[3D Surround Scan Case Study] How did Little Hinges, Australia's largest property marketing company, achieve a 20% monthly sales increase?

[3D Surround Scan Case Study] How did Little Hinges, Australia's largest property marketing company, achieve a 20% monthly sales increase?

Little Hinges' achievements in the real estate sector:
►Monthly revenue growth of 20%
► Potential customer list doubled
► Sold the property within a quarter of the timeframe
►Shorten the rental period by 50%

Buying a house is often the most expensive and important expense for most people in their lifetime. It's also one of the most valuable things they do. However, in today's market, housing stock is low in many areas, leading to fierce bidding wars, and buyers often only have a few minutes to inspect properties before making an offer. Remote home buying is becoming increasingly popular, but challenges arise if a personal visit is not possible.

Little Hinges is a real estate marketing company that uses 3D guided tours to streamline the real estate experience for agents and homebuyers. CEO Josh Callaghan says, "Our mission is to digitize the entire real estate transaction, from listing to closing."

In just 18 months, Little Hinges has grown into one of Australia's largest providers of virtual property tour services. It combines Matterport digital avatar technology with its own analytics and insights dashboards to provide agents and suppliers with unique insights. Clients gain access to… The Matterport Pro3 3D Surround Scanner captures virtual tours, 10 instant messages marked with Mattertags within the tours, floor plans, analytics dashboards, weekly performance reports sent via email, and an integration platform with the customer messaging management system.

(Source: Little Hinges Official Website )

Founded in early 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the company faced business closures, employee layoffs, and homeowners reluctant to have dozens of strangers tour their properties. But Josh Callaghan, shouldering the responsibility of supporting his employees, saw this as a perfect opportunity for the real estate industry to transition to virtual tools.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Callaghan co-founder Josh Kindred owned a chain of coffee shops and a real estate company, Kindred Property Group. When the coffee shops had to close during the lockdown, he promised his team there would be no layoffs. Kindred trained baristas to become Matterport technicians. This was a fantastic opportunity for him to grow his business while ensuring his employees continued to receive their salaries.

Immersive interactive 3D virtual house tour experience
3D real estate tours aren't new, but many early 3D technologies were rigid. " Matterport 's experience is completely different, and anyone who uses it can feel it," Callaghan says. "It's like you're actually moving around in the house, instead of jumping from one point to another and having to readjust your direction every time you click the mouse."

↓Check out the 3D guided tour of the following houses↓

Hawaiian Oceanside Villa

The once-popular "audio-visual marketing" is truly outdated!
From a marketing perspective, modern people are exposed to thousands of advertising messages every day. To capture the average person's attention span, which is only 8 seconds, a fixed video playback time is even longer than a 3D guided tour. However, each person visiting a home is interested in different things. Some prioritize the kitchen, while others are more interested in the living room, bathroom, or layout. The fixed perspective of the video forces everyone to see the same view, preventing the home's selling points from being maximized.

But when visiting Matterport , visitors can browse their own virtual property. They can decide where to look, what to zoom in on, and how long to stay before moving on.

Because interested buyers can see all the details—from layout and room flow to tile workmanship and fixtures—they can schedule a visit in person, have more confidence in getting a quote than just looking at photos, and know in advance which houses might suit them, have enough rooms and space, are properly furnished, etc., so they can easily imagine what it would be like to live there.

One problem with in-person house viewings is that interested buyers often have very little time , perhaps only 15-30 minutes at most. Those who spend an entire day viewing houses can't possibly remember every detail about every property , what each kitchen looks like, or the size of the living spaces. Those who can virtually revisit a property are better able to decide on their favorites and often don't need to schedule a second in-person viewing to confirm .

For some buyers, a Matterport tour provides enough meaningful information about the overall look and feel of a home to make a purchase decision. Callaghan recounts an instance where a visitor expressed interest in buying a home based solely on a "two-hour Matterport tour."

Make better decisions by leveraging analytical and actionable insights.
Little Hinges' new clients have begun using 360-degree photography and 3D guided tours from other companies, partly because of the immersive experience of Matterport's guided tours, but also because of Little Hinges' analytics capabilities. Each time a visitor virtually tours a property, the company collects data and uses the Matterport API and SDK to build data visualization dashboards.

