Leading real estate writer, commentator and coach Professor Bernice Ross reveals how the latest hi-tech tools are changing the way properties are marketed and sold, and explains why 3D will be one of the major developments of the future

‘At the moment there are 2m Realtor licensees in the US and 1.2m members of the National Association of Realtors (NAR). As an emeritus professor of psychology, one of my roles is to teach the companies that I work for how to perform better. I think that technology now plays a crucial role in that. Technology gives people a competitive edge, it allows them to simplify their business and not spend as much money on marketing. It also lets them know how best to serve their customers.

‘One of the things that those who are going to survive the recession have to understand is that the real estate market is now global. So the issue that they face is how do they reach that international buyer? It is not enough anymore to just go out and look at homes. The other challenge the real estate market faces is that, because of the buoyant market we have enjoyed for so long, there is a whole generation of people who are without negotiating skills and that we are now in a period when it is extremely difficult to get financing.’

Know your technology
‘What I am finding is that the people who are succeeding at the moment are those who have the wisdom to address those issues and they are doing that with a mix of technology and street knowledge. They are turning to technology because now 90 per cent of buyers are going online as part of their search.

‘But many of the people I talk to still do not know what is generating their online sales. Sites are getting a lot of hits, but the Realtors don’t know why. They don’t track leads and they don’t know what is governing their conversion ratios. They do not know what is generating their qualified leads: they think that technology is a substitute for connection.

‘Research recently carried out by the NAR has found out that 98-99 per cent of those people who view a property online will drive by and see it. The chief areas of technology that people should be concentrating on are Customer Relationship Management systems and a marketing set-up that allows them to carry out all of their marketing from just one place. With a one-stop marketing shop they should be able to carry out just one upload that places their listing on many sites and they should be able to do the same with their videos, etc: www.tubemogul.com is a good example of that.

‘It is something that the President of Nokia has referred to as “iPodification”. All of your services should be delivered to one point. Because of that there should be two variants of a real estate website – a full-blown version and a dot-mobi version which carries short, one-line descriptions for mobile.’

Sense of community
‘Mapping is one of those components that has been around for a long time and is now expected. One of the very interesting developments is www.rottenneighbor.com which lists bad neighbours, sex offenders and foreclosures. This is a development that I think is going to really pick up pace because at the moment anything that is pushing from the bottom up is gaining momentum.

‘So, what we are going to see is the growth of community information. That information will come from co-creation by users, word of mouth, the picnic and cocktail party circuit and from people who share common interests. Real estate agents are going to start drawing on that. The real estate companies that exploit this trend will be successful because they will become the “manager” of my zip code; they will become experts for that area and its lifestyle.

‘Two good examples of this are www.kevintomlinson.com and www.goarmyhomes.com – both are sites that are about “me and my lifestyle”. What these sites will start to do is become the basis for a search: people will be looking for people who have a similar lifestyle.

‘There are sites that are being put together now that are looking for people who are 35-50 and who either work on Wall Street or are involved in the media, film, TV and art. The idea is that they will form a community online and that they will also want to live near each other. It’s “where I’m doing business” and “what is my lifestyle”.

‘Into that you will get local information being factored in, so you will get the local restaurant owner and other people who have local businesses putting in information, and people buying a property will want to know all about that. People will be using Twitter and they will be blogging. In fact, I can see a growing market for journalists, because people will have to able to present this information in a professional way.’

3D – techno-tool of the future
‘I am making a presentation to the NAR, and one of the things that I have in it is that real estate goes 3D – I see that as a big trend. I also think that there will be an increased use of future creatures that will be able to walk around in those 3D models and give you a picture from wherever you are standing. I think 3D will expand into that community world.

‘The essential information that has to be on a website is listings, prices and community information – we are going to work towards what is being called “MLS 5.0”, which includes the traditional information, videos, interactive 3D and the community side.

‘One of the most interesting speakers at the last Inman conference was a man called Baynerchuk who was a wine merchant. He wanted to do a wine promotion over the holiday period and used radio and billboard advertising and Twitter. Both of the conventional methods generated 150 sales, while Twitter accounted for 1,700 because he made himself available as part of the local community and advised people on wine.

‘3D will have the same sort of role to play in providing local and specific information: it will also give people a competitive edge. I am involved in a real estate business in Beverly Hills, and if I were wanting to advertise a $3-5m listing, then I would do it in 3D – because that is what would give me the competitive edge.’

