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Increased usage of virtual property tours and greater numbers of people now working from home may benefit some of the regional property markets.
Speaking to Real Estate Business, Next Address managing director Julie O’Donohue said COVID-19 has clearly had a substantial impact on working conditions, with a much larger number of workers now able to work from home on a much more regular basis.
The reduced need to commute, she said, has increased the appeal of regional areas, particularly for those areas still reasonably close to the city.
“This means there’s now greater opportunity and choice about where to live. If we only have to commute into the city once or twice a week, it may be a lot more appealing to live in a regional area than an outer suburb of Melbourne,” Ms O’Donohue said.
Looking at Victoria, for example, she said that Melbourne can still be accessed fairly easily from a number of surrounding regional areas including Ballarat and Bendigo.
An increased emphasis on technology in the real estate sector, including virtual tours, may also help to boost interest and investment in regional property markets, she said.
Virtual tours, particularly the highly accurate ones, provide potential buyers with a good opportunity to explore a home and reduce the time they waste physically inspecting homes.
“In terms of investment in regional areas, if you’re living in Melbourne, you can look at a virtual tour and not waste time driving up the highway to see a house that doesn’t suit you,” she explained.
Ms O’Donohue also pointed out virtual property tours can also be used for other purposes aside from for sale inspections, including rental and general insurance, accommodation, rental inspections as well as for-sale inspections.
Some technology also enables real estate agents or other users to access daily analytic reports on the tour when used for selling, she added.
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