Okay.  Remember when Virtual Tours/360 Tours came out?  You saw some pics.  You were amazed.  If you were a REALTOR, you didn't want to PAY to have them in your listing and you didn't want to take your own pics for your listings.  So, you just bit the bullet and bought them for premier listings, mostly b/c people dangled the percentages in your face about listings with Virtual Tours sell X times faster than those without.  The plain fact is, a Buyer will make a choice about whether to even go SEE the home based on the pictures and/or Virtual Tour in the listing.

So, I was introduced this week to what may be the next best thing since the Virtual Tour. 

During my office meeting this week, our broker discussed a lot of what you would typically hear such as current market outlook, some in-house issues, what mortgages are still available, the importance of using our own title company, etc.  Pretty standard stuff.  What made this meeting interesting to me was his choice of speaker for the meeting.   

My broker invited a representative from a company called Diakrit to our meeting.  Their website is www.diakrit.com

Another factor in whether a Buyer will even choose to tour the home is with the use of a Floor Plan in the pictures on the listing.  You've seen them in a few listings here and there--Builder floor plans or artist's renderings about how a property may look.  For listings without a Floor Plan in the pictures, Buyers have no idea about the flow of the house or if they can see the kids playing in the backyard from the kitchen window. 

One of the other things that most Buyers have trouble with is VISUALIZING how a property would look with furniture in it (Where DOES the bed go?).  Also, for listing agents who are working with a Seller than has a lot of clutter, a lot of furniture, a messy house--maybe a Floor Plan with furniture in it could show a Buyer an idealized version of what the house COULD look like if the Seller put more effort into staging. 

The Diakrit company specializes in FLOOR PLANS for residential buildings.  I don't mean just floor plans, though.  There's floor plans and then there's Diakrit's floor plans.  They have your standard floor plans like 2 Dimensional and 3 Dimensional.  Then, the choices get INTERESTING. 

Diakrit provide services for REALTORS and for Builders.  REALTORS may draw up a sketch, submit it to them for a pretty nice floor plan within about 24 hours.  You have to pay in advance and get "credited" for services and have those credits debited from the account.  I haven't really researched the Builder portion of it, but I did tell one particularly good Builder about it and he's probably going to do business with them. 

I have not used Diakrit as yet but, when I get an interesting listing, I definitely will.  And, their products are cheap.  Truly.  Ask any Builder. 

Take a look at their website and give me some feedback here on whether you think this would be a good idea for some listings.  Thank you in advance.