Humans experience the real world in 3D – so it’s no surprise to learn from the experts that people prefer their virtual experiences in 3D, too. Here, Gus Desbarats, Chairman of trailblazing product and interaction design company TheAlloy, ponders the latest developments in virtual 3D interfaces, and looks ahead to the challenges of the future

Desbarats: ‘Something that uses 3D to enhance a proposition in an intuitive way can add color and richness to an otherwise poor experience.’

‘Human beings are DNA programmed and educated to interact with a three-dimensional environment. 3D sensitivity plays a key part in driving subconscious decisions on issues like priority, danger and discovery. It governs our perspective on a situation. If we were not programmed this way, we would see many more car crashes and be unable to walk through a railway station without bumping into almost every person we encounter.

‘This natural warmth for the 3D environment can be both an advantage and a burden. Through 3D simulation we are able to experience worlds that we would have no chance of encountering for real. Much of our understanding of molecular biology, for example, comes from our ability to recreate virtual 3D environments that are big enough for us to fully understand and inhabit.

‘The counter to this is that the 3D effect can be almost too compelling. Studies in Asia have already shown that 3D gaming is proving to be highly addictive, and the more immersive the experience, the harder some users find it to segregate the virtual from the real world.

‘This highlights a challenge in creating virtual 3D interfaces, one that the designers at TheAlloy face every day when designing product and interfaces in 3D: they need to create an immersive experience that is natural to humans. Anything counter-intuitive or poorly applied will be seen as a gimmick or irritating. Something that uses 3D to enhance a proposition in an intuitive way can add color and richness to an otherwise poor experience. Just as 3D movies are now creating immersive experiences people can enjoy throughout (rather than using the technology simply to have a villain burst out of the screen for shock effect), 3D interfaces are less about graphics and more about creating natural and intuitive experiences.

‘Given the potential power of combining virtual worlds and our 3D instincts to deliver a richer environment, it is surprising that, for much of the early part of the 21st Century, our desktop experience has been dominated by a broadly flat 2D screen. We can expect this to change quickly. The IT agenda, once dominated by commerce’s demand for low-cost computing, is now being driven by the consumer’s desire for phones, games consoles, cameras and multimedia devices. Consumers are demanding a richer and more immersive user experience: iTunes ‘Cover Flow’ is an early example.

‘Digital content that can be browsed and discovered is a natural environment for 3D interfaces, since it enables humans to replicate the experience of browsing in a shop or a library. In this sense, home servers and IPTV will be natural homes for 3D interfaces.

‘Users value browsing, and discovering and selecting digital content – just as they can in the real world. The creation of rich virtual bookshelves, record stores or video libraries, made up of both users’ own content and content available to buy, is likely to form the cornerstone of future digital entertainment hubs in the home. The richer the experience, the more likely the user is to purchase. TheAlloy recently developed a concept called ‘Woosh!’ to add exactly this kind of immersive richness to an IPTV service.

‘In a similar vein, websites will also display more 3D characteristics. I expect that online book, music and DVD stores will try to create 3D interfaces online, to add a level of richness to what is otherwise a rather dull, list-based, approach to content discovery. We recently reworked TheAlloy’s website to include a 3D feel to it: depth is added by the way the user interacts with the content therein.

‘The real potential for 3D interfaces lies one or two steps down the technology path with the development of augmented reality, and the ability to use gestures to interact with a virtual world. Augmented reality is currently used by fighter pilots, and works by overlaying synthetic images over the natural landscape, providing a richer environment without distracting from the real picture. Obvious applications are within vehicles, to display navigation and warning information directly onto the windscreen.

‘Once this is combined with gesture-based controls (a great example is the Nintendo Wii, where real movement is replicated on the screen), people have the capability to view a real landscape, enhanced with relevant virtual information, controllable by the user simply and effectively with the flick of a hand. Hand picking music in a virtual library, physically poking a friend’s avatar in Facebook, throwing old files on a PC into the recycle bin by hand; just a few examples of future 3D interfaces.

‘Critical to success, though, will be providing interfaces that people love to use. As always, the technology is not the primary challenge: that lies is applying it in such a user-friendly, intuitive way to add richness and value.’

3D technology is being hailed by experts as one of the possible answers to the credit crunch, as web designers look for that extra wow factor to give their sites the edge in the economic downturn

Having already been the victim of one false dawn eight years ago, 3D technology is beginning to emerge from the shadows as one of the most exciting developments on the internet.