▼ An API (Application Program Interface) is a program system that allows you to customize the interface appearance you want your clients to see within the Matterport platform . ▼

"Callaghan says, 'Agents can see who's viewing properties every day, even every minute. They can see how many people are virtually viewing properties, what they're looking at, how long they stay, where they're viewing from, and which real estate portals they found the listings on. Agents can then use this information to make better decisions about their rental marketing campaigns.'"

▼ An SDK (Software Development Kit) is a software development toolkit that visualizes a wide range of data. Below are some applications Callaghan mentioned . ▼

For example , most visitors are drawn to the kitchen, so real estate agents can use the kitchen as the opening selling point in their marketing materials to grab the attention of potential customers first, rather than relying on rumors that the property has no data.

Insight portals contain more than just numbers

Agents can see regional and global maps with pins marking the location of each visitor, some of whom have traveled from thousands of miles away.

Almost no buyer planning to move from a distant location to a new city is willing to schedule a viewing in person unless they are very certain they have found the right place. Matterport's property viewing service allows consumers to make decisions quickly.

Callaghan said, "We had a client who had a property auctioned in Cairns, a remote area in North Queensland. His buyers came from Sydney and Melbourne, over a thousand kilometers away. Both buyers flew in to attend the auction, and although they didn't see the house in person, they viewed it virtually through Matterport. This was enough to convince them to hop on a plane and start bidding. At that auction, a local won the bid, but the house sold for more than it would have if there had been no out-of-state bidders."

He added a key point: "It's one thing to say that 3D guided tours are better than photo and video tours; it's quite another to demonstrate how these tours attract the best buyers, drive up prices, and open up new markets ."

Kindred Property Group reports that buyer inquiries have doubled since the company introduced 3D property tours to its listings. "We're breaking buyer inquiry records every month, and we attribute this directly to the addition of the virtual tours," said Daniel Lyngcoln, Marketing CEO of Kindred Property Group. "Before Christmas, we were receiving 600-700 buyer inquiries per month , and this month we've received 1,300, and these are all from buyers who are genuinely interested in the properties we're showcasing."

RE/MAX Results has found that partnering with Little Hinges results in faster property rentals. "We've seen a significant increase in properties being rented without viewing, whether during busy times, interstate travel, or quarantine periods. Floor plans and photos, as part of Little Hinges' virtual tours, have been a huge benefit for those looking for rental properties, as it's proven that including virtual tours and floor plans in advertising generates more confidence to request viewings ," said Faith Williams, Property Manager at RE/MAX Results. "In this incredibly busy world, this technology has allowed my agency to rent properties almost 50% faster than our competitors in the area."

Glen Williams, a top sales agent for Ray White Surfers Paradise Group, says he's sold a property in just a quarter of the time since joining Little Hinges Virtual Tours. "In the last three months, I've sold 10 properties, averaging only 34 days on the market, with the most recent sale taking just two weeks. That's a remarkable achievement compared to the Surfers Paradise condo average of 180 days," Williams says. "Through virtual tours, I've followed up with nearly 2,300 potential clients on my 10 most recent condos, a large portion of whom were from other states."

Achieve 20% monthly growth
There's a Western proverb, "A small leaf can pry open a large wooden door," which perfectly describes Little Hinges. Although a new company, it has achieved 20% monthly growth and captures digital twins for hundreds of properties across Australia each month. Clients have responded very positively to the analytics results, and Little Hinges plans to delve deeper into data customization next year. "Little Hinges is able to attract more buyers from a wider range and sell properties at higher prices. With Covid-19 becoming a distant memory, Little Hinges is poised for long-term success."

The Matterport pro3 features groundbreaking LiDAR innovations, enabling millions of measurements in conditions ranging from dimly lit spaces to direct sunlight, allowing you to experience the beauty of the outdoors firsthand.

Click here to learn more about the products.

Little Hinges is a Matterport platform partner. By building and commercializing applications using the Matterport API and SDK , and integrating with Matterport's market-leading spatial data platform, you can easily gain a range of business benefits.

Related products:
1) Matterport All 3D Surround Scanners
2) Matterport SDK
3) Matterport API