Written by David Dodge

From out-of-state buyers in Phoenix to portfolio builders in Nashville, virtual tours have quietly become the most powerful tool in the modern investor's playbook — and the numbers prove it.

Not long ago, buying a property you had never physically walked through was considered reckless — the kind of move that got you a cautionary headline in a personal finance column. Today, it has become standard practice. A Redfin study of over 1,900 buyers across 32 major U.S. markets found that 63% of homebuyers submitted offers on properties they had never personally visited, relying entirely on virtual tours and digital data to make their decisions. That number should stop you in your tracks — and if you are a real estate investor with an eye on the American market, it should also excite you.

Virtual home tours have graduated from novelty to necessity. What started as a pandemic-era workaround has evolved into a fundamental infrastructure of how U.S. properties are marketed, evaluated, and sold. For investors — particularly those targeting markets outside their own city, state, or even country — this shift is not just convenient. It is transformational.

This piece takes a close look at the virtual tour landscape, specifically through the lens of real estate investment in the United States: why the technology works, which markets are most relevant, how the numbers stack up, and what a smart investor ought to be doing about it right now.

Why Virtual Tours Are No Longer Optional

Walk into any conversation with a U.S. real estate agent today, and they will tell you the same thing: if your listing does not have a virtual tour, you are already behind. The data backs this up with unusual consistency across multiple independent research sources.

According to industry research, 54% of buyers say they will not even consider viewing a home that doesn't include a virtual tour. That is a majority of potential buyers — and therefore a majority of potential investors — functionally eliminated from your deal flow before they have seen a single room. In a competitive market like the United States, where inventory in cities like Austin, Nashville, and Tampa moves fast, that is a margin you cannot afford to give away.

The engagement numbers are equally striking. Listings with virtual tours receive 87% more views than those without, and buyers who do engage tend to spend five to ten times longer exploring those properties online. That is not just traffic — it is qualified attention. By the time a buyer or investor reaches out about a property they have toured virtually, they already know the layout, the proportions, the light in the kitchen, the size of the garage. The sales process compresses, and so does the timeline to close.

"Listings featuring 3D tours closed up to 31% faster than those without — roughly 10 fewer days on the market. For an investor managing carrying costs, that compression is worth real money." 
Analysis of MLS Transaction Data, U.S. Markets

The speed advantage alone is a serious financial argument. For an investor holding a property with a mortgage, taxes, insurance, and maintenance ticking away each month, ten fewer days on the market is not a minor convenience — it is measurable profit.

The U.S. Virtual Tour Market: Scale and Trajectory

To understand the investment opportunity here, you need to understand how dominant the United States is within the global virtual tour ecosystem. The numbers are more lopsided than most people realize.

The U.S. virtual tour market held over 68% of the North American market share in 2024, which itself was the globally dominant region. The global virtual tour market is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 34.3%, reaching over $74 billion by 2030. Within that, North America is expected to grow at a CAGR of 35% from 2025 to 2030, driven by advanced technological infrastructure, widespread broadband access, and a real estate sector that has embraced immersive technology faster than almost any other industry.

The real estate segment specifically drove significant market share in 2024. According to Matterport, 92% of home buyers research online before reaching out to an agent, and the growing expectation of virtual tours has become a decisive factor in which listings those buyers engage with and which ones they scroll past.

What this data tells an investor is simple: virtual tours are not a feature of premium listings anymore. They are the baseline infrastructure for any property that wants to compete in the American market.

The Out-of-State Investor's Equation

Perhaps nowhere is the value of virtual tours more apparent than in the world of out-of-state real estate investing — a strategy that has exploded in popularity as American investors increasingly look beyond their own backyards for better returns.

The logic is straightforward. Investors targeting undervalued markets across the Midwest or Southeast are seeing double the yield for a fraction of the price compared to saturated coastal markets — and they are doing it entirely remotely, through virtual tours, national property management companies, and digital closings. An investor in San Francisco with $400,000 can buy a single overpriced condo in their backyard or acquire multiple cash-flowing properties in Columbus, Ohio, or Memphis, Tennessee without leaving their desk.

Virtual real estate investing eliminates traditional geographic boundaries, allowing investors to select strategies that match their unique goals and objectives rather than simply accepting whatever exists within driving distance. The tools required are not exotic: a reliable internet connection, access to platforms like Zillow and Roofstock, and the willingness to let 3D tours and local property managers serve as your eyes on the ground.

"Real estate investing is no longer about proximity — it's about performance. And often, your money works significantly harder outside your local area." 
- Out-of-State Investment Analysis, 2025

This is where virtual tours shift from a nice-to-have into a genuine competitive tool. For an investor based in New York evaluating a duplex in Kansas City, a high-quality Matterport tour is the difference between making a confident, data-informed decision and flying blind. It lets you see how the rooms connect, whether the basement has moisture issues apparent in the texture of the walls, how generous the backyard really is compared to listing photos that tend to flatter.

   , virtual showings eliminate the need for multiple in-person visits, saving significant time and cost — a particular advantage for out-of-state investors managing properties across a wide geographic area.

What the Research Actually Shows About Price and Value

Here is where the picture gets nuanced — and more interesting for serious investors. The popular narrative around virtual tours and pricing is that they automatically command higher sale prices. The full story is more textured.

Harvard Business School researchers analyzed data from 75,178 home sales in the greater Los Angeles market, one of the most closely watched real estate markets in the United States. The study found that while virtual tours do not always produce a 5% sales price premium, they consistently benefit sellers and buyers in multiple other measurable ways, including faster sales, more qualified leads, and reduced time spent on showings with unserious buyers.

