Looking to try before you buy a potential home? There’s an app for that

By Lulu Chang April 16, 2016

RoOomy 1080P

If there’s one big ticket item with which you want to avoid buyer’s remorse at all costs, it’s your home. They’re expensive, they’re hard to fix, and most importantly, it’s where you’ll be spending the vast majority of your time. So to help make sure that you get things right, the folks at LOFT have created an app for that — meet roOomy, the virtual staging solution for real estate.

Taking advantage of the VR revolution sweeping the tech space, roOomy is bringing home design into the 21st century in a major way. Thanks to its new iPhone app (previously available only on the iPad), you can now convert 2D photos or scans into 3D models, helping you get a better sense of what it would be like to actually decorate or occupy a space.

By way of the iOS app, consumers have the opportunity to view inspiration rooms, real estate listings, and even home furnishings. And with 3D renderings of both properties and furniture, you don’t have to imagine a reality anymore — you can (virtually) live in it.

“The emphasis of the new roOomy mobile app is to experience and view home furnishings and real estate in 3D,” said Pieter Aarts, CEO of roOomy. “Now consumers can instantly get a clear sense of what a property may look like before they live there, and browse for inspiration on-the-go. This is a game changer for the retailer-real estate -designer ecosystem.”

Whereas most home shoppers today have their searches confined to the Internet, roOomy notes that this doesn’t allow buyers to fully conceptualize their options. But with this tech, individuals — whether they’re consumers, real estate developers, or retailers — are able to not only virtually experience a new space in 3D detail, but decorate it as well. And with object and texture rendering, zooming in real time, instant object cleaning, semantic layers and scene intelligence, and photorealistic quality, this is about as close to the real thing as you’re going to get. Before you secure a mortgage, that is.

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Fascinated by the effects of technology on human interaction, Lulu believes that if her parents can use your new app…

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