Dubai PropTech is leading the way for Sri Lanka to organise their rebuilt real estate opportunities as an experimental area for immersive selling. If it is successful, the benefits will be widespread and reach far beyond showrooms and fancy sales collateral, potentially transforming how properties are marketed and sold, enhancing customer engagement, and increasing sales efficiency in the real estate sector.
Web3Interactive, a Dubai-based experiential technology company, has launched the Immersive Labs, the Sri Lankan unit of their company. The immersive labs focus on innovative solutions through high-fidelity virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and extended reality (XR). Such technology enables developers to assist buyers in making rapid off-plan purchase decisions and improve buyer engagement. The immersive visualisations are being used as a solution to help Sri Lankan developers target buyers in Sri Lanka and abroad, as well as meet growing demand from the Sri Lankan diaspora.
Well-timed for the market. Following a few years of turmoil in Sri Lanka’s real estate market, developments towards stabilisation (combined with lower policy rates and increasing confidence from investors) have driven a resurgence in the demand for searches and sales, particularly from foreign investors who now see real estate investments in Sri Lanka priced in USD and at more attractive price points.
Immersive showrooms and virtual experiences (including 360-degree walkthroughs of interiors) reduce the ‘fear of the unknown’ associated with purchasing real estate without having stepped foot on the property, allowing buyers thousands of miles away to see the size and shape of an apartment or villa in real-time and experience how much natural light passes through to the finish of a property in a manner that still photographs just can’t do justice to.
The newly created venture is being led by three Sri Lankan property and technology veterans: Omar Sahib and Safraz Razeek started Dubai’s online platform with additional support from Sameera Piyadigamage in the role of research and engineering in Sri Lanka. The goal of Collecto is dual-purpose: to provide immersive previews that will help to decrease the time it takes to complete a sale and to provide technological services that can be marketed to regional developers.
Why should you care? Numerous studies have demonstrated that immersive technologies are more than just imaginative; they are also “productivity enhancers”. In controlled environments, multiple studies have shown that when utilising VR technology to perform CRE transactions, buyers complete the transaction faster than if using traditional methods (i.e., the time it takes to complete a sale will be reduced, but cost will remain constant).
Further, the increase in use of AR/VR technologies by retailers and CRE companies has resulted in significant increases for conversion, as well as decreases in both returns and dropouts. For builders who are selling units before the building has been completed, this benefit can result in a dramatic increase in cash flow and a much smaller marketing budget.
Note that the market is deploying a much more diverse technological stack than just headsets. Current modern IT platforms combine many forms of technological elements, including photorealistic modelling of 3D environments, interactive floorplan toggle capability, staged lighting scenarios (which can do things like adjust the amount of light in the room), and customer relationship management systems that make it possible to convert virtual walkthroughs into booked viewings/contract assignments.
JLL and others in the PropTech field have discovered that artificial intelligence (AI) and digital technologies deployed in the PropTech ecosystem can enhance all engagement metrics significantly; this reinforces that the true power of IT comes from the ability to link these technologies to data-based and sales workflows. To use immersive technologies as a standalone novelty only dilutes the power of immersive technologies.
Sri Lanka is more than just a series of fast sales; it’s also about the establishment of a two-pronged solution to developing local R&D and engineering capabilities. Local developers will get better sales tools, with less reliance on overseas manufacturers, to help sell their properties, while the local technical staff have the opportunity to be exposed to international sales and develop higher-quality products than they could if they only worked from Sri Lanka. If this business model develops and expands, small studios in Colombo could create virtual tours of properties that would be used to sell real estate in Dubai, Mumbai, or London, effectively reversing the talent outflow narrative of the last century.
There are several factors that will influence whether virtual tours are successful throughout Sri Lanka’s condo towers and beachfront villas. Among them will be the price point, investor/developer buy-in, and quality of execution by local vendors. However, given the proven case for greater efficiencies resulting from investing time and effort into developing the infrastructure needed for virtual tours, along with a new influx of interest from the diaspora looking to invest in properties in Sri Lanka, the entry of virtual prop-tech into the country feels less like a trendy novelty and more like a necessary step in equipping the Sri Lankan market with the tools it needs to continue thriving.
