The Real Deal’s Konrad Putzier took a closer look at the in real estate industry’s next technology revolution and the companies poised to make an impact:

In 2011 and 2012, two startups, View the Space and Floored, launched to great fanfare. Floored offered 3D visualizations, and View the Space created video tours of office buildings — two products that seemed destined for VR devices. But View the Space (which ultimately changed its name to VTS) successfully shifted its focus to offering online portfolio and lease management software. And Floored was acquired by CBRE and folded into the brokerage’s data and technology division in 2017.

“A few years ago VR was all the rage, and now you rarely hear about it anymore,” said Ash Zandieh, founder of the real estate tech research and consulting company RE:Tech.

VTS co-founder Nick Romito said he is “baffled” by the slow pace at which VR and AR are spreading across the office leasing industry.

“If you would have asked me three years ago, I would have said the next generation of our industry is … anything virtual,” he said. “But it almost feels like we’ve kind of taken a step backwards.”

Romito speculated that the slippage might be a product of the marketing, which has largely been targeted at brokers and landlords rather than to the potential tenants, who might see the most use.

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