Before you lies a gleaming granite kitchen countertop; rich cherry wood cabinets are contrasted next to a sandy beige cut berber carpeting; glossy light maple hardwood floors flow through a hi-tech kitchen, cozy breakfast nook, and comfortably furnished family room area. You turn and look around you. Plant-lined pot shelves make colorful high volume ceilings seem even higher, and sunlight glints through an atrium window from the expansive entry way. A model home, perhaps? Not really. You are now experiencing the latest and most advanced model home tour offered - the virtual model home, via computer graphics!

For centuries, builders have struggled to communicate their ideas on paper, or through scale models and 3-dimensional displays. Most buyers, however, still have a difficult time visualizing the finished product. In 1989, Ormonde Presentation Systems was among the first to pioneer and computerize model home simulation. For around $3 a square foot, a "virtual model home" could be created directly from architect's blueprints, changing forever the builders are able to sell homes. Developing proprietary "interactive" sales tools, Ormonde began to offer leading edge technology to builders of commercial, as well as residential developments. New home developers may opt to install Ormonde's "touch screen" kiosks in their sales offices, making it possible for buyers to not only select and compare floor plans and architectural options, but also customize the interior with their choices of upgrades and colors. They may then create a color graphic of their virtual reality home, for the prospective buyer to take home and consider before making their final decision. Virtual model homes may also be distributed on CD-ROM, very much like brochures, and can even be accessed directly through the Internet.

Although some traditionalists say virtual reality type tours can never replace the real model home that you can see, touch, and walk through, the virtual model home tour, using advanced computer graphics, is designed to complement new home developers' marketing and design center efforts for their buying public. Hi-tech sales tools such as these can offer as much visualization for buyers as possible without having to "kick the tires" of a stick-built model home. What are some of the other reasons builders are opting for virtual reality graphics when the good old trusty model home method of selling homes has flourished for so many years? It may boil down to "bottom line" revenues. Builders' objectives, as with any other business endeavor, are to increase profit margins, but offer a reasonably priced product. The use of computer graphics may enable developers to "carry" fewer model homes in their new home communities (one of the most costly aspects of selling new homes). And, it may become one of the best ways to "sell" options and upgrades to home buyers, also increasing builders' profitability.

The competitive advantage created by virtual model homes may be formidable. To ensure it, however, builders cannot overlook image quality. "If a new home shopper is not convinced that the virtual model home accurately portrays the home he or she would like to buy, then that prospect won't be comfortable making a purchase decision," says Steve G. Ormonde, president of Ormonde Presentations, Inc.

Kirk Chittick, Sales and Marketing Manager of Presley Homes in Southern California can attest to the revolution virtual model home graphics has made to their marketing efforts. "The sales person has more time to interact with the buyer, and become more fully involved in pointing out benefits and features. Of course, one of the most powerful features to selling new homes is customization, and we are able to up-sell more options this way. Our cancellation rate has been brought down dramatically. Buyers have fewer doubts about their decision to buy, and they stay in escrow because they feel they have been able to 'see' their new home before it is finished."

If a buyer wants to know how a master retreat will look, once finished, he may, using tools such as Ormonde's touch-sensitive kiosk, be able to choose the appropriate options from the possible selections for that floor plan. With the tap of a finger, he may add floor coverings, built-in cabinetry, window coverings, and even pre-scaled furniture to that area. With the help of a scroll button, the buyer may look at the room from many angles, as well as stroll from room to room. The graphics are not limited to interior features, however. Even shadows and lighting orientations can be displayed as you wander through. Exterior tours, showing the home's various elevations, landscaping, and even virtual reality patio areas and swimming pools may be displayed, offering the buyer limitless options, and the builder more opportunities to sell.

"We were able to do a comparison of a location where we had traditional, stick-built model homes at one sight, and contrast it with the identical floorplans using the virtual model home tools at another site," says Chittick. "One contained an optional loft. Where the stick-built homes were sold, the majority of the buyers bought the home based on seeing the model with no loft, and did not order it as an option. At the other location, because of the virtual model home graphics available to buyers, the majority of the buyers bought the loft option. The difference in dollar volume to the builder paid for the system with just a few sales."

There are other uses for hi-tech computer graphics making builders' methods of doing business more cost-effective. Developers may also use computer graphics for site planning and animation, making city approvals for new projects more streamlined. This can reduce costs by reducing the time it takes to get their new communities started, as well as give city planners a more complete idea of how a subdivision may turn out, making approvals easier.

Even if you don't see this type of technology in abundance in builders' sales offices at present, many say virtual reality model homes are the future of new home sales. With buyers finding less and less time available to them to make important decisions such as which new home to buy, getting as much information on which to base that decision in the least amount of time possible is an important factor. By the same token, builders are beginning to embrace new technologies that help them cut costs and increase profit. Virtual reality graphics may turn out to be a win-win proposition for both buyers and builders alike.

Says Ormonde, "Considering that 90% of the technology around us didn't exist five years ago, we can safely say the future holds no limits. In the the meantime, virtual models are the most powerful sales tools to come along in decades. "

At any rate, anyone old enough to remember Disneyland's "House of Tomorrow" would never have guessed that someday homes would be displayed and sold on computers. The future, as they say, is here.

Published: November 6, 1998

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A veteran of the real estate and homebuilding industries since 1986, Dena Kouremetis first joined Realty Times as a new homes writer in 1998. Since then, she has authored four books, written consumer columns on new homes issues for websites and newspapers all across the country, contributed to builder trade magazines, appeared as a guest expert on several radio shows and even created a ten-chapter podcast for LendingTree.com’s homebuilder website, iNest.com, now available on iTunes, entitled Uncharted Waters; Navigating the Purchase of a New Production Home. Kouremetis recently joined her local Folsom, CA Coldwell Banker office as a broker associate while continuing to write for the real estate industry. For the past three years, she has been training real estate agents for both the resale and new homes industries, putting her experience, research expertise and gift of expression to work to help others entering the business.