As multifamily marketers, owners, and operators try to maintain their leasing efforts during the COVID-19 outbreak, the industry has flooded towards virtual tours and videos. Below shows a graph from January 1, 2020 to April 7, 2020 from Google Trends that shows the spike of "virtual tour" Google searches in the US. The areas where the searches have been most popular are Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey- some of the country's main "hot spots" of the outbreak.
While virtual tours have long been used in multifamily marketing, the global pandemic has put a spotlight on the need for virtual tour and video content for available floor plans. If and when the world returns to "normal," will multifamily marketing see virtual tours as a need rather than a luxury as has been in the past? Or will we revert back to our old ways?