Oculus VR and the End of Traditional Real Estate

The tech world is in uproar this week with Facebook buying Oculus VR. Why? Because Facebook is not cool anymore - the kids have abandoned ship (or have stopped being as active, preferring apps like Snapchat) and it is being taken over by adults - gasp, horror!

The handwringing and drama is because Oculus VR (Virtual Reality) is ice hot - it hasn’t even shipped a product yet (although it does have 75,000 back orders). Oculus is virtual reality, the ability to immerse yourself in the game, to actually be part of it. Gamer's paradise (they would actually say something a little more robust than that but this is G rated).

Facebook bought Oculus because it sees how we interact with computers and information changing - it is moving rapidly from the desktop to the mobile device, to wearables (eg Google Glass) on to virtual reality.

The acquisition is taking VR mainstream.  But while gaming advances incredibly rapidly, real estate lags in technology, it always has. But it is changing.

You used to make an appointment with an agent (9-5pm Monday to Friday) and they would drive you around to see potential properties.  Improved photographic technology meant we could look at photos at their office, then the internet came along for real estate (it was only in from 2006 that listings took off on Trade Me), affordable wide angle photos made a big difference, now floor plans, youtube videos and ‘virtual tours’ are used occasionally (but increasingly). After all that you get into a car and go to the Open Home or make an appointment. The agent comes to our home, we go to their office, they run back and forth between the parties...

Real estate still defaults to an agent standing in a home conducting business.

Imagine being able to view the home in detail, walk through the rooms, play in the kitchen, cook a dinner, watch a movie in the lounge, experiment with living there before buying, before ever actually going there. Being able to get the ‘feel’ of it from your current living room. How efficient would that be? How intelligent? No more Open Home circuit, no more hours of appointments, no more wasted time.

The Oculus VR deal shows this is happening and real estate will be dragged (probably kicking and screaming) along with it. Technology is destroying the way real estate agency works, which is built around the agent.  It is making the traditional agent obsolete.

To quote the Bill Gates maxim - “We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten”.

The easy prediction is that the real estate agent as you know will not exist within the next 10 years. Does the agent even recognise that? Is stubbornly sticking to the old ways accelerating the extinction?  In many respects the traditional agent is a dinosaur, the meteor has already hit and it’s fighting to survive. The good thing is you don’t need an Oculus VR headset to experience that happening and live the result.