Google SketchUp Provides Valuable Tool for All Real Estate Developers
Selling a home pre-construction can be a difficult task for residential real estate developers (especially in today's market). With only floor plans to look at and the occasional rendering, homeowners can have a tough time understanding how their new home will look and feel. Although 3D modeling software has been around a long time, small local developers working with limited budgets rarely had the opportunity to utilize these tools.
Today, however, real estate developers and builders are able to download the latest version of Google's SketchUp and take full advantage of all the benefits of 3D modeling. And the best part is the free version is really all you need. The goal of the software is to emulate working with pen and paper, which makes the interface surprisingly easy to use even for beginners.
By working off any standard floor plans, real estate professionals (and do it yourself specialists) can effortlessly create a model of their proposed building or renovation. The software easily exports jpeg images from any angle, but the real fun starts when a video is created. Believe it or not, it is reliably easy to generate a fly through of your model and export it into an avi file. Much like a director storyboarding a movie, "camera shots" of your model are saved in Google SketchUp, the sequence is edited, and a real high quality movie is achieved.
3D pictures and videos is an essential marketing tool for those planning to sell pre-construction. If done right, a 5 minute film which walks the prospective homebuyer through each floor can prove invaluable in generating offers. Builders and developers are often competitive with homes that are already built, properties where buyers can actually touch and feel. By creating a similar virtual experience with Google SketchUp, builders can offer the next best thing.
