360°

One service you won’t find in many other countries is the Viewing Partner, someone who tours a property for you, takes detailed photos and videos, and reports back with everything you need to know. It’s a practical solution for busy people, those living far away, or anyone who can’t make it to the viewing in person.

A "viewing partner" in Japanese often called 内見代行 / 内見パートナー is a service where a local representative (a trained assistant, property professional, or concierge-style staff) goes to a rental or sale property on behalf of the prospective tenant / buyer, conducts the walkthrough, documents what they see (photos, checklist), and then delivers a report or a live remote video call tour. It’s a pay-per-visit, on-demand way to get an accurate, on-the-ground view of a place when you can’t make the trip yourself.

The short answer is "growing" but but still niche. During the COVID era many agencies and vendors accelerated remote and online viewing options. Even as early as 2020, remote online viewing was practiced with an MMD Research Institute industry survey that reporting that about 37.9% did online viewing while searching for properties during the pandemic.

Source: MMD Survey on Property Searches During the COVID-19

Those who experienced online viewing said that they would use it again in the future with 52.3% saying they would use both in-person and online and 37.4% even saying they would only use online viewings when searching for properties.

Source: MMD Survey on Property Searches During the COVID-19

With the COVID pandemic behind us, traditional in-person viewings and agency arranged tours remain the default for many customers. However, these paid viewing-partner services can fill in the gap for those who cannot travel or are truly constrained for time.

Meanwhile, LIFULL HOME'S latest 2024 survey says that demand for online viewings in Japan has shown remarkable stability. 38.2% of the real estate companies said that they offer online viewings. Nearly 45% of respondents said usage has remained unchanged since its introduction during the COVID-19 pandemic, while an additional 29.7% reported that usage has increased. Only about 25.5% noted a decrease, suggesting that the majority of industry professionals believe remote viewings are here to stay.

Source: LIFULL HOME'S 2024 Peak Season Survey

Source: LIFULL HOME'S 2024 Peak Season Survey

1. Time savings / convenience — you avoid travel, scheduling conflicts, and waiting at the agent’s office. Good for busy professionals, parents, or people juggling multiple viewings across a single day.
2. Remote decisions for distant movers — for people moving from another prefecture or another country, a viewing partner provides local, timestamped photos / videos and a checklist report of items they check for on their client's behalf.
3. Objective, checklist-based reporting — many services provide a structured report (measurements, photos of utilities, noise checks, surrounding environment), helping buyers / investors who can’t inspect things in person.
4. Access outside normal hours — some vendors offer night / after-hours viewings (useful for shift workers)
5. Cost-effective versus travel — if you needed to have taken long train trips or flown in an airplane to see multiple properties, a modest per-visit fee can be far cheaper.

Use a viewing partner when at least one of these applies:

• You live in another prefecture or overseas and cannot visit quickly.
• You want an objective, documented condition report (for investment, due diligence or maybe for other family members who can’t attend).
• You want to pre-screen properties to narrow down a shortlist before committing to travel for final in-person checks.

If you plan to sign a lease or buy without actually seeing it in-person, consider combining a viewing partner report with a final in-person visit from a trusted friend or your realtor. Remember that there are many remote tools to help shortlist to help save you time and money in your property search. For those who have the opportunity, you can also conduct one final physical confirmation to your  final pick before signing the contract.

Virtual tours, because they allow the client to freely roam and look around in 360° compared to the traditional viewing partner's 2D photos, pre-recorded video or possibly choppy signal video call, has become the standard approach across the world for remote viewing of properties.

This is because virtual tours can be accessed on-demand, used by multiple viewers, and can be combined with more conveniently scheduled video conference calls with the realtor and serving as the next best thing to an in-person visit.

Depending on the service provider and package, some virtual tours can even be presented not just as 360° photography but using 360° video as well (our company can do this upon request). Other service features include property floor plan reconstruction using laser measurement devices (for when the floor plan is not available or you want to make sure of a room dimensions will fit specific furniture like a cabinet or bed) and video walkthroug + sound recording when you want to get a general sense of the surrounding neighborhood or environment for train noises, foot traffic, etc.

Additional advantages when using 360° virtual tours for remote viewing

• Lower marginal cost per viewer - Once a property has been captured as a high-quality 360° tour or walkthrough video, many prospective tenants / buyers can view it on their own time at no extra per-visit fee. This is efficient for both agents and clients.
• Asynchronous convenience - Clients can re-visit corners of the property, re-measure (if floorplans / measurement overlays are provided), and compare multiple properties side-by-side without coordinating schedules.
• Live interactivity available - Agents can offer live guided remote tours (video call + mobile camera or guided screen-share of a 360° tour), combining the real-time answers of an in-person guide with the reach of remote viewing.
• Good for international buyers - Time-shifted viewing plus detailed media reduces the risk of miscommunication and limits travel until the property is seriously shortlisted.
• Scalable for agencies - Capturing a building once allows repeated remote showings to many clients, improves conversion and reduces wasted no-show / duplicate trips for agents.

At SHIBUYA360° we are imaging experts first and we strive to understand the real estate market better so we can provide better services and support this important industry through our real estate photography and virtual tour production services.

While we are a virtual tours service provider and are naturally biased towards using virtual tours instead of a viewing partner for remote viewing, we also recognize that each client's situation is different. Depending on the situation, one approach may be more advantageous to the other.

Here's our quick recommendation if you are needing to do remote viewing of property and are choosing between using a viewing partner or virtual tour.

• If you must verify odors, certain ambient noises, or subtle issues, a local human visit still wins.

• If you’re shortlisting properties, start with virtual tours and then consider using live remote walkthroughs fill in any remaining gaps. Virtual tours can help quickly eliminate options allowing you to use your own time (or a viewing partner) to have a more focused review on a shorlist of properties. You can use a viewing partner for final verification on 1–2 finalists, or do it yourself and conduct one physical check on your chosen property before signing.
• If you have particular concerns about the property like noise, dimensions, etc., ask the virtual tour service provider if they can check on your behalf. Some virtual tour service providers can do ad hoc requests or offer value-added services like performing room measurements for an added fee.