They Are Starting to Get It

A recent article in the Idaho Business Review talks about how real estate agents today are - and should be - relying more and more on the Internet for their work.

Real estate has become a truly globalized industry, and it is not uncommon for buyers to be looking for properties outside their states or countries. Christina Ethridge, an Idaho realtor, is quoted in the article talking about searching for properties up north for an out-of-state client. She was shocked find a $10M property listing with merely two photographs.

Although most people are still obsessing over nearly obsolete Web 2.0 technology and applications like MySpace, professionals like Lindsay Dofelmier from the Boise Urban Agent team are on the right track by exploring the the use of the 3D Web for real estate marketing and sales.

The demand will most likely come from the buyers, once they understand that they can get instant practical information on the properties they are purchasing. Very soon they will comprehend that they do not need to buy $10M properties (or even 500K for that matter) based on a couple of photographs or unrealistic, dreamy 3D rendering pictures. Who would not want to experience exactly what it would be like to live in their future home or work in their future office? Who would not want to be able to design and customize properties before making multi-million dollar decisions?

We are getting there. People are starting to get it.

What Real Estate Wants (and Needs)

The more I speak with real estate industry leaders, the more I am convinced that the
3D Web is the answer to all their needs. I have had the liberty of conversing with corporate real estate officers, commercial and residential real estate brokers, and executive managers of globally renowned firms like CB Richard Ellis. The one thing they have in common, albeit their different market sectors and the varying roles they play in them, is that their work chiefly involves interaction with customers and with private and corporate decision makers.

What better, then, than a three-dimensional environment that is designed specifically for real-time interaction between people? What could save more time and more money than an online interactive platform that accommodates for both real estate touring and for property customization and interior design? Second Life is currently the most advanced of such environments, but that is just the problem: It is still more of an
environment rather than a platform upon which various services can be developed. Give us a 3D Web that is truly open-source; give us the ability to open standalone servers and to customize them; give us an intuitive interface that any internet user can work with.

The primary challenge, thus, is to find the most appropriate platform to implement a comprehensive real estate marketing solution. That is why 3D Realistate has partnered with UnReal Designs; no other 3D development firm has the expertise, knowledge, and experience with the 3D Web, not to mention a profound understanding of the power it holds. We are confident that together we can pioneer and revolutionize the real estate industry.

3D Realistate: A 3D Real Estate Marketplace

Let me begin with a short background on myself. I spent the first half of my life
growing up in Tokyo, Japan. At the age of twelve I immigrated to Israel, where I graduated from high school and served three years in the military. I held a range of positions in the central signal intelligence unit, including data mining, instruction, market and data analysis, and project management. Upon discharge I was hired by a Japanese internet security firm, and ended up returning to Tokyo for a period of six months. My passion aside from hi-tech is baseball, and I pitch for the Israeli national team. I am also pursuing a degree at Princeton University.

It was while working in Japan when I met my partner, Daniel Cesar, who introduced Second Life to me, right when things began heating up in the realm of the 3D Web. At first my reaction was that of relief; I had first envisioned the concept of a 3D virtual world a decade ago, thinking of an environment in which one could actually “live” and work in. I had hoped that the day would come, and it did.

What would be the best application for an environment like Second Life? That was the question that Daniel and I set out to answer. There are two primary advantages of the 3D Web, as I understood back then as well as today: Real-time collaboration and flexible 3D content generation. Coming from an interior design and Feng Shui background, I immediately saw how consultations could be conducted online using 3D models of homes and offices.

We met with Feng Shui Master Joseph Yu, which sparked a strategic partnership with him and his worldwide network of professional Feng Shui practitioners. That is how the initial venture, VirtueCode, started, though after a while in business it hit me: It should be real estate search integrated with interior design, and not the other way around. It would be significantly wiser to utilize Second Life for property touring and use interior design as part of the real estate search process.

We now have a clear vision of creating a 3D real estate marketplace, where properties from all over the world will be listed and toured by buyers and sellers together, in real-time. They will customize the properties they see with purchasable interior design and home improvement products, thus effectively choosing the perfect place for them. 3D Realistate will revolutionize the real estate industry.

Introduction to the UnReal Designs

How did we get this good?

Years of experience.

UnReal Designs is owned by Theresa Kinney-Johnson, aka Tessa Harrington in Second Life, who has been in the business of creating what she has termed 'Virtual Environs' since 1993, when the phrase 'OpenGL' was just a term paper idea in the hands of an enterprising college student.

Ms. Johnson was like most, chatting on the web, when she heard of a new venue for chat called ActiveWorlds. The moment she walked in she knew she was looking at the 3D Web, and immediately set out to open the first 3D Internet Mall on the World Wide Web. In December, 1995, just six months after discovering ActiveWorlds, she opened Bizworld - a demonstration of the power of real E-Commerce in Virtual Environs that offered real products for sale via web-on-a-prim connections to paying and affiliate companies.

For five years, Ms. Johnson
worked diligently under the
company name VirtaCity
Studios, LLC, to create a
ground swell of demand for
the 3D Web. She earned a
5k grant from a local commerce
development organization
to hit the road and spread
the word about what her
design team could do. After
many meetings with such as the University of
Houston and IP Factory, the horizon looked very promising.
But then, just as VirtaCity Studios was courting venture
capital, the tech stock crash of 2000 hit. Within eighteen
months, VirtaCity Studios was forced to close their virtual
doors. Ms. Johnson didn't give up though, returning to her
traditional 2D web design roots, updating her skills and
dabbling in Indie game design to keep her hand in the 3D
scene.

In 2002, Ms. Johnson heard of Linden Labs and kept a close eye on their progress in creating Second Life. By 2005, it was evident the time was ripe to jump back in, and jump she did! From the moment she finished her first build, Ms. Johnson was booked solid with commission requests from Second Life residents to create custom homes and group builds, and to develop full sims, doing business as UnReal Designs. She was one of the first to get paid in Lindens for her work, earning amounts high enough to be of USD exchange value by the end of that first year. Each client sent her more and more work and referrals. By the middle of 2006, her business had grown such that she had a waiting list of five month, even though she never advertised. It was then she began forming teams to allow her to manage multiple projects, always creating the main design and texturing herself, but building long term loyalty from her artisan builders by allowing them to express their skills and elaborate on her designs.

In 2007, the lid blew off. Corporate America finally woke up to the 3D Web, and wanted in. UnReal Designs managed to juggle an average of three projects simultaneously with a team of ten core members, landing select plum jobs, both international and national; New Holland, a sim developed for the Netherlands Department of Tourism and Conventions; ongoing work for CADE and the University of Illinois; and Li, a sim owned by the Love Infinite Foundation, a non-profit organization founded and managed by Casey Jones, VP of Global Marketing for Dell Computer.

Today, UnReal Designs is recognized by many of its peers as one of the most professional, dependable and innovative full service design firms in Second Life. While other firms have stalled, UnReal Designs keeps facing the challenges and giving its client's reasons to stay invested in the 3D web, be it through Second Life or other emerging platforms, through its visionary designs and impeccable results.