‘The trend is very clear,’ says Karthik Ramani, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Indiana’s Purdue University and an authority on 3D technology.

‘The real world is 3D and, as humans, we want things to behave in the way that they do in the real world, so going to 3D is very natural. It is the next evolution of the web.’

Techno race
The claims have not gone unnoticed by internet companies like Google and Microsoft, which have developed Google Earth and Microsoft Virtual Earth in what appears to be a race to capture the world in 3D on the web. These developments are now exciting traditional industries such as property sales and furniture design, and are spawning a whole new virtual world industry, far removed from current technologies like Second Life.

‘The rate of development of these technologies is already having an impact on the US real estate market,’ says Doug Garcia, the director of research for Colliers Parrish, a large real estate group based in the San Francisco area.

‘We’ve explored using 3D modeling on the market and are working towards a future where actual 3D tours will allow you to go to different floors of a building and look around the location using Google Earth.

‘Increasingly we think that people will want to use 3D to assess the value of a property remotely, and the challenge there will be in the refresh of the 3D worlds that will evolve, though I could see that happening with social networking for an area where people will work to contribute information.’

Superior interiors
And while companies like Google focus on the outside, other companies are now working hard to create interiors that show off properties and products. Here at United Lane, we want to form a closer association between 3D virtual environments and the real world.

‘Our aim is to make 3D technology available to anyone using the web,’ says Chief Technology Officer, Kresten Thomsen. ‘So, what we do is let people upload plans of their own houses from a 2D floor plan and populate it with real furniture and objects, change floors and wall colors and then render the whole thing in a photorealistic fashion, because people find that more compelling and attractive.

‘In our visualizations, we can even add the view from a window; that is how I see the internet going – it will be a believable mirror of the real world.’

Virtual world
While United Lane can make photorealistic images of buildings that do not yet exist in a remarkably short space of time, Vzillion, wants to go further. In line with the old vision of the internet bubble at the turn of the century, when developers promised a photorealistic world inhabited by lifelike avatars of real people, Vzillion envisages 3D with everything.

‘We think in 3D and we feel things in 3D. If you look at a virtual world you see an environment you are engaged with,’ says Antonio Collier, the company’s CEO.

Its offering for the future is a 3D virtual world where you are given the keys to a virtual flat that can be populated with the objects that you use in your everyday life. Objects which, according to Collier, will work in much the same way that they would if they were in your real room.
‘You will be able to go to Amazon and point and click and play a music movie on the TV in your virtual apartment,’ he says. Potentially, it’s a move to mesh the real world with Second Life – that might have implications for both.

3D thinking
Professor Ramani, whose resume also includes work at the prestigious Stanford Research Institute in California, says that the key factor in the use of virtual environments for people is the amount of data that a 3D world can convey.

‘I have worked with cognitive psychologists and we have looked at the way that people like to navigate 3D content. We gave them the ability to take snapshots from within the visualization and found that people always choose positions that allow them to convey the maximum amount of visual content.

‘Of course, there has to be some value for the 3D visualization to be useful, and we found that people considered the 3D interface much more intuitive than a 2D one.’

Part of the reason for this, according to a recent study carried out by scientists, is because our brains find 3D environments more reassuring. Their research suggests that the part of the brain governing vision is able to map out a copy of a 3D image by projecting it onto responsive neurons that can create a 3D model of an object.

‘Human beings are keenly aware of object structure, and that may be due to this clear structural representation in the brain,’ Charles E. Connor, associate professor in the Zanvyl Krieger Mind-Brain Institute at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, told Science Daily in October of this year.

In the study, Connor and colleague Yukako Yamane, a postdoctoral fellow, trained two monkeys to watch a computer screen while 3D objects were played upon it, while the researchers recorded the responses of neurons in the higher-level part of the visual area.

According to Connor, the research may ultimately reveal the reasons why our brains find some objects and views visually pleasing, yet dismiss others. The suggestion is that there may be an element of ‘pleasing comfort’ created in the brain among groups of neurons when they display an object.

The glut of properties on the market due to the property slump has put power squarely in the hands of the customer, a change that has been seized on by the commercial real estate broker Choyce Peterson

The firm has launched a radical new website that offers free advice to companies on how to renegotiate their leases and take advantage of the current market conditions.

‘Tenants are now the 800lb gorilla and they actually have a lot of negotiating power,’ said company principal and co-founder Alan Peterson.

‘Up till now it is only large companies that have been able to buy in the expertise to really challenge their leases. The recession has now given all tenants that advantage.’

