RESIDENTIALsales
What it also means is that they can be
produced very quickly, the agent loads the data, clicks onto ‘3D’ and the rendered 3D floorplan is available within 2-3 minutes. It’s not the big corporates who are really upping the ante, says Brian Farrell. “The early adopters in 2D were the strong independents, and that’s happening again. They’re probably the agents with the highest commissions and the strongest sales in their area, and they’re looking for tools to justify their charges and say they can get a better price for their clients.”
What about the costs? There’s not a huge premium over 2D for the agent. For instance, an agent using Metropix’s basic subscription plan would pay £38.95 a month, and an additional £3.25 per 3D floorplan. If, let’s say, floorplans were only ordered for properties over £280,000, the additional cost would be minimal compared to the expected commission. On the other hand Metropix offers a premium subscription which includes 3D for all properties handled by its clients, at £56.95 a month. It only takes six 3D floorplans a month to more than pay for the extra subscription. Steven Gravett says they too have a
subscription plan, which they call a monthly licence, which agents or DEAs can have for just £24.99 per month. This licence gives 25 floorplans per month and only one licence is needed per branch, there are discounts available for firms with more than five branches, and additional blocks of plans can be bought at the same rates, so the maths are easy, each floorplan is £1. And that’s £1 whether it is 2D or 3D, so many agents now supply both. In fact there is not a huge amount of
extra work involved in creating a 3D plan once data has been gathered for a 2D plan. The agent has already provided the base data so it is just the detail for the walls. The software that creates the 3D plan,
though, is complex, using a renderfarm to process huge amounts of data – and it requires a lot of processing power. Once the images are created, though,
they should not use vastly more bandwidth than simple 2D images – unless extra interactivity is added.
40 JUNE 2011 PROPERTYdrum
Mobile Agent floorplans have crisp white walls and plain floors for clarity
3D plans go at a premium, representing a source of additional revenue. Think Online charges sellers £25 for a 3D plan!’
Brian Farrell is a great believer in cloud
computing, which he has used to cut Metropix’s costs by reducing the incremental cost of processing time. When Metropix owned its own servers, a new large order would mean going out and buying new servers. Now, he says, “since we’ve moved to cloud computing, we can buy computing power by the unit. With a big order on our own servers, the queue gets longer – with cloud computing we can just turn up the temperature.”
and What about the revenues? On the other hand as far as agents are concerned, 3D plans go at a definite premium, and for some agents represent a source of additional revenue. For instance online agency Think Online charges sellers £25 for a 3D plan, which is sold as an add- on to the basic agency package. By including wall finishes and furniture in the 3D plan, Think Online aims to give viewers more feel for the space than a typical black- and-white 2D floorplan can deliver – though it’s fair to note that the furniture is added at random, and doesn’t reflect what is actually in the property at the time. EPCplan also uses 3D floorplans to
improve margins – its basic EPC with a 2D floorplan, for instance, is priced at £99, but the package including a 3D and interactive floorplan costs £189. Online agents are picking up all the bells and whistles to differentiate themselves – and also, perhaps, because they still have to demonstrate their value to vendors in a way that High Street agents don’t. Mousesale, for instance, claims to be one of the first agents to offer 3D walkthroughs, while NU Estate Agents allows sellers to add various features to its basic fixed fee package, including 2D and 3D floorplans (at £20 and £40 respectively, again improving margins on the higher end product).
the value in the difference Other agents have used 3D floorplans as part of their differentiation. For instance Royal Fox of Cheshire stresses the innovative nature of its 3D floorplans – as well as its use of other innovations such as smart phone apps, search engine local listings, and virtual tours – in setting out to become the most modern agent in its area. On the other hand many of the more
established agents, though they offer 3D floorplans, don’t use that fact much in their
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