How to Create Virtual Tours using Zillow 3D Home

We all know that open houses are important when trying to sell your property, but how can you do this during the Caronavirus outbreak?

This article will outline all of the steps needed for you our your clients to create 3D Virtual Tours using the Zillow 3D App and an iPhone for free. This is not a sponsored advertisement for Zillow, we are not receiving any compensation for recommending their product.

As of Saturday March 21 2020, OREA President Sean Morrison stated:

“I am calling on all REALTORS® to cease holding open houses during this crisis and advise their clients to cancel any that are planned. If a client has an urgent need to sell or buy a home during the COVID-19 crisis, there are other real estate tools that REALTORS® can use for showing a property, including virtual tours.”

As reported by the Global News: https://globalnews.ca/news/6712816/coronavirus-ontario-real-estate-open-houses/

We agree with Sean, the safest way to showcase a property during this COVID-19 outbreak is to use virtual tours, and the best way to do this is to have your clients create their own so that they can then share it with you to upload to their listing.

By having your clients create their own virtual tours, no one has to enter their property and everyone can continue to self-isolate as best they can.

Granted the images and virtual tours are not going to be as good as hiring a professional photographer but having your clients take their own pictures and virtual tours so that no one has to enter their property is the safest method at this time.

There are multiple ways for your clients to create 3D virtual tours but have found a lot of the options to be overly complicated, in our experience the easiest way for your clients to create their own 3D virtual tours is to use the Zillow 3D home app which is free to download and use. That’s right, it will not cost you or your client any money to create 3D virtual tours using this method, and to top it off it’s super easy to do! The only thing is that this method requires that you have an iPhone 7 or newer.

I hope this information helps you and your clients during this time.

How to use the Zillow 3D Home app to create free Virtual Tours

Download the Zillow 3D Home app from the App Store (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/zillow-3d-home/id1265223425). Zillow 3D Home is currently available for iPhone 7 and up only.
When you first launch the app you will be required to create a free account. Once logged in you will be prompted with the the welcome screen. Click next next until you get to the end of the welcome screen:
Click the “Start Capture” button and select “iPhone Camera”
In the next screen you will be prompted to share your location, but this is not needed and you can click “Don’t Allow”
Click the link at the bottom of the screen that says “Add home address later”
Select “Single Family Home”
Choose the “Room Type” for the 360 panoramic
Hold your camera in front of you and follow the onscreen prompt to guide you through your panoramic. Keep the camera icon in the center of the screen and follow the yellow line.
Once done, Click the “Add” button to add as many rooms as you would like.
Once you are finished creating all of your virtual tours for each room click the blue button labeled “All panoramas complete“
Click the white button labeled “Finish without publishing”
It might take some time for the app to render all of your virtual tours but once done you will be emailed a link. Click your virtual tour from your laptop which will bring you to zillows website where you will be prompted to log in. Once logged in you will see your “Unpublished” virtual tour that you just created. Click the image of this virtual tour to view it. You will now see a full screen view of your new virtual tour. Copy the URL of this page and email it to your real estate agent. That’s it. Your real estate agent will now be able to include this virtual tour with your listing. Agents, this virtual tour URL will be an unbranded URL that you can use in MLS when submitting your listings.