The Rise of Virtual Apartment Tours

In January 2020, fewer than 5% of apartment tours were conducted virtually. By November 2020, that number has crossed 35-40%. A technology that was considered a novelty 12 months ago is now a standard part of how apartments are leased in every major market.

But not all virtual tours are created equal. The technology ranges from a FaceTime call with a leasing agent to a full Matterport 3D scan to a pre-recorded marketing video. The quality difference is enormous, and knowing which type you are getting, and what each type misses, is the difference between finding a great apartment remotely and getting an expensive surprise on move-in day.

The Quality Hierarchy

After facilitating hundreds of virtual tours this year, here is our ranking of virtual tour types from best to worst:

1. Live FaceTime or Video Call (Best)

A real-time video walkthrough where you are on a call with someone physically inside the apartment. You direct the camera. You ask questions in real-time. You can say "go back to the kitchen" or "open that closet" or "show me the view from the bedroom window." The person on the other end is your eyes and ears.

Quality is highly dependent on who is holding the phone. A leasing agent will show you the highlights. A locator working for you will show you the reality. This is an important distinction. When HomeEasy conducts a virtual tour on behalf of a renter, we check the things the leasing agent would skip: water pressure, closet depth, noise levels, outlet placement, and the condition of the hallway and common areas.

Live tours also capture something no recording can: ambient noise. Is there traffic? Can you hear neighbors? Is the HVAC system loud? These are quality-of-life factors that recordings either filter out or fail to capture.

2. Matterport 3D Scan (Good)

Matterport uses cameras to create an interactive 3D model of the apartment. You can navigate through rooms, look in any direction, and get a precise sense of spatial relationships. The technology is impressive. Newer scans include measurement tools so you can check if your couch will fit.

The strengths: accurate spatial representation, self-guided exploration, available 24/7 (no scheduling needed). The weaknesses: it is a static snapshot of the apartment at its best. Staging, lighting, and cleaning are optimized before the scan. You cannot interact with anything. You cannot test faucets, open windows, or listen for noise. And the scan may be months old, meaning the actual unit may look different.

3. Pre-Recorded Video Walkthrough (Decent)

A marketing video produced by the building, usually 2-5 minutes, showing the unit and amenities. These are scripted and edited. The camera moves where the marketing team wants it to move. Rooms are shown from the most flattering angles. Music plays over what would otherwise be the sound of the building.

Pre-recorded videos are useful for getting a general sense of the building's style and quality tier. They are not useful for evaluating a specific unit because the unit in the video may not be the one available, and the conditions are curated rather than realistic.

4. Professional Photos (Insufficient)

Wide-angle lenses make 700-square-foot apartments look like 1,000 square feet. Professional lighting eliminates shadows that would reveal the actual light quality. Photos are the minimum acceptable marketing material but should never be the basis for a leasing decision.

What Gets Missed on Virtual Tours

Even the best virtual tour cannot replicate the full sensory experience of being inside an apartment. Here is what you lose and how to compensate:

Noise Levels

The number one complaint from renters who signed leases based on virtual tours. Street noise, neighbor noise, elevator noise, HVAC noise. On a live video call, you can ask the person to be silent and listen. On any other format, noise is invisible.

Compensation: Ask the building which direction the unit faces. Street-facing units are louder than courtyard-facing. Higher floors are generally quieter than lower floors. Corner units have noise from two directions. Also: visit Google Maps and check for construction sites, bars, or fire stations nearby.

Smells

Musty hallways, cooking smells from neighboring units, pet odors in the carpet, a damp smell from water damage. Smell is completely invisible on video. There is no technological workaround for this.

Compensation: Ask directly: "Is there any noticeable smell in the unit or hallway?" An honest agent or locator will tell you. Also read building reviews for mentions of odor or air quality.

Elevator Wait Times

In a 40-story high-rise, the difference between a well-managed elevator bank and a poorly managed one is five minutes per trip. Multiply that by four trips per day and you are spending 20 minutes a day waiting for elevators. This is a significant quality-of-life issue that never appears in marketing materials.

Compensation: Ask the building how many elevators serve your floor and how many total floors they serve. A building with 2 elevators for 40 floors will have meaningful wait times. A building with 4 elevators for 20 floors will not.

Parking Lot and Surrounding Area Condition

The parking garage, the area immediately surrounding the building, the condition of sidewalks and streetlights. These are indicators of management quality and neighborhood safety that tours rarely cover.

Compensation: Google Street View. Walk the surrounding blocks virtually. Check the most recent Street View imagery date. Look for boarded-up storefronts, poorly maintained sidewalks, or general signs of neglect versus activity.

The Hybrid Model That Works

Based on a year of facilitating both virtual and in-person tours, here is the model we recommend:

1. Phase 1 — Virtual filtering (narrow to 3-5 options): Use Matterport scans, pre-recorded videos, and photos to eliminate apartments that clearly do not meet your requirements. This saves you from touring 10 apartments in person when 6 of them were not going to work anyway.
2. Phase 2 — Live virtual tour (narrow to 2-3): Schedule live FaceTime or Zoom tours of your top 3-5 options. Ask all the questions listed above: noise, water pressure, storage, natural light, common areas. Eliminate the ones that do not hold up under scrutiny.
3. Phase 3 — In-person tour (final decision): Visit your top 2-3 in person. This is where you verify everything the virtual tour showed you. Walk the neighborhood. Ride the elevator. Stand in the apartment in silence and listen. Check the parking lot. Talk to a resident if you can.

This hybrid approach typically reduces in-person tours from 8-10 to 2-3, saving significant time while maintaining the quality of the final decision. The virtual phases handle the filtering. The in-person phase handles the validation.

If you cannot visit in person at all (relocating from another city, time constraints, health considerations), stop at Phase 2 and use a local locator to conduct the in-person validation on your behalf. This is not as good as being there yourself, but it is dramatically better than signing based on photos alone.

Virtual tours are here to stay. Even after in-person touring fully resumes, the efficiency of virtual filtering is too valuable to abandon. The technology will improve. But the fundamentals will not change: live tours are better than recordings, and nothing fully replaces being physically present. Use virtual tools for efficiency. Use in-person visits for certainty.