It’s hard to imagine a house as your home before you’ve signed on the proverbial dotted line. After all, you’ve yet to redecorate, yet to bring in all your new furniture, and yet to determine exactly how your living room would look without that questionable rug taking up most of the real estate. But here to help bring you a bit more peace of mind before you buy is Sotheby’s International Realty and its new virtual staging augmented reality app, powered by Rooomy (the company styles it roOomy). The app promises to revolutionize both the buying and selling experience for real estate agents and new homeowners alike.
The app, called Curate, brings a home’s virtual staging images from flat, two-dimensional perspectives into 3D augmented reality. Built using ARCore, Google’s new augmented reality software platform, Curate relies upon Rooomy, the virtual staging platform known for bringing AR and VR to the homebuying experience.
Last year, Pieter Aarts, CEO and co-founder of the company, noted, “Homes that are well-staged sell faster and for more money as consumers struggle with fully visualizing a space’s potential. Rooomy is eliminating this problem with its AR/VR app by allowing shoppers to easily experience how interior design styles and home furnishing products will look room to room. The introduction of this technology into real estate has huge potential to transform the buying and selling process for real estate agents and consumers.”
And now, roOomy’s technology is being leveraged further still with this new application from Sotheby’s. In fact, with Curate, the real estate company has become the first to launch and implement a virtual staging AR app. Not only can the app easily turn staged images into AR objects for easier manipulation and better perspective, but it also boasts a selection of AR interior designs so that potential buyers can easily see what their house might look like with different styles.
Plus, with Curate’s screenshot capabilities, viewers can capture and store images of AR furniture sets for easy recall and potential purchasing down the line. In fact, the virtual home furnishings are interactive — if you click on an AR couch, you can check out more information about the product, as well as find a link to the retailer’s website. Of course, all furniture is shown to scale and provides accurate room dimensions so that seeing really is believing.
“Buying a house is not only a significant financial decision, but is also deeply personal and emotional,” said John Passerini, global vice president of interactive marketing of Sotheby’s International Realty Affiliates LLC. “Introducing an augmented reality component to the homebuying experience takes the consumer on a personal journey that allows them to see a house transformed into a home, their home, through the magic of technology.”