That is actually good news for investors, because the benefits cluster around operational efficiency — which is where investor returns are built. Meanwhile, homes with Matterport 3D tours specifically sell 20% faster and for 4.8% higher prices than standard listings, and these tours generate 49% more qualified leads. The keyword there is qualified — investors are not just getting more inquiries, they are getting fewer time-wasters.

Homes with 3D tours closed 31% faster than comparable listings without them, a finding that aligns with MLS transaction data from multiple U.S. markets and holds up across different property types and price points.

High-Opportunity U.S. Markets for Virtual-First Investing

Virtual tours are not geographically neutral. They have the biggest impact in markets where buyer demand is high and where out-of-state or out-of-country interest is significant. Several U.S. cities have emerged as natural fits for this style of remote, technology-enabled investing.

These markets share a common thread: they are generating strong investor interest from people who are not physically local. Virtual tours are not a supplement to an in-person strategy in these cities — for many investors, they are the entire diligence infrastructure.

How Technology Is Raising the Bar

The virtual tour landscape has matured significantly. When the technology first emerged broadly during the early pandemic years, most tours were basic 360-degree photo walkthroughs stitched together with navigation arrows. Today, the leading platforms offer something substantially more sophisticated.

Matterport, the company that has become something of a household name in real estate technology, produces what it calls "digital twins" of properties — fully navigable 3D models with embedded floor plans, room measurements, and photorealistic quality. A serious investor can pull up a Matterport tour and not only walk through every room but also switch to a dollhouse view showing the property's full three-dimensional layout, or look at a schematic floor plan with precise dimensions.

VR and AR tools now allow buyers and tenants to tour properties remotely with the kind of detail that speeds up deal closures — and integrating these technologies into an investment strategy can improve efficiency, reduce risks, and enhance overall returns.

The cost of accessing this technology has also dropped substantially. A professional 3D virtual tour for a real estate listing typically runs between $100 and $300, depending on the property's size and complexity. For an investor carrying a property that costs $2,000 a month in mortgage, taxes, and maintenance, spending $200 on a tour that reduces days-on-market by ten is an immediate and obvious return on investment.

The Generational Dimension: Who Is Actually Buying

Understanding who is buying — and how they prefer to shop — is not just demographic trivia for investors. It shapes where deals come from and how quickly they close.

The cohort most actively buying in the U.S. real estate market right now is millennials, and they have grown up doing everything online first. Younger customers aged 18 to 34 are 130% more likely to make an offer if a virtual tour is available, underscoring how decisive this technology is in the decision-making process for the largest group of active homebuyers.

This is not just a preference — it is a behavioral pattern baked into how this generation approaches any major purchase. They research obsessively before committing. They want to see everything before they show up. And they penalize listings that make them work harder than necessary. A property without a virtual tour is a property that feels like it has something to hide, whether or not that is actually true.

In an era where 97% of homebuyers use the internet as their primary research tool for property searches, the quality of online listings has become paramount. High-quality photography boosts views by 118%, but 3D tours layer an entirely different dimension of engagement on top of that — one that drives buying intent, not just casual browsing.

For an investor positioning a rental property or a flip, the practical implication is straightforward: if your buyer pool skews millennial or Gen Z, a virtual tour is not optional. It is part of the product.

Practical Considerations for Investors

Adopting virtual tours into an investment strategy does not require a technology overhaul. But it does require intentionality. A few principles that experienced investors have found to matter most:

Quality over novelty

A grainy, poorly lit virtual tour can do more damage than no tour at all. It signals that the seller — or their agent — did not care enough to present the property well, which raises questions about what else they might have been casual about. Investing in professional capture, proper lighting, and a clean pre-shoot staging session pays dividends in buyer confidence. Most professional real estate photographers now offer Matterport capture alongside standard photography as a bundled package.

Pair it with the right data

A virtual tour shows a buyer what a property looks like. It does not show them what the neighborhood looks like at 6 a.m. on a weekday, what the commute times are, or what comparable rents are doing in the surrounding blocks. The strongest investor presentations combine a high-quality virtual tour with neighborhood drone footage, interactive maps, and market data overlays. Platforms like Roofstock have built this kind of integrated presentation into their standard listing format for investment properties specifically.

Use tours for acquisition, not just disposition

Many investors think of virtual tours as something you create when selling. The more sophisticated play is using them during acquisition as well. When evaluating a property remotely, requesting a professionally produced virtual tour — or a live video walkthrough with a local agent — before making an offer is simply good diligence. It is far cheaper than a round-trip flight and far more informative than static photos.

Factor in platform strategy

Listings on Google Maps that feature virtual tours see 12% more engagement than those without, which matters for rental properties seeking tenants as much as it does for sale listings seeking buyers. The major platforms — Zillow, Realtor.com, Redfin — all support virtual tour embeds, and savvy investors ensure their listings are maximizing visibility on all of them.

The Risk of Falling Behind

There is a version of this conversation that treats virtual tours as a potential advantage — something to consider. That framing is increasingly outdated. The more accurate frame is that failing to use virtual tours in the current U.S. market is a competitive liability.

By 2025, virtual tours and 360-degree imagery will have effectively become industry standard, giving buyers the ability to explore properties remotely as a basic expectation rather than a premium feature. Investors who are not building this into their listing and acquisition processes are not just missing an opportunity — they are operating with a handicap that their competition does not have.

The volume of data supporting this is now substantial enough that the question is no longer whether virtual tours work in the U.S. real estate market. It is whether a given investor is using them strategically enough to capture the full benefit. The gap between a listing with a basic 360-degree tour and one with a fully interactive Matterport model, embedded floor plan, neighborhood drone footage, and linked market data is significant — and that gap is where serious investors are competing for an edge.

Nearly 67% of consumers want more businesses to adopt virtual tours across industries, pointing to untapped expansion opportunities even in a market that has already moved substantially toward adoption. There is still runway here — but it is narrowing as adoption accelerates.