On April 25, we headed up to Yorkville to attend a presentation by 3D Condo Explorer Inc., a company that is trying to improve the way you search for a new home. How do they plan to accomplish this? With The Virtual Alternative.

Founder Alexander Neshmonin, and Marketing Director Subarna Gupta, presented what they believe to be the future of new home hunting.

What is The Virtual Alternative?

According to the introductory presentation by Gupta, “The Virtual Alternative is a web portal designed to provide accurate and impartial information for resale condo market.”

Basically, it’s like MLS, but concentrated on condos in Toronto’s downtown core, and instead of just seeing photos of the home, a 3D model of the city is at your fingertips. This allows you to experience the view from the condo that is listed, as well as explore the neighbourhood, including neighbouring listings. Of course, other information like pricing, size, and floorplans are also available for each listing.

The idea is that if you can experience the view from a condo and its neighbourhood in addition to all the regular information you can get from a normal listing, you can narrow down the number of places you are interested in visiting – saving time for yourself and your agent.

Neshmonin compared the use of The Virtual Alternative to a young adult looking for a restaurant. He said that they look up the menu on their phones, and if there is no website, they don’t go.

3D Condo Explorer’s successes

Gupta continued, highlighting some of 3D Condo Explorer’s milestones. Over the past few years, Times Group Corporation and Plaza became clients, and used the product on preconstruction projects with great success.

This is where we see The Virtual Alternative being very useful. Many potential purchasers in the preconstruction market have a difficult time deciding on a condo unit because they have nothing to base their decision on besides a model suite. The Virtual Alternative can actually build a “phantom” building at the development’s site, and you can experience the view from the unit, check out the neighbourhood, and even see how the building will look.

Also, 3D Condo Explorer’s technology is currently being implemented into a new neighbourhood-based social network called CityChattr.

A few hurdles for The Virtual Alternative

During the presentation, Gupta and Neshmonin made it clear that they have a few challenges to face before The Virtual Alternative really takes off:

• The industry’s “slow adoption of new technologies”

• “Fear of losing purchasers if accurate information provided”

• “Current sales methods work - no need to change”

These challenges were mentioned in reference to condo developers, but we believe the same is true for buyers, sellers, and agents.

We understand how The Virtual Alternative is great for buyers because they can get a “real” representation of what the condo’s view and area is actually like before they even decide to view it in person. A seller may look at The Virtual Alternative in a different light, deciding that a 3D model isn’t the best way to show off their unit’s view and location.

Neshmonin is definitely onto something though with trying to create a non-biased, 3D world for listings, because all he has to do is attract the potential buyers, and then whether sellers like the idea of The Virtual Alternative or not, they will be forced to list their units with it because that’s where the most eyeballs are.

Another challenge that 3D Condo Explorer may face is the condo investor. Investors don’t care about the view from the condo unit because they understand that resale value isn’t determined by a view (because the city is constantly growing and no view will stay the same forever). We only mention this because The Virtual Alternative is so strongly based on the perk of experiencing the view from the condo unit.

That said, investors don’t make up the majority of purchasers in Toronto’s downtown condo market, so even if none of them use The Virtual Alternative, there is still the chance that it will be very successful!

We are really looking forward to watching 3D Condo Explorer grow as a company. We would also like to thank Subarna Gupta and Alexander Neshmonin for the presentation.