How can digital twins can boost property sales?

Archilogic helps office providers promote and sell office space through 3D floor plans, office design simulations and property data insights. Here we look into the advancement of digital twin technology in commercial real estate and what it means for the office sales brokers today.

Industry 4.0 is here – and we’re seeing double. With digital twins sweeping through sectors from engineering to construction, in the very near future, this technology will transform the property business.Not just the building, but every asset within it will have a twin. This comprehensive data-rich model will be linked to AI applications to support predictive maintenance, disaster preparedness, and energy savings ; improve tenant satisfaction and user experience ; even inform urban planning on a large scale. Deloitte predicts that it will mean “buildings become more human”, responding better to user needs and providing better engagement across the board.It sounds pretty exciting. But if that’s tomorrow, what’s happening today?

Taking it step by step

BIM-led data initiatives are growing in the construction industry, but that information is rarely carried through to real estate sales or interior planning.

Most real estate companies can access a copy of a floor plan, but anything past a PDF or JPEG is often out of the question – never mind a full digital twin. There’s a big jump between today's reality and the digital twin vision of the future. But companies do not have to make that jump in one move. Put bluntly, since the sector has quite a way to go with digitalization, the only way is up; so every digital change made can have a great impact.

Going beyond the 3D floor plan

3D visualizations derived from digital twin technology have already proven themselves as a powerful real estate sales tool , enabling customers to experience buildings before they’re even constructed. But the data behind them can be even more compelling.Companies can mine their static floor plans using applications such as those from Archilogic to get next-level insights. Turning pixels from an image into semantic data supports more informed office layout decisions, not to mention a stronger sales pitch. The sales and planning teams don’t need BIM-ready data on every asset to start enjoying the digital twin advantage. A digitally interpreted floor plan can address questions of capacity, light flow or traffic through a building without guesswork.Even better, it’s responsive. Workspace designers can test their ideas quickly and easily, seeing how adjusting the office layout affects bottlenecks or natural light access. As work norms change over the next decade, we expect to see strong demand for multifunctional and versatile office spaces. These can be designed and altered for changing behaviors far more effectively using these responsive tools. ( See a quick preview of this tool )Put all of this together – better information, easy answers to tenant questions and better decision making through virtual experimentation – and you can see how using digital twins will drive faster sales. A building that can predict and guide its own maintenance needs may be something to look forward to, but a data-rich 3D floor plan that can sell the building’s many possibilities? That’s worth a lot right now.