Tried a 3D virtual tour service for a listing in Phoenix and it backfired hard

Spent $350 on a Matterport scan for a 3BR condo, thinking it'd land me higher-end buyers. Turns out the camera missed the kitchen island and left a weird blank spot in the tour, so two potential clients assumed the place was smaller than it was. Has anyone else had tech screw up a listing like this before?

3 comments

3 Comments

shane_wilson2d ago

The blank spot trick is a classic. My first Matterport scan somehow made a walk-in closet look like a portal to Narnia - definitely lost a showing over that one. Guess we're both paying $350 for a virtual tour of our own regrets these days.

knight.uma2d ago

Wait, the camera missed the entire kitchen island? That's a huge piece of the layout. Three hundred fifty bucks and it leaves a blank spot where the main feature should be. That's honestly brutal, sounds like either a user error or a bad scan. I'd be fuming if a potential buyer walked because of a dumb tech glitch like that.

nancyramirez2d ago

Actually I gotta push back on this a bit. The island is a big piece of furniture, sure, but missing it isn't the end of the world. Most buyers aren't staring at the floor plan trying to figure out where the kitchen island is. They're looking at the photos and the 3D walkthrough to get a feel for the space. A blank spot in the mesh isn't a dealbreaker if the pictures are good and the dimensions are close. Plus, the software usually fills in those gaps pretty well after you process it. I've had way worse things happen like a total scan failure where nothing showed up at all. Three hundred fifty bucks for a pro level virtual tour that mostly works is still a solid deal compared to what photographers used to charge just for stills.