Current market conditions have seen many companies contracting as they lay off staff – or closing their operations altogether. Those companies downsizing have been seeking either smaller premises or changes to their lease that free them of office space they no longer need – a development that has lead to an inevitable focus on the contracts that they signed in the first place. It is this change that Choyce Peterson is seeking to exploit.

‘Around 90 per cent of people who relocate go through a broker to help them find premises. However, far less than that use a broker to negotiate their leases for them, so we are providing an online checklist for people that allows them to do that,’ said Peterson, adding, that it was now possible to not only get a 20 per cent reduction in rent, but also to get substantial changes in sub-clauses.

‘Some agreements have written into them that a tenant cannot sub-let to a neighbouring company in an office block, which was a clause that put the power into the hands of the owner.

‘Another element that we saw growing was the calculation of square footage to include the lobby and machine and utility rooms. Seeing as everyone in a building shares those facilities it was just a tax that allowed a building’s owners to levy an extra 20 per cent. That can now be negotiated away.’

The move by Choyce Peterson to put information online that might be seen as the ‘bread and butter’ of their business is part of a calculated play by the company to build brand awareness.

It’s a trend that others in the real estate industry are expected to follow suit on. By offering free services such as advice on the local community, information about schools, and the culture and lifestyle of an area, real estate companies will enhance the perception of themselves as an organization.

This associative process is now being used by some of the biggest brands in the world to bolster their image, with companies such as Nike now expected to offer a range of services via mobile phone and internet that will have nothing to do with sports shoes, but which will demonstrate community values, trustworthiness and reliability.

A point not lost on Choyce Peterson. ‘We believe that people coming to the site will view us as experts in the market. Some people will use the free services on the site but we think others will consider the process as too complicated and will see the value in using us to negotiate for them,’ said Peterson.

‘We think that this will raise the bar for the whole industry.’

It is a process that is being gradually embraced by other sectors of the real estate market. Competition for customers is leading to a demand for website differentiation that will enhance customer experience and create brand awareness.

United Lane has not been slow on the uptake. ‘It is one of the reasons for our technology,’ said CEO Aamir Butt. ‘The 3D technology we have developed allows customers to get more out of visiting a site and provides them with a free service that lets them decorate and furnish a property and get some idea of its potential.

‘Being able to do that is good for the realtor because it provides them with leads, and good for the client because it provides them with an enhanced service that they did not have before. That enhanced experience builds trust and reputation for the realtor’s website.’

Messaging that incorporates 3D as a means to demonstrate a complex problem or share views of properties and infrastructure projects is about to become standard internet practice, says industry insider Harry Vitelli

One of the features of United Lane’s pioneering Go CreateTM technology, 3D internet emailing has already been successfully developed for use with high-end civil engineering systems, according to Harry Vitelli, VP of platform product management for Bentley Systems MicroStation and ProjectWise 3D products. (is this still Harry’s position?)

‘We have been producing 3D systems for the infrastructure marketplace for a number of years, and we have found that it was relatively easy to send that information in a PDF format,’ he says.

Bentley’s software is used in large-scale building projects, such as bridges, roads, sports stadiums and power-plants, projects that range in cost from thousands to millions of dollars.

Given the complexity of the models the company was building, Bentley devised a system that, by dragging a mouse over a particular part of a 3D model, could pull out the 3D co-ordinates and store them so that they could be sent out as a snapshot or fragment of the parent model.

By working with Adobe, Bentley has perfected this method of working so that its customers can now send out 3D PDFs to contractors and other parties involved in a large project.

Says Vitelli: ‘We work on visualization during conception, design, construction and operation. We are there for the entire life cycle of a building to make sure that an asset is sustainable and cost-effective. 3D PDFs are instrumental in that, because you can send out a picture that shows the problem you are having and you can then discuss it.’

The company has found that this increased capacity for problem sharing has slashed production costs, and has led to improved efficiencies by allowing enhanced teleconferencing. ‘One of the great advantages of 3D is that it allows far better visualization. It’s the difference between a video and a photograph; it’s the reason why 3D is revolutionizing the civil engineering arena. There are now far more projects being carried out in 3D than in 2D and that trend is going to continue.’

And the growing demand for 3D is not restricted to the construction industry. Vitelli says Bentley is now seeing an increased demand for 3D by the public so that projects can be demonstrated and progress tracked.

‘When we do a bridge retrofit we are finding that we are being asked to make models available to the public so that they can get an idea of how a project will be done.’

