Are Zillow home tours the Vision Pro’s killer app?

As home prices remain unaffordable for most buyers across the U.S., searching Zillow, the top destination for home listings in the U.S., has become something of a pastime and a punch-line for Millennials and Gen-Zers.

And while $3,500 is a lot for most of us (who have less than $1,000 in savings) to spend on a new category of gadget such as Apple’s Vision Pro, it’s far less than the cost of the average house down payment (around $59,000).

So, for those who do have $3,500 to spend on this new “spatial computing” headset, you may be interested to learn that Zillow today announced its 3D panoramic home touring feature, Zillow Immerse, is available as one of the launch apps for the Vision Pro.

What is Zillow Immerse like on the Apple Vision Pro?

I’ll let Zillow’s press release do the explaining about what users have in store:

Zillow Immerse utilizes the full capabilities of Apple Vision Pro to teleport users inside a for-sale home, giving a panoramic 360-degree view of every room, from the ceiling to the floor. Home shoppers can take a virtual walk down hallways and pop their heads into every closet, all while using an AI-generated floor plan as a guide, providing a better understanding of where they are in the home’s layout and getting a sense of its flow.

Or as Josh Weisberg, Zillow’s senior vice president of AI puts it in the release:

“This advanced spatial technology allows users to explore homes in a way that is the next best thing to being there in person.”

The Zillow Immerse feature — which is available only on those selected home listings where real estate agents or sellers have uploaded the necessary photos and clicked to turn it on — offers a whole new dimension of home window shopping.

Cool or dystopian (or maybe a bit of both)?

Who even really needs a new home when you can strap on your Vision Pro and be nearly instantly transported into one totally out of your price range — a luxury villa, a top-floor penthouse, a modern “McMansion” or a sprawling country estate?

Why worry about saving up for an increasingly unaffordable new abode — competing with all-cash investors and real estate firms like Invitation Homes — when you can inhabit one virtually whenever you feel like it (as long as your Vision Pro has power or is plugged in)?

Thanks to the power of “spatial computing,” you can leave behind all your IKEA furniture and imitation hardwood flooring and surround yourself with the finery of a perfectly staged interior. It’s almost like you’re really there… maybe.

It sounds dystopian, sure, but it may be the killer feature the Vision Pro needs to take off. Though with an estimated 200,000 pre-orders already in the bag, Apple’s $3,500 headset does seem off to a healthy start already.