• Open houses decreased in popularity throughout the pandemic as virtual tours and other tech tools became more popular. As the pandemic recedes, these trends are not reversing.
• The share of listings on Zillow advertising an open house in April was down 42% from pre-pandemic levels, while those featuring a 3D tour were up about 200%.
• Buyers may value the efficiency and convenience of virtual and self-touring, but sellers are also likely to reap benefits — home listings with these features get more attention from prospective buyers in the crucial early listing period.

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Safe, secure, virtual home selling tools including 3D tours, video walk-throughs and self tours — where buyers can schedule a time and be given a code to unlock a home to tour themselves — rapidly gained in popularity over the course of the pandemic, and look here to stay. And not only are they popular with safety- and efficiency-minded buyers, they also look to provide concrete benefits to sellers. 

The onset of the pandemic abruptly shifted the way we live, work and learn, and new technologies allowed many of us to remain connected and — to the best of our abilities — continue on with our lives. These changes extended into real estate, too, with sellers, buyers, renters and agents alike proving themselves able to quickly pivot and overcome early pandemic lockdowns and disruptions to find new ways to get deals done safely and efficiently. Now, after more than a year of change and uncertainty, restrictions are beginning to ease and the possibility of a return to “normalcy” is tantalizingly close. 

But it’s clear that a new normal is emerging in real estate, and the old open house-based approach to touring homes is, if not exactly extinct, then certainly no longer the only game in town.

In the spring of 2020, when the pandemic first arrived in the United States, the share of active listings on Zillow that advertised an open house of any type dropped off precipitously, bottoming out at just 1% last April — down from 20% of listings advertising an open house in spring 2019 (when using the raw data). Functionally, this makes perfect sense: Strict lockdowns and business restrictions at the time often outright banned open houses. And even in cases where they were allowed, buyers, sellers and agents alike very likely felt a lot of anxiety at the prospect of inviting strangers into their home/stepping foot into a stranger’s home.  

Now roughly a year later, many of those restrictions have eased or been lifted and anxieties may have passed as vaccinations have risen — but the prevalence of open houses has still not entirely rebounded. Nationwide, the share of listings advertising an open house has risen from its pandemic-era low, but as of April remained more than 8 percentage points, or about 42%, lower than pre-pandemic, 2019 levels. And in 49 of the nation’s 50 largest metros, the share of homes with an open house in April was below 2019 levels. Salt Lake City was the only exception — 32% of listings mentioned an open house in April, up from 24% in 2019.  Salt Lake City had the second-highest rate of listings with open houses, behind only Boston (where 53% of listings mentioned an open house in April 2021, down only slightly from 56% in 2019).

The reversal is particularly noticeable in the two Bay Area metros of San Francisco and San Jose. In April 2019 roughly three quarters of listings in San Jose (76%) and San Francisco (73%) advertised open houses, the most among the nation’s largest markets. This April, those two metros ranked near the bottom — in fact, five of the six largest metros in California (including San Jose and San Francisco) featured open houses on virtually none of their listings this spring. This has a lot to do with restrictions still in place — open houses on a walk-in basis were prohibited in California prior to May 2021, and while strict scheduling protocols have been lifted, digital sign-ins for open house guests are still required. But restrictions may not explain all of the reversal.

Early adoption of new technology in tech-savvy cities often predates widespread adoption nationwide — and San Jose, home to Silicon Valley, was the metro with the highest share of listings featuring a 3D virtual tour in April 2021, a feature that has been on the rise as open houses plummeted. The number of home listings nationwide offering a 3D tour jumped last year, and has since stayed well above 2019 levels — the share of listings featuring a 3D virtual tour in April was 3 times higher than in 2019. The share of listings featuring a 3D virtual tour rose between 2019 and 2021 in each of the nation’s 50 largest metros, possibly helping contribute to the breakneck speed of today’s housing market.

Prior to the pandemic, there were 8.2 times as many listings that featured an open house as there were listings featuring a 3D tour. As of April, open houses are still more popular than 3D tours, but the ratio dropped from 8.2 open houses per 3D virtual tour, to just 1.6. And prior to the pandemic, there was no large metro in which listings with 3D tours were more prevalent than listings with open houses. This spring, there were 10 metros where 3D tours were more prevalent in listings than open houses. This is the case in the California metros, where essentially no open houses were allowed to be advertised, but is also true in locales as geographically diverse as San Antonio, Denver, Las Vegas, and Virginia Beach. 

Denver and San Antonio are the only metros where the share of listings with virtual 3D tours in April exceeded their percentage of listings with open houses in 2019. In Denver, roughly one-in-five (21%) of listings in April featured a 3D tour, while in 2019, 17% of listings featured an open house. In San Antonio, 18% of listings featured a 3D tour in April, double the 9% of listings from the same time in 2019 that featured an open house.

And public health concerns aside, today’s market conditions are drastically different than they were in 2019 — sellers, in almost every case, should expect to have the upper hand, and homes are selling incredibly quickly. It may lead some sellers to think their home could essentially sell itself and that they may not need to incorporate these newer tech tools on their listing. But, in this case, sellers beware: The tech tools are incredibly popular with buyers, and may lead to a better outcome for those sellers (and their agents) diligent enough to look into them.

Homes that feature a Zillow 3D Home Tour are more likely to be “favorited” (or saved on Zillow for future viewings) and viewed than those listings without. From March 2020 through February 2021, for sale home listings on Zillow with a Zillow 3D Home Tour were favorited 75 percent more and viewed 65 percent more than for sale home listings without a Zillow 3D Home tour (daily average). And while conditions have certainly changed since it was published, prior Zillow research found that highly favorited homes sell faster and for more money. Home listings with a Zillow 3D Home Tour were also viewed and favorited more often than those without during the crucial first two weeks a home is on the market — when it gets the most attention from prospective buyers evaluating whether or not its asking price is fair.

Additionally, when asked, most Americans agreed they would like to use digital tools while home shopping. A vast majority (79%) of those surveyed by Zillow in February 2021 said they wanted the ability to view a 3D virtual tour. The same percentage also said they would like to be able to view a digital floor plan. This suggests the popularity of these tools is not going to wane any time soon, even as the pandemic continues to slowly fade.