By Avikshit Moral, Vidit Mehra
Introduction
The buzzword of recent times has finally made its mark on one of the oldest and relatively conservative sectors – Real Estate. Metaverse, or a virtual world or space existing in the realm of the internet where people like us can interact and engage in social activities in a non-physical space. Interestingly, the metaverse when combined with real estate can optimize time and effort and increase efficiency for all stakeholders involved in the sector.
Metaverse and Real Estate
Buyers Benefits
While a traditional buyer would invest his money only after physical verification of a property, the metaverse use case of real estate would surely help a buyer to optimize the entire process of buying a property. As a starter, it can help such a buyer in shortlisting prospective properties by experiencing a virtual (yet very realistic) tour of such properties without having to visit them. Metaverse is capable of replicating very accurately the entire layout of a property in virtual reality. The industry has started to embrace the concept by hosting open houses and listing on virtual platforms. Such concepts, when combined with real-world experience, will result in a product category of its own. Also, another possibility to be considered here is that after purchasing an under-construction property (hosted in metaverse), one need not be in situ and still get to know the exact progress of the project. An owner of an asset which is hosted in the metaverse will be able to view his property in real time, which will give confidence to buyer/s irrespective of distance or boundaries.
How can developers take advantage?
With deeper integration of metaverse into the real estate sector, designing/planning projects need not be done at a binary level using scaled down plans, but altogether in a much realistic manner. Not only will it change the customer’s experience, but it will also help a developer to take an informed decision by seeing a project in a third or higher dimension as against a standard two dimension at the time of design and planning. The need for learning from trial-and-error methods will get eliminated while constructing and things like project timeline, cost, approvals should get hastened with so much technology at disposable.
The use case of metaverse with real estate is not just limited to property buying/selling experience but it can also be extended to larger issues like town and urban planning, wherein planners can evaluate the development plans for the future (in the present) by creating an augmented reality of the proposed plan. These things are also being implemented to improve the science behind construction and development. Engineers/scientists are able to test stability/strength/ new designs for structures without actually having to build one. With rapid urbanization and migration, building/s with ‘three digit floors’ will be a necessity very soon and such technology/ability will be an absolute boon both in terms of planning and evolution in construction technology for higher and stable structures.
The integration of metaverse and real estate has gone a step ahead, wherein people are investing in properties in metaverse with an ability to generate returns from them. Conceptually, a virtual real estate market may still be sometime away in India and the concept will need to mature before attracting investors confidence.
The Way Forward
It is extremely important that all stakeholders accept the fact that this fusion is inevitable. Needless to say, that a country like India can pillion on its booming IT sector to be world leaders in using metaverse for solving housing and urban planning issues. India needs to be ahead of the curve and develop forward-looking legislation that is not restrictive but more enabling of such integration.
The authors are Partner, Associate, INDUSLAW, respectively