If you manage or lease apartments, you already know the math. Every day a unit sits vacant is money lost — not just the rent itself, but the marketing spend, the staff time running showings, and the compounding cost of carrying an empty unit while the one down the hall still needs a maintenance call.
Most apartment communities are still leasing the same way they did ten years ago: post photos on the ILS, wait for inquiries, schedule tours, hope people show up. It works, but it's slow and it doesn't scale well — especially when half your tours are no-shows or prospects who walk in and immediately realize the layout isn't what they expected.
Matterport 3D virtual tours solve several of these problems at once. Here's how multifamily properties are using them to lease faster, reduce wasted staff time, and reach renters who would otherwise never walk through the door.
What a Matterport Tour Actually Gives a Leasing Team
A Matterport tour isn't a slideshow or a video walkthrough someone filmed on a phone. It's a fully interactive 3D model of the unit that prospects can navigate on their own — room to room, at their own pace, from any device. They can check the dollhouse view to understand the layout instantly, use the built-in measurement tool to see if their furniture fits, and explore the space as many times as they want before ever contacting your office.
For leasing teams, this changes the dynamic completely. Instead of spending 30 minutes walking someone through a model unit only to hear "it's smaller than I thought," you're fielding inquiries from people who already know the layout, the finishes, and the flow. They've already sold themselves on the space. Your job shifts from convincing to closing.
Scan Once, Lease for Years
This is the part that makes Matterport especially cost-effective for apartment communities: you don't need a new tour every time a unit turns over.
If you have a community with five floor plans, you scan one unit of each type — once. Those five tours can be used for every vacancy of that floor plan for years. A one-bedroom unit that turns over six times in three years doesn't need six photo shoots. It needs one Matterport scan.
At $0.14 per square foot with a $300 minimum, a 900 sq ft one-bedroom scan costs $300. Spread that across even two or three lease cycles and you're looking at a per-lease marketing cost that's hard to beat with any other medium.
And the tour doesn't just sit on your website. You can embed it in ILS listings, email it to prospects, text it to walk-in inquiries who want to "think about it," or share it with corporate relocation contacts. One scan, unlimited uses.
Reaching Renters Who Can't Visit in Person
This is where Matterport pays for itself fastest in markets like Greenville, SC.
The Upstate SC market is growing fast. Between BMW, Michelin, GE, Prisma Health, and the steady influx of remote workers relocating from higher-cost markets, a significant percentage of prospective renters are making decisions from out of state. They're searching apartments online from Charlotte, Atlanta, or further — and they're choosing between communities based almost entirely on what they can see on a screen.
Photos give them a rough idea. A Matterport tour gives them the experience of actually being there. They can walk through the kitchen and see how the counter space connects to the living area. They can check the closet depth. They can understand how the second bedroom relates to the bathroom. These are the details that turn a "maybe" into a signed lease — and they're details that photos simply don't communicate.
For communities competing for relocating renters, offering a Matterport tour isn't a luxury. It's the difference between making the short list and getting scrolled past.
Cutting Down on Unqualified and No-Show Tours
Every leasing professional knows the pain of the no-show. You blocked time, prepped the unit, maybe even turned down another tour — and nobody walks through the door. Or worse, they show up, spend three minutes looking around, and leave because the layout wasn't what they imagined from the photos.
Matterport tours act as a pre-qualification filter. When prospects can explore the unit virtually before scheduling an in-person visit, the people who do show up are genuinely interested. They've already seen the space. They're coming to confirm what they already like, not to discover whether the unit works for them.
The result is fewer tours overall, but a higher conversion rate on the tours you do run. Your leasing team spends less time on dead-end showings and more time processing applications.
Standing Out on Listing Platforms
If you've listed apartments on Apartments.com, Zillow, or any major ILS recently, you know how crowded the results page is. Every community has professional photos. Most have a handful of amenity shots. The listings start to blur together.
