Instead of offering real estate in the traditional way, Phan Lê Mạnh, with more than 10 years of experience at a leading technology company in Vietnam, created a completely new approach: doing real estate business using 3D technology.
In 9/2015, while a product director at one of Vietnam's largest technology companies, Phan Lê Mạnh began developing an entrepreneurial idea in real estate.
Phan Lê Mạnh
Online real estate marketplaces are mushrooming as an inevitable result of renewed activity in the property market. In his view, however, despite its great potential, this market has not been tapped effectively because of unreliable information, low efficiency, and transactions still relying mainly on direct solicitation.
Most importantly, he discovered that no technology company was operating in this market. Existing online marketplaces looked much alike and used no particularly notable new technologies.
With the instincts of a technology professional who had worked on opening new markets, Mạnh found an opportunity and began seeking like-minded people. His idea was to create an online real estate marketplace using 3D technology, where customers could view apartments or houses from every angle as in real life, instead of seeing only a few flat photos.
‘When viewing real estate in person, someone can normally see no more than three to five properties a day because of travel and physical limitations. With this method, prospective renters or buyers can be anywhere and tour 100 apartments in great detail using only an Internet connection on a computer or smartphone,’ he shared enthusiastically.
However, almost all the friends Mạnh approached were daunted by real estate's difficulty and an uncertain future competing in a market already shaped by major players. His somewhat daring idea met with many refusals. It was not until early 2016 that the founding team for the 3D real estate platform formed and began realizing their “dream,” Rever in French and also the platform’s name.
Phan Lê Mạnh's system currently showcases nearly 400 properties using 3D technology, with more than 1.000 awaiting technical processing. By the end of QIII/2017, it is expected to have more than 10.000 listings. Mạnh acknowledges that nobody buys a house solely by viewing it online, even with the detail of 3D technology. However, he believes this approach helps buyers shortlist their favorite properties for in-person visits. The enthusiastically received virtual reality trend is also a major source of encouragement for the team in its early stage.
“We create the 3D model using a scanning system mounted on cameras. The system emits infrared signals and captures all the images. When the infrared waves encounter an obstacle, they bounce back, revealing depth and the distance between walls or other objects. The computer processes these measurements and images to generate a 3D model. Depending on the size of the property, capturing the images and building the 3D model can take from 4 to 10 hours,” Mạnh explained.
Using 3D in real estate sales and marketing is not entirely new worldwide, but it is an emerging trend worth watching. One outstanding success is the online real estate brokerage Redfin (United States). In 2014, Redfin raised an additional 70,9 million USD to expand its market after raising 95,7 million USD from investors not long before.
Right next to Vietnam, Singapore's hotel booking service HomeAway is also using similar 3D technology. However, the domestic market always has unpredictable aspects. Mr. Mạnh also acknowledges that his own 3D home-selling project has limitations in product quantity compared with traditional online marketplaces. In addition, handling large numbers of properties in the future also raises staffing challenges. This is one of the major concerns he is seeking to address.
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