shelleydraper.com

Virtual and video tours have given real estate shoppers the ability to get a pretty good feel for a property without leaving their homes. VuPod promises to bring the consumer back into the storefront by providing a 360-degree, surround theater, life-like walk-through.

It won’t replace the stay-at-home version (virtual video tours) or actually walking-through a listing (though I imagine there will be more “sight unseen” offers), but it will significantly curtail a lot of wasted time on the road viewing properties that are not a fit for the buyer. That means that perhaps shoppers get to salvage a little more of their weekends, and agents are able to work much more efficiently.

This should be a killer app for the large chains, as I should be able to walk into a Century 21 office in Miami, and in the matter of a few hours, find a cabin in Aspen I’d like to make an offer on.

I think the challenge for most real estate companies will be the up-front costs and at least around here, finding an office large enough to host this thing.

Recently I encountered a situation with a cabin being sold as furnished. Generally, if a cabin is marketed as furnished the Buyer receives all of the furnishings in the cabin minus the owners personal items. Examples of personal items should basically include the obvious toothbrush, robe, slippers, and sometimes Grandma’s antique dresser or other personal heirlooms.

Well evidently everything in this “furnished” cabin fell under the personal heirloom category. The seller cleaned the cabin out except for the furniture too heavy to move or that maybe would not fit in the seller’s vehicle. In the eyes of my buyer and myself, this was not a furnished cabin; all of the charm that was for sale as a furnished cabin was packed away and removed.

To me if sellers have items not included in the sale of a furnished cabin either there should be a crystal-clear list of items NOT included in the sale or they should be removed before the cabin is placed on the market. My advice to buyers is to have a thorough checklist if you want anything that’s not nailed down, though in 5 years of selling real estate in this area that’s a first.

Buyers or sellers: how do you define “sold furnished”?