Real Estate in PJs

We live in a small city of around 7,000 in a large rural region of our state (that population will double if the students ever come back to our two colleges). Lots of small local businesses. Our son works at the tiny digital services company that will, among other things, build and maintain your website if you're one of those small businesses that wants one.

A completely unexpected boom is occurring, apparently, in 3-D tours. This is the feature you find in online real estate listings (Zillow calls it a “3D Home Tour”); it allows you to do a virtual walk-through of the house with 360 degree views of each room. It requires a set of digital 3D photo equipment which is, apparently, very expensive.

The firm's owner took a lot of good-natured heat a few years ago when he bought the equipment to do these tours. There was sporadic demand, but it just didn't seem like a cost-efficient investment (but what a cool toy!).

But now that we're all working, learning, and shopping from home, suddenly everyone wants customers to walk through their homes without having to take a chance on infection. Buyers love to shop for real estate in their PJs. There's a half-time intern who is, apparently, doing nothing but digitizing real estate in 3D.

The interesting thing is that our son – and, I assume, the rest of the staff – is convinced that this is the future – through the pandemic and out the other side. People have already gotten used to it, and will continue to expect it.

This is purely secondhand and anecdotal. The world is finding ways to make an astounding number of processes and activities virtual, because it has to. There's no reason to think, in any of these cases, that we won't revert to the in-person option as soon as this is all over.

But here are some folks who are involved in the business, using real-time evidence, to predict that at least one of these processes will be a part of the new world. Not speculation, or wish-fulfillment, but real customer demand and feedback in the real world.  

It's the only one I've found so far. We are so far from understanding anything about the new world.

UPDATE - 7/11/20:  We are members of Historic New England, a collection of a few dozen remarkable historic houses located throughout the northeast.  They just received a CARES Act grant to do the same kind of 3-D tour of a few of their houses that the real estate people are doing here (and everywhere, I assume).  I'm pretty sure that these online tours will not go away in the new world.