Our Process

Just like with any home showing, we ask the home owner to prepare their home for the day of their shoot by removing general clutter, personal items and valuables from sight. A good cleaning, and some light maintenance will do wonders too!  We also want you to know, it's nothing personal when we ask you to hide away that tattered, favorite blanket, from the couch and hide the dog dishes under the counter; we know you love your home just the way it is, but it's our job to make sure your space appeals to the widest audience possible to maximize your profits.  It's all part of making sure you receive the highest quality results.  

Mattertags are a great way to show off the features of your property. If there's something extra special or a value added feature in your home, lets show it off.  Is your pool heated, does a certain window give you breathtaking sunrise view, maybe there's a brand new Air Conditioner hiding behind a closet door.  With Mattertags, we can point out these features during the virtual tour to create even more excitement about your property.  Prepare a written, emailed, or texted list of special features we can highlight for you when we upload your home to our servers for processing.

On the day of your scan, we'll arrive on time, ok, in all honestly, we'll arrive early, probably very early!  If the home owner is there and has the time and the preference, we will probably chat their ear off for a bit.  If not, we'll wait happily for the realtor to arrive, while most likely tidying up your yard or blowing leaves off your patio!  

Once everyone is present and ready, we promptly leave our gear in its cases and get right to work!  The first 20 to 60 minutes will be spent turning on lights, opening or closing doors, adjusting window treatments depending on the lighting conditions, straightening crooked pictures, replacing burnt out bulbs, wiping down the wet shower walls, hiding away that oh so dreaded toilet brush, and some last minute cleaning. How many photographers do you know who travel with a vacuum and a leaf blower?  We do; it's just one more way we strive to give you the best product possible.

Of course we understand that homes are lived in, and sometimes, there just isn't enough space for everything to be neatly tucked away; during scan day, we may shuffle items around to avoid them being photographed and we make every effort possible to return them to their proper spot at the end of the day.  However you may curse us the next day when you can't figure out what we did with the bar of soap from your shower.

Now that your home is looking pristine, we will then break out our Matterport camera, affectionately known as "Tanner the Scanner" and begin the scanning process.  A typical home can take anywhere from 40 to 120 individual scans or several hundred if need be.  While some companies will try to obtain the bare minimum of scans, we believe that having the ability to get into every corner and crevice makes for a better tour.  We methodically move our camera about your home in a logical path of travel that would mimic where you too would walk through your space.  We also take into consideration camera placement that will provide good angles for still and 360º photography as well.

When possible, and if you have a great outdoor space, we will try to incorporate our exterior living space into the virtual tour.  Sometimes however, Tanner's IR sensor is fooled by sunlight and these areas become troublesome to scan.  If this happens, we will instead take 360º photos of these great spaces and feature them in our highlight reel at the bottom corner of the tour screen.  During the scanning process we ask that the area is kept free of people and pets.  Once the space is staged, we hide out of sight from Tanner while he photographs the area.  By keeping pets and people free from the space, we prevent you or your pet from popping up in scans as well as preventing items such as doors or shadows from moving about.  Once scanning begins, the entire space must remain exactly the same. 

Once complete we will try our best to return any items we've moved or hidden away to their rightful place, ensure that all the lights are turned off and the home is properly secured.  

If the home owner or realtor is present, we will go over your list of Mattertags and discuss adding anything we may point out as being a valuable asset to a buyer that should be added to the list.

We will take the homeowners' contact information and leave you with our card and a promise that you and your realtor will hear from us within 24 hours with your completed tour.

Once we've returned to our office, we will ensure that your model is properly cropped and prepared to be uploaded to the Matterport Servers.  Once uploaded, Matterport can take up to 24 hours to process and render your model.  When we  receive confirmation your model is has been processed, we will edit the model for proper flow and ensure everything functions as it should.  During this time we will also create a custom automatic tour of your property that will walk your visitors through your property automatically.  We enter your Mattertags into your tour and also extract the perfect still images and 360º photos for use in MLS and social media marketing.  If you've chosen to receive a schematic floor plan this may take an additional 24 to 48 hours to render as it processed manually by a Matterport technician.

Once our editing is complete, we will send the home owner and realtor branded, unbranded, and MLS compliant links to access your Virtual Model that is ready for immediate sharing.  Any still images or 360º photos will be uploaded to our servers and you will be provided a link and password for access to your photos.

You are now free to post your virtual tour on any website, share it through social media, and pass it along to all your friends, family, neighbors, and colleagues.  

Your Matterport Virtual tour will be accessible on any phone, tablet, or computer and for a truly immersive VR experience, use Samsung Gear VR, Google Cardboard, or Google Daydream head set to step into your dream home!

Analytics will be provided to you on a regular basis or upon request giving you a clear picture of how many impressions your property has made, how many times  your property has been toured, and how many unique visitors have access your tour.