Click/tap, 'experience', decide to buy... homes!

Like my compatriots and expats living in China in self-quarantine during the COVID-19 epidemic, I've bought everything I needed online for nearly three months. The stuff I bought ranged from apples to a photocopier-cum-printer. I don't remember ever feeling inconvenienced by e-commerce.

In fact, I felt grateful that the country's e-commerce industry is so efficient and professional that it served the world's most populous nation with aplomb even during an unprecedented lockdown. I wondered: Is there anything that can't be bought online these days? Property, maybe?

To my surprise, developers have recently tried selling homes online, due to the restrictions on physical movements of people to prevent human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus.

Evergrande became the first Chinese developer to allow consumers to view its homes on sale virtually. Homebuyers could 'visit' its apartments across the nation using virtual reality or VR online, get a real life-like experience of the property and its neighborhood, and decide whether or not to buy.

The VR service was launched on Feb 13. In only three days, the property giant announced it had sold 47,540 apartments online. The combined value of the flats was 58 billion yuan ($8.2 billion). On its sixth day, the online property promotion approached sales of 70,000 units.

So far, 92 out of the nation's top 100 real estate companies have launched online sales, and another 51 ranked between 100 and 200 followed suit, according to China Real Estate Information Corp research.

COVID-19 has given property developers an unparalleled timing to test online sales, allowing potential homebuyers to try VR and livestreaming to view and inspect residential properties.

"Like any innovation, the practice of online property sales still needs optimization and improvement before it can become a mainstream channel at the mass level," said Tang Hua, head and senior director of Savills' Shanghai residential sales department.

From consulting and home viewing to down payment or earnest money deposit for a particular apartment, digital technologies provide a range of services to homebuyers these days.

They have also helped improve the efficiency of the whole buy-sell process. Online transactions also offer developers a way of cash recovery, said Zhang Xiaoduan, Cushman & Wakefield's senior director of research in South and West China.

In Zhang's opinion, the most important part is that online marketing has activated the property market and brought confidence back amid floundering sales.

A survey conducted jointly by the Beike Real Estate Research Institute and financial news outlet Hexun showed conservative consumers such as yours truly are still the majority, as 60 percent of the respondents said they would not buy a flat online. But they would like to view available apartments and consult for advice online. The survey said more than 29 percent of the respondents are willing to shop online for homes.

Homebuyers' concerns or fears about buying homes online are echoed by Pan Hao, an analyst with the Beike Real Estate Research Institute. "Considering the complexity of home transaction procedures and the high risks in paying a big sum, online solutions can hardly replace on-the-spot deals yet."