Have you seen our goggles?

It used to be the case that if you were looking for a new home you had to be prepared for a fair bit of driving and a lot of legwork in order to find exactly what you wanted.

Technology is changing all of that and for Serene Living, embracing the new world of virtual reality tours is making the process of finding a dream place to retire to a whole lot easier.

A smartphone and pair of virtual reality goggles enable interested parties to take a tour of the apartments and walk around the village without having to leave the comfort of a chair, making the initial stage of looking for somewhere to retire so much more interesting than just flicking through a brochure.

Serene Living recently travelled to Sydney for the annual Retirement Expo and, although miles away from the village, were able to give visitors a feel for the vibe and communal spaces that existing residents get to enjoy.

Marketing Manager Ricci Norrie is excited to be able to not only use the goggles to make things easier for those looking to downsize but also help people experience something that they might have ordinarily missed out on because of time frames or distance to travel.

‘We are about to embed a virtual tour onto our website to enable people to sit at home with a cup of tea and look into the building and apartments and really get a feel for the place before they even have to leave home, hopefully saving them lots of time and energy’, she said.

‘The technology behind the goggles and the virtual tour is amazing, it is hard to believe you aren’t actually physically there, and everyone who tried it at the Expo was just blown away. Obviously looking for somewhere to retire to is one of the biggest and most important decisions most people will make, so we have made every effort to make that not only as easy as possible but equally as enjoyable’.