For more information on Go CreateTM technology, please visit www.Open3dHouse.com

3D software and its associated hardware systems will be one of the key emerging technologies over the next two years, says one of the world’s leading technology forecasters

Burrus: 'The day of a fairly complete digital world is not far off.'

According to Daniel Burrus, founder and CEO of Burrus Research, two different applications of 3D technology are set to change the way we see the world.

‘The two different variations are, firstly, interspatial 3D of the sort that you can already see in Xbox and PlayStation, where you go into a 3D world,’ says the futurologist, whose research and consulting firm monitors global advancements in technology-driven trends.

‘This is going to be very big because you don’t need new equipment to view it; you will be able to access it via your home PC.

‘The other type involves 3D screens that you will wear augmented glasses to view, and the development of screens that you won’t need glasses to view. This area won’t grow as fast [initially] as the interspatial area.’

With interest in 3D now developing at an incredible pace, Burrus predicts that we will shortly see the development of 3D web browsers which will interface with other web sites, so that someone browsing the web will be able to interact with the products developed by a company.

‘What that means is that you will be able to visit an auto dealer, for example, and walk around looking at the cars, opening the doors, getting inside and playing with the controls.’

It’s a vision that was predicted around 10 years ago during the internet boom, when companies talked of a wonderful hi-tech future that was just around the corner. The difference now, according to Burrus, is that the timing is right.

‘We are at a stage now where users are only going to be limited by their own imagination,’ he says. ‘Processing is getting so powerful and readily available – so is bandwidth – and storage is also much less expensive. The timing is now.’

The fact that the timing is now has not been lost on the technology world’s biggest players.

‘When you combine what is being done on these new digital 3D worlds with the digital world being built by Microsoft and Google – and, believe me, they know this world is coming – then you realize that the day of a fairly complete digital world is not far off,’ says Burrus, adding that techniques for extracting 3D information from video have already been developed.

It’s a 3D world in which much of the work has already been done. With many modern buildings now being designed using CAD/CAM programs, many of the measurements have been digitally recorded, some are already in 3D.

It is a process that also involves many old buildings, with many museums and period houses already rendered into 3D by the architects entrusted with looking after them. In Dresden, Germany, researchers have even developed a way of recreating the streets fire-bombed out of existence during World War Two, by turning old photographs into 3D images and then mapping views taken from the opposite ends of a street onto each other.

In the future, the amount of 3D worlds and vistas that are fixed on a particular geographic point will only be limited by the amount of information that has been created on a particular point or object. (not sure what this means). It’s an idea that creates a novel – for some, perhaps frightening – image of a world where every location has the potential to be a massive 3D encyclopedia, full of information, sounds, images and memories.

As Burrus states, it is a world that knows no boundaries. But he also counsels that the application of this technology must be well considered.

‘I think one of the things that people will quickly realize is that there will be a need to integrate 2D and 3D together, and that you should not use one where the other will do a better job.

‘You should always use the right tool for the job. Why read a novel from a CD? The best reading material to put on a computer is reference material.’

The pioneering 3D visualization company Get Inside has delivered a world first with the announcement that it is to become United Lane, a 3D web visualization portal that can be used via the internet. 

United Lane delivers a revolutionary concept that allows anyone in the world to input the ground plan of their house and then see it rendered in 3D.

‘One of the real advantages of the United Lane concept is that people who are buying a house can not only see what it looks like but they will also be able to input details of their furniture and the sort of colors that they prefer into the model,’ said Aamir Butt, the new CEO of United Lane. He went on to say that with the current surplus of houses on the market, buyers are increasingly making their decisions on the amount of information that they can see online.

‘The typical high-tech armoury of a successful real estate office will include videos, photos, virtual imaging, a 3D interactive floor plan and online tours, because that is what the market is now demanding. Those companies that are not making an immediate investment in technology will suffer.

‘To get an edge in the current market you have to be able to deploy technology instantly, and that is what we can do.’

The perceived beauty of United Lane is that the 3D house plan stays with the house’s owners forever, as United Lane stores the 3D model on its servers. ‘Technology is now essential in the real estate market because more and more people are going online, said Butt. ‘Even before the current challenging conditions, the trend was for people to want more and more information about a property before they viewed it.’

The change from Get Inside to United Lane marks a recognition by Aamir Butt and Get Inside founder Kresten Thomsen that the next stage in the evolution of the internet will be to 3D.

