“We’re out to change the way the Americans see the future”
Note: Article includes links
to immersive experiences for readers to try out
Scandinavia’s leading architectural visualization firm, wec360°, today announces the opening of its first U.S. office, in N.Y.C. wec360° works with some of the largest real estate developers to deliver beautiful interactive models of residential and commercial properties online and in mixed reality (AR/VR). The aim is now set to change the way real estate industry operates in the U.S.
Click the image below for the media content
Demand for VR and AR when buying a home or property is increasing radically. Research reveals that 62% say they are more likely to choose a real estate agent who offer VR tour capabilities vs not*.
In recent years, wec360° has made a name for itself in the real estate sphere in Europe, with its disruptive approach implemented in a legacy industry. With its mixed reality platform combining VR and AR, wec360° helps make people feel safer about real estate purchases. It delivers engaging and deeply interactive experiences for buildings that do not yet exist, presenting the future building all the way from city scale macro perspective, to a highly detailed micro perpective.
VIDEO: More on the AR & VR tech and the U.S. market
With this ability to present a development project several years before it is completed, there are some real benefits, according to the company’s CEO, Tomas Jenneborg: "It’s not just flash and fireworks in high resolution, for the sake of vanity. Our mixed reality platform turns real estate developers and landlords into customer-centric organizations. Video game-like visualization, especially immersive AR/VR experiences, bring sellers and buyers closer together, more effectively delivering insights and understanding, resulting in earlier decisions from buyers and tenants. This reduces overall project risk for our customers.”
Research show* that 1 in 3 buyers make offers on properties without ever seeing it, and in addition, 99% of millennials look for properties online. "This population would be comfortable adding VR and AR to their search", Tomas Jenneborg also points out.
In Sweden, where wec360° began, 36% of all apartments put on the market today are sold using wec360°’s visualization products and services. Building on its success in trend-setting Scandinavia, wec360° is expanding internationally - with the ambition to make a similar impact in the U.S.
Renowned architecture firm and developer GDSNY is among wec360°’s first NY-based customers: "In order to preview the exciting design of our boutique class A office development at 1245 Broadway, we have been working with wec360°s technology, including AR and VR. Exceeding our expectations for visualization, our Broadway project has come to life years before it is completed. The technology is strengthening our ability to showcase spaces to our potential tenants and provide a realistic insight into our vision of delivering exceptional working environments to New York”, says Michael Kirchmann, CEO of GDSNY.
VIRTUAL REALITY: Explore 1245 Broadway using wec360°’s Virtual Reality
on you phone or tablet
Accelerating pre-sales, unsurprisingly, has helped drive wec360° growth internationally. The U.S. market is the heavyweight, and the company is confident its technology solutions and services will make a prominent mark in the industry here too. Michael Kirchmann confirms the company’s notion of a ripe U.S. market: “Taking on New York City is no easy feat, but I do believe that wec360°’s offering constitutes a particularly strong and disruptive move in changing the industry, that stands ready for reaching its full potential."
wec360° are now hiring people within sales and tech, to create a local team in N.Y.C.
What is Augmented Reality and why use it for real estate?
In short, augmented reality (AR) applies superimposed information on the world we see, and adds to the reality with 3D-models, images, sound and text. In wec360°’s implementation of AR, this means people can use their smartphone cameras to project a future building in its actual spot, in full size. Or put it on the conference table to present it to the company’s board members or investors.
TRY IT OUT: To see 1245 Broadway in AR directly on your smartphone,
download the app found here,
then search for 1245 Broadway within the app
Virtual reality (VR), on the other hand, replaces the real world and creates a computer generated environment that can be interacted with. This opens up for the possibility to walk around a future property and study it in detail - years before it is built.
Combined, these technologies make a difference: “The changing nature of demand and of technology forces landlords and brokers to rethink and retool the way they operate. Customer centricity is becoming an inevitable strategy for succeeding in any business. Using the combination of AR and VR in Real Estate is a powerful mean for achieving that, offering a great experience from the awareness stage, through the purchasing work and finally through the post-purchase process.” says Matt Connors, formerly at Apple and Adobe, and now Chairman of the Board at wec360°.
From business perspective, he believes there’s a strong case to be made for taking a closer look at those opportunities, especially given today’s real estate market: “Hard parameters comes into play in the new reality of real estate with high demands on cost efficiency, such as rising costs connected with capacity restraints, low loan-to-value ratios and a growing share of portfolio deals. This is where we see a massive potential for the solutions we provide, as our short and successful history has already shown."
About the Swedish tech-company wec360°
PropTech pioneers wec360° has over just a few years established a solid reputation and a leading position on the Scandinavian market, launching a successful start-up inside a threatened legacy business with creativity and a strong mission for change. It now provides its services to a majority of the national real estate industry and a large number of municipalities and city development projects. Its core competences is visualisation of housing, commercial property and providing an arena for citizen dialogue with use of virtual reality and augmented reality. wec360°’s unique proposition is a complete solution of engaging and cost effective visualisations with Scandinavian excellence in a sustainable approach and practical implementation. As disrupters, the company’s mission is to make the incumbents embrace the possibilities of the new marketplace as vividly as the company itself.
See more at:
Link: Experience the VR from 1245 Broadway
Video: See short video about wec360°’s technology used in the 1245 Broadway project
Homepage: Learn more about wec360° through the official homepage
For more information, tech demonstration and press meetings/interviews:
PRESS CONTACT:
Mattias von Corswant
+46 736 17 46 67
mattias@wec360.se
INVESTOR RELATIONS:
Tomas Jenneborg
tomas@wec360.se
* Source: roOomy, Coldwell Banker Smart Home Marketplace Survey, Real Estate Technology Institute, National Association of Realtors, Business Sweden Interviews *Survey of ~3,000 adults, ages 18+ from December 5-7, 2017