Remember March 2020, when we all became overnight experts in virtual inspections? I conducted more Zoom walkthroughs in those six months than in my previous 22 years combined.

The pandemic forced rapid adoption of virtual tour technology. Three years later, the dust has settled, and we can see clearly which changes stuck and which were temporary adaptations. Here’s my assessment after working with dozens of agencies on their digital strategies.

The Permanent Shifts

Some pandemic-era changes aren’t going anywhere.

Buyer Expectations Have Reset

Pre-pandemic, virtual tours were a premium add-on—something you’d do for prestige listings targeting interstate or overseas buyers. Now they’re expected across most price points.

Data from Domain and REA Group shows listings with virtual tours receive 40-60% more engagement than those without. For properties above $1.5 million, the gap widens further.

Buyers have learned to use virtual tours as a filtering mechanism. They’ll walk through properties digitally before deciding which ones deserve an in-person inspection. This is actually efficient for everyone—fewer tyre-kickers at open homes, more qualified buyers through the door.

Interstate Buyer Activity Remains Elevated

The great COVID migration—Sydney and Melbourne professionals decamping to regional areas and Queensland—created new buyer behaviours that persist.

Brisbane agents I work with report that 25-30% of their buyer enquiries still come from interstate. These buyers rely heavily on virtual tours and video walkthroughs before making the trip north.

The Sydney Eastern Suburbs market sees significant interest from Perth and international buyers who want to preview properties remotely. Without quality virtual content, these buyers simply skip your listings.

Professional Production Quality Matters

The early pandemic tolerance for shaky iPhone videos has evaporated. Buyers now expect broadcast-quality virtual tours with stable footage, proper lighting, and logical flow.

This has created opportunity for agents willing to invest in quality while punishing those who cut corners. A poorly produced virtual tour is worse than none at all—it signals a lack of professionalism that reflects on the vendor’s property.

What Hasn’t Worked

Not every pandemic innovation proved durable.

Live Video Inspections

Real-time video walkthroughs via Zoom or FaceTime were essential when in-person inspections were banned. Most agents have abandoned them now that restrictions have lifted.

The problem: they’re incredibly time-intensive. A 20-minute virtual walkthrough for a single buyer is far less efficient than a Saturday open home where 30 groups view the property in two hours.

Some agents still offer live walkthroughs for serious interstate buyers or as a premium vendor service. But as standard practice, they’ve faded.

VR Headset Experiences

I was genuinely excited about VR property viewings in 2021. Several agencies invested in headsets for their offices, imagining buyers strapping in to immerse themselves in properties.

Almost none of these programs survived contact with reality. Buyers don’t want to visit an agency office to wear a headset. The technology was clunky. The novelty wore off quickly.

The few exceptions are display suites for off-the-plan developments, where the VR experience visualises apartments that don’t yet exist. For existing properties, standard screen-based tours work better.

The Technology Today

The virtual tour market has consolidated around a few key approaches.

3D Walkthrough Tours (Matterport and Similar)

Matterport remains the dominant platform for true 3D dollhouse-style tours. The technology captures entire interiors and lets viewers navigate freely through the space.

Pricing has come down significantly—you can get a standard 3-bedroom house captured for $200-400. For properties above $1 million, this is an obvious inclusion in any decent marketing campaign.

Alternatives like iGuide and Zillow 3D Tour offer similar capabilities at varying price points. The quality differences are marginal now; choose based on your local photographer availability.

Professional Video Tours

High-quality video walkthroughs—shot on gimbal-stabilised cameras with professional editing—remain powerful for storytelling. Unlike 3D tours where viewers control navigation, video tours guide the viewer’s attention.

The best video tours highlight a property’s flow and connection between spaces in ways that static tours can’t. They’re particularly effective for homes with complex layouts or impressive aspect.

Budget approximately $500-1,500 for a professional property video, more for prestige listings requiring cinematic treatment.

Aerial and Drone Content

Drone footage has become standard for appropriate properties—those with substantial land, water views, or where location context matters.

NSW and Victorian regulations around drone usage in residential areas have tightened. Make sure your photographer is CASA-certified and understands the no-fly zones around airports and sensitive locations.

For a standard suburban house on a small block, drone footage often adds little value. Save it for properties where the bird’s-eye perspective reveals something meaningful.

Best Practices I’ve Observed

The agencies getting the most value from virtual content follow consistent patterns:

Match investment to property value A $600,000 apartment in Parramatta doesn’t need the same virtual tour treatment as a $4 million house in Mosman. Scale your spending appropriately.

Capture before styling Schedule virtual tour filming after professional styling but before the first open home. The content stays fresh throughout the campaign, and you’re not scrambling to coordinate later.

Use virtual tours in the sales process Don’t just post virtual tours on portals—use them actively. Send links to buyers before second inspections. Reference specific rooms during follow-up calls. The technology is a sales tool, not just marketing collateral.

Update for extended campaigns If a property’s been on market for 60+ days and you’ve made presentation changes or price adjustments, consider recapturing virtual content. Stale imagery signals a stale listing.

Where It’s Heading

Several trends are emerging that will shape virtual tour technology over the next few years.

AI-powered image enhancement is getting remarkably good at improving mediocre photography. Services like BoxBrownie can now virtually stage empty rooms, replace skies in exterior shots, and enhance lighting—all automatically.

Interactive floor plans that combine 2D layouts with hotspots linking to photos and tour footage are becoming more common. These help buyers understand spatial relationships better than either format alone.

Integration between virtual tours and CRM systems will improve. We’ll be able to see exactly which rooms a buyer spent time viewing, informing follow-up conversations with genuine insight into their interests.

The Bottom Line

Virtual tours have settled into a permanent place in property marketing. They’re not replacing in-person inspections—nothing does that—but they’re essential for attracting serious buyer interest and filtering casual browsers.

The agencies winning now are those who’ve integrated virtual content into systematic processes, not those treating it as occasional special effort.

If you’re not consistently offering quality virtual experiences for listings above $1 million, you’re losing buyer attention to competitors who are. That’s the new reality, and it’s not changing.

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Linda Powers consults with real estate agencies on digital strategy and PropTech adoption. She spent 25 years in Sydney real estate, including pioneering early virtual tour adoption in the 2010s.