‘All of the indicators show that people want to see things in 3D because that is how they live their lives,’ said Thomsen. ‘We have created this system because we believe in drinking our own champagne and would like other people to enjoy the best experience that is possible.’

For more information or to arrange an interview with United Lane contact:

Peter Warren, Executive Vice President of Communications on:
email peter.warren@unitedlane.com
Office 00-44-207-100-1389
Mobile 00-44-7870-558635
Skype petewarren

“The companies that will survive the current tough conditions in the real estate market will be those that make the best use of technology”, said Aamir Butt, new chief executive of the 3D visualisation pioneer United Lane.

United Lane considers the US real estate market one of its core interests and has developed a state of the art online 3D visualisation tool to support it.

“We have polled real estate companies across the US and all of them have pointed out the importance of technology in the current market.

“Making an investment in technology now could be the difference between coming through and not coming through,” said Butt.

Polling real estate agents across the US, United Lane found that all of them were viewing technology as essential to get clients through the door.

With each agent stressing the internet was driving an appetite for information from customers that was now accelerating because of the sheer numbers of unsold properties on the market.

“We found that though people are searching on price and location that technology plays a key role in that,” said Butt.

“You have to be able to have a website that can show a whole range of information and allows properties to be grouped like that. When someone clicks on something they are interested in buying, they now expect a whole suite of technology applications to help them in their choice.”

On the East Coast, in New York, that means that the typical high tech armoury of a successful real estate company will include video bios of brokers, virtual imaging to demonstrate new buildings not yet completed, 3D interactive floor plans and online video tours of a prospective property.

On the West Coast, in the Bay area, realtors are looking to combine new developments in mobile phone locational technology and increased 3G bandwidth to be able to send out large amounts of information via the mobile web, while using the same technological weaponry of their colleagues on the East Coast.

3D visualisation and combining information from multiple sources is also being seen as a growth area.

“People want to be able to click on a particular floor of a development, or on a house, and be able to walk through it,” said Butt.

“Though what we are now seeing is a trend for realtors to want to combine information from Google Earth and to try to bring in information about the local area too.

“If local businesses have put that information on the web then the really forward looking real estate websites are looking to add that to information about a property – it’s real estate Web 2.0.

“Portfolio’s of information are now being put together for properties and neighbourhoods and we want to able to develop the 3Dvisualisation tools that people can help people put that information together.

“We don’t just want people to be able to see the property we want them to be able to see where is stands in relation to other houses and parks on United Lane.”

For more information or to arrange an interview with United Lane contact:

Peter Warren, Executive Vice President of Communications on:
email peter.warren@unitedlane.com
Office 00-44-207-100-1389
Mobile 00-44-7870-558635
Skype petewarren

The pioneering 3D visualisation company Get Inside is delivering a world first with its announcement that it will become United Lane, a 3D web visualisation portal that can be used via the internet.

United Lane, the new name for Get Inside, is a revolutionary concept that allows anyone in the world to input the ground plan of their house and then see it rendered in 3D.

“One of the real advantages of the United Lane concept is that people who are buying a house can not only see what it looks like but they will also be able to input details of their furniture and the sort of colours that they prefer into the model,” said Aamir Butt, the new CEO of United Lane.Butt added, that with the current surplus of houses on the market that that buyers are increasingly making their decisions on the amount of information that they can see online.

“The typical high tech armoury of a successful real estate office will include videos, photos, virtual imaging, a 3Dinteractive floor plan and online tours because that is what the market is now demanding. Those companies that are not making an immediate investment in technology will suffer.

“To get an edge in the current market you have to be able to deploy technology instantly and that is what we can do.”

The beauty of United Lane is that the 3D house plan stays with the house’s owners for ever as United Lane stores the 3D model on its servers.

“Technology is now essential in the real estate market because more and more people are going online. Even before the current challenging conditions the trend was for people to want more and more information about a property before they viewed it.”

The change from Get Inside to United Lane marks a recognition by Aamir Butt and Get Inside founder, Kresten Thomsen, that the next stage in the evolution of the internet will be to 3D.

“All of the indicators show that people want to see things in 3D because that is how they live their lives,” said Thomsen.

“We have created this system because we believe in drinking our own champagne and would like other people to enjoy the best experience that is possible.”

For more information or to arrange an interview with United Lane contact:

Peter Warren, Executive Vice President of Communications on:
email peter.warren@unitedlane.com
Office 00-44-207-100-1389
Mobile 00-44-7870-558635
Skype petewarren