Every home has its own unique flow. Consequently, every listing should have its own floor plan.

Unfortunately, very few listings include floor plans because they are both challenging and costly to create. And until recently, floor plan technology was neither simple to use nor affordable enough to inspire mass adoption. However, growing consumer demand and impacts from the global COVID-19 pandemic have accelerated the desire for real estate tools that support virtual business.

That’s where FlōPlan comes in.

An innovative floor plan-scanning mobile app, FlōPlan delivers valuable digital floor plan assets to multiple listing services and their members. Powered by CubiCasa's innovative mobile scan and machine learning technologies, FlōPlan enables real estate professionals to easily create and link floor plans to their listings in the MLS system. Information and Real Estate Services (IRES), the multiple listing service (MLS) for northern Colorado, recently became the first MLS in the country (outside of the FBS customer base) to license FlōPlan and encourage a floor plan on every listing.

With just a smartphone or tablet, users can download the app, scan the home and in about 24 hours, a complete floor plan is ready to link directly to the listing. With no additional hardware to buy and no complicated software to learn, completed FlōPlans can be fully integrated into the MLS system, empowering brokers and agents to meet evolving consumer needs.

Growing Consumer Demand

While listings with floor plan information are deeply desired, they remain uncommon. But as agents seek tools to help them market listings and support the home search process remotely, buyers consistently rank floor plans among the most useful resources a listing can include. In fact, according to the National Association of REALTORS'® annual consumer survey, floor plans are consistently cited by consumers as one of the top three most-valued assets for online listings.

Homebuyers want to see more than just photos in order to help them make decisions with their agent early in the search process. They want to see the layout and understand how rooms and spaces flow together before ever stepping foot in a home. Sure, a picture is worth a thousand words, but it can be difficult for buyers to understand how the images fit together to represent the whole house, especially when the home is empty.

While many real estate professionals consider floor plans as unnecessary, floor plans provide buyers a quick look at how a home is laid out, which could be all they need to know to determine whether a home might work for them. Buyers are much more likely to view a property where the layout “makes sense” because they’ve made the connection between the photos and the floor plan. Floor plans enable buyers to visualize their furniture and “see” themselves in the home, increasing the likelihood they fall in love with the home and make an offer.

How Floor Plans Help You Sell Homes Faster

By providing insight into a home’s flow and showing potential buyers how they can live in that home, floor plans will help you better market and sell homes.

The home search process often involves looking at multiple properties in the same day, which can be confusing and is enough to make your client’s head spin. Plus, the homes could run together in the buyer’s head, but access to a floor plan could help make a home more memorable. Floor plans empower prospective buyers to more easily remember the home’s layout and the small details of the home itself by helping buyers envision themselves “in” the home. This simplifies the decision-making process during the early stages by eliminating guesswork — prospective buyers immediately understand the home’s flow and the relationship between spaces and rooms.

While floor plans may cut down the number of visits, they also help buyers qualify homes before even seeing them. By providing consumers the floor plan information missing from far too many listings, you’re likely to attract more buyers and sellers because they can see a difference and appreciate the valuable information that can help them make a better decision.

By developing an understanding of a home’s layout early on, homebuyers are more successful with virtual or in-person walk-throughs with their agents, which saves everyone involved time and creates more satisfaction with the overall home search experience. Try adding a floor plan to your listings today!

Lauren Hansen is the CEO of Information and Real Estate Services (IRES), a regional MLS based in Loveland, Colorado.

This article, written by Lauren Hansen, originally appeared in the March 2021 issue of Boulder County Real Producers. Follow them on Facebook.