 

Time Savings and Faster Sales Cycles

“In a hot real estate market, it’s challenging for buyers to visit a house before it's already sold,” says Lepelaars. “Our high-quality virtual tours give more people the opportunity to quickly become familiar with a new property on the market. Sellers like how this allows agents to sell houses faster, and often at a higher price, because we're driving the maximum interest of well-qualified buyers to the physical visits, which can result in better offers.”

Agents appreciate more productive use of their time. “We’ve observed that real estate agents can save up to 15 hours of showing work per property listing by boosting lead qualification with our solution,” Lepelaars says. 

Nodalview encourages agents to organize webinar-like open house sessions to take advantage of the platform’s capabilities to interact with multiple viewers at the same time. “The agent can give independent property tour navigation controls to each visitor and still provide the experience of leading the conversation,” says Lepelaars. 

Agents can provide their seller clients with analytics on the virtual tours. “We find tremendous value in the Matterport developer tools that allow us to implement a layer of intelligence on top of the digital twin. We can extract the data that agents and sellers want, such as how visitors are navigating and how much time they’re spending,” Lepelaars says. “It gives agents a simple way to show accountability to their sellers.” The insights also help agents prioritize leads, so they can spend more time with more serious buyers. 

The company finds that visitors spend between two to five minutes inside of a virtual home tour if it's unguided, whereas the average session length, when accompanied by a real estate agent, is typically between 25 and 30 minutes. “It’s a great opportunity for agents to grow their buyer databases as they speak meaningfully with more prospects,” says Lepelaars.

Winning More Listings with Matterport-Powered Tours

When calling on potential home sellers, the Nodalview solution helps agents sign more listing agreements. “Even smaller agencies can present sellers a premium service with an enhanced marketing investment, while demonstrating its benefits. We see agents doing this and generating 15 to 20 percent more business by winning more listings and increasing their productivity,” Lepelaars says. “Our platform is extremely accessible, even for a smaller real estate agency that doesn't have a huge marketing or technology organization.”

Many agents who have tried Nodalview are now systematically including the premium virtual tours as part of their default home listing service offering, since the advantages outweigh the cost. For example, Lepelaars reports that on average, agents using these higher-quality visual assets in their marketing plans generate four times more interest. Agents can also justify increasing commission rates in listing contracts. “With our virtual tours, some agents are able to present a much more compelling home selling strategy and as a result can secure a 25% higher commission than they might get otherwise,” he says.

Agents handle the digital twin capture process for their listings, then submit them to Nodalview to set up the premium virtual tour service. Many agents capture homes by using Matterport for Mobile, which offers free apps for both iPhone and Android and makes it simple for agents to use their mobile phones to scan a new listing on the fly. Alternatively, agents will often contact a professional with a high-resolution 3D camera, such as the Matterport Pro2.

Nodalview anticipates continued fast growth. “Matterport developer tools allow us to scale these interactive real estate experiences to almost any real estate agent in the world, greatly increasing our addressable market,” Lepelaars says.

“Some people think that in a hot market, they might not need a quality virtual tour. However, over the past two years, consumers are transacting more frequently online for just about everything. They’ve gotten used to this more convenient, immersive, modern way of looking at real estate and they love it. These new approaches are here to stay,” he says.

Nodalview is a Matterport Platform Partner that leverages Matterport APIs and SDKs to build and commercialize their apps and integrations with Matterport’s market-leading spatial data platform. As a Platform Partner, they gain access to a range of commercial benefits, such as Matterport’s distribution network and enhanced support as well as co-marketing and co-selling programs to help them successfully monetize their applications. To learn more about the Platform Partner Program and apply to join, visit https://matterport.com/platform-partner-program

ABOUT NODALVIEW

Founded in 2016, Nodalview helps more than 2,500 real estate agencies in 30 countries better attract, engage, and qualify potential customers while delivering a modern online property buying experience. By leveraging high-quality visual assets and immersive content with Nodalview, agents can build winning sales strategies, grow their online presence, close deals faster with tangible data insights, and match the right buyers with the right home.

https://public.nodalview.com/en/ https://public.nodalview.com/

HEADQUARTERSBrussels, Belgium

PRODUCTS Matterport SDK, Matterport APIs

Results

• Increasing commission rates 25% by presenting sellers marketing plans that include premium virtual tours

• Helping agents generate 15% to 20% more business by winning more listings and increasing their productivity

• Saving up to 15 hours of showing work per property listing by boosting lead qualification

• Improving conversion rates by 200% with instant appointment bookings for virtual showings