A Matterport 3D tour is one of the clearest ways to differentiate. It signals that your community is modern, transparent, and confident enough in its product to let people explore it fully before visiting. That perception matters — especially to younger renters who expect digital-first experiences and to corporate relocation contacts who are vetting multiple communities on behalf of employees.
Listings with interactive 3D tours also tend to hold attention longer. Industry data shows that visitors spend significantly more time engaging with listings that include a virtual tour compared to photos alone. On a platform where time-on-listing correlates directly with inquiry rates, that engagement advantage translates to more leads.
Common Setups for Apartment Communities
Most multifamily properties we work with follow one of two approaches:
Model unit scanning: Scan one furnished unit per floor plan type. This is the most cost-effective approach and works well for communities with standardized layouts. The scanned unit serves as the virtual showpiece for every vacancy of that type. If you have three floor plans, you need three scans.
Amenity + model scanning: In addition to model units, scan shared amenities — the clubhouse, fitness center, pool area, business center, or co-working space. This gives prospects a complete picture of the community, not just the apartment itself. For communities where amenities are a major selling point, this approach often makes the difference for prospects comparing two or three similar options.
Both approaches pair well with aerial photography of the property grounds, which we offer as an add-on. An aerial overview combined with interior 3D tours gives prospects the full picture — the neighborhood context, the property layout, and the individual unit — all before they ever drive to your community.
What This Looks Like in Practice
Here's a typical scenario. A 200-unit community in the Greenville area has four floor plan types: a studio, one-bedroom, two-bedroom, and a three-bedroom. The leasing team books four scans — one of each type, preferably furnished and staged.
We come to the property with the Matterport camera, scan each unit (roughly 30–60 minutes per unit depending on size), and deliver four interactive 3D tours within 24–48 hours. Each tour comes with a shareable link, an embed code for the community website, and a dollhouse view that shows the full layout at a glance.
The leasing team drops the tour links into their ILS listings, adds them to the community website, and starts texting them to prospects. From that point forward, every inquiry for a one-bedroom gets the one-bedroom tour link before they even schedule a visit. The tours work 24/7 — evenings, weekends, holidays — when the leasing office is closed but prospects are still searching.
Total investment for four unit scans at an average of 900 sq ft each: approximately $1,200. Useful for years.
Who This Works Best For
Matterport 3D tours are particularly effective for apartment communities that deal with one or more of the following:
High turnover rates. If you're constantly re-leasing the same floor plans, a one-time scan pays dividends every cycle. The marketing cost per lease drops with every turn.
Out-of-market renters. If a meaningful percentage of your prospects are relocating — whether for work, school, or lifestyle — a virtual tour bridges the distance gap. This is especially relevant in growing Upstate SC markets where corporate relocations drive significant leasing activity.
Lease-up properties. New construction communities in the lease-up phase benefit enormously from Matterport. You can scan model units before the rest of the property is even complete and start pre-leasing with a real, explorable representation of the space — not just renderings.
Communities competing on amenities. If your clubhouse, pool, or fitness center is a competitive advantage, scanning those spaces lets prospects experience them remotely. Photos flatten a great amenity space. A 3D tour lets people feel the scale and quality.
Properties with limited leasing staff. If your team is small, Matterport acts as a force multiplier. The tour handles the initial showing so your staff can focus on serious prospects who are ready to apply.
Getting Started
If you manage an apartment community in Greenville, the Upstate SC area, Asheville, Charleston, or anywhere in our service area, we'd be happy to walk you through how Matterport works for multifamily properties and put together a plan based on your floor plan count and community layout.
Southeast 3D Tours charges $0.14 per square foot with a $300 minimum for Matterport 3D tours, including 12 months of hosting and a 24–48 hour turnaround. Volume pricing is available for communities with multiple unit types.
Ready to scan your model units? Book a scan or reach out to discuss your community's needs. You can also reach me directly at james@southeast3dtours.com or call 864.351.4255.