360° tour or show apartment: what should a developer build first?
A show apartment costs six figures, exists in one place and is ready late in construction; a 360° tour costs under two thousand francs per apartment type, works on every phone and is ready the day sales start. For off-plan sales the tour comes first; a show apartment, if at all, follows once the structure is up.
Timing
Developers in Switzerland, Germany and Austria start selling when the permit is granted, typically eighteen months before a show apartment could exist. A 360° tour is rendered from the same interior scenes as the brochure images and is live within two to three weeks of the briefing. The tour sells the first half of the units; the show apartment, if built, sells the last.
Reach
A show apartment is visited by people who already live nearby and have time on a Saturday. A tour is walked by a buyer in Munich looking at a flat in Zürich on a Sunday evening, by the relocating employee, by the investor comparing three projects. It also reports which rooms get the most time, which no show apartment can do.
What the show apartment still does
Materials in the hand, the real view from the real window, the sound of the floor. For the last units, for premium buyers and for the finish selection, the physical apartment is still the stronger argument. The economical sequence is tour first, then a single show unit late, furnished in the style the tour had already shown — buyers recognise it.
Related questions
How much does a 360° tour cost compared with a show apartment?
A tour of one apartment type from about CHF 1,900 when the renderings exist; a furnished show apartment typically CHF 100,000 or more including the finish, the furniture and the months it is tied up.
Can the tour show the real view?
Yes, with a drone panorama taken at the planned floor height and composited behind the rendered windows.
Does the tour replace the brochure?
No; it complements it. The stills in the brochure and the panoramas in the tour come from the same scenes, so the two agree.