All storiesVirtual Renovation: a 360 Tour of Vienna's Altbau Charm
A virtual renovation shows buyers what a tired apartment can become before anyone lifts a hammer. As a showcase, I took a 93 m² Vienna Altbau from 1900 that had sat unsold for months, redrew the floor plan into four rooms and built it three times as a 360 tour: empty, furnished and fully styled.
What is a virtual renovation?
A virtual renovation shows an apartment as it would look after a full renovation, before any work is done. I rebuild the space in 3D from the floor plan, renovate it there, and deliver it as photorealistic renders and a 360 virtual tour. The owner sells the apartment as it is; the buyer sees the home it can become.
I built this one as a showcase, to answer a question of my own: can a virtual renovation be done fast enough to help a listing that is already on the market? I picked a real apartment on Fockygasse in Vienna's 12th district: 93 m² in a building from 1900, close to a metro station and a short ride from the city centre.
On paper it had everything. On the listing portals it had been sitting for months, because the photos showed worn floors, a dated bathroom and a layout that made no sense. Renovating first rarely makes sense for an owner who is about to sell: too expensive, too slow. But buyers don't buy square metres. They buy the home they can picture, and nobody could picture this one.
Virtual renovation or virtual staging?
Virtual staging adds furniture to photos of the room as it is today. A virtual renovation rebuilds the room itself first: walls, floors, doors, bathroom and kitchen. For a tired Altbau the difference matters, because a new sofa in front of the same peeling paint doesn't change anyone's mind.
How do you turn an awkward Altbau floor plan into four rooms?
I start from the existing floor plan, decide what every room should do, and only move walls that carry no load. At Fockygasse three changes were enough to turn a layout with a dead-end middle hall and two walk-through bedrooms into a four-room apartment.
Load-bearing walls stay where they are, even on paper. A buyer who falls in love with a plan that needs a structural engineer and a permit will be disappointed later, and so will the agent. Every change has to be something a builder could do in a normal renovation.
| Room | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Kitchen and dining | The entrance hall led into a second, smaller hall between the living room, the bedroom and an 8 m² box room | A 20 m² kitchen and dining room straight off the entrance, absorbing the middle hall |
| Living room | A 26 m² corner bedroom | A 26 m² living room with three windows, open to the kitchen |
| Extra room | The 8 m² box room | A 12 m² office or children's room off the kitchen |
| Bedroom | Two small walk-through rooms with no privacy | One 20 m² bedroom with a king-size bed, a large wardrobe, a dresser and a beauty corner |
| Bathroom | A shower cabin, a walled-in toilet, the washing machine in the kitchen | A bathtub, an open toilet area and a dedicated laundry spot |
The biggest win came from one wall. Moving it turned the corner bedroom into a bright living room joined to the new kitchen, and freed up the space for the extra room. The approved plan then became the reference for the 3D model.
Standard, Premium or Designer: which tour does a listing need?
The three tiers differ in how finished the apartment looks. Standard shows it renovated but empty, Premium furnished and ready to move into, and Designer fully styled down to the books on the shelf. For this apartment I built all three, so you can compare them below.
| Tier | What the buyer sees | Stills | Delivery | 100 m² price | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | Renovated and empty: new walls, floors, tiles, doors, radiators, bathroom, cornices | 3 | 7 to 10 days | €460 | Buyers who want to furnish it themselves |
| Premium | Standard plus furniture, a fitted kitchen, curtains, rugs and lighting | 6 | 2 to 3 weeks | €870 | A single listing that should feel ready to move into |
| Designer | Premium plus art, plants, books and styling from a mood board | 9 | 3 to 4 weeks | €1,280 | Developers presenting several units, a virtual show flat |
Prices for smaller apartments and everything each tier includes are on the 360 virtual tours page.
The Standard tour: getting the foundations right
Every tier starts with the same model, so this is where precision matters most. From the new floor plan and the reference photos I modelled the walls, floors, tiling, ceilings, windows, doors, radiators and bathroom, then the small things that make an Altbau read as an Altbau: skirting boards, the ceiling cornice, even the switches and sockets.
I modelled everything in 3ds Max and rendered it with Corona, using high-resolution 3D-scanned textures and HDRI lighting to match real daylight. The tour itself runs on krpano with some custom code of my own, so it opens in any browser and embeds on any website. The result is the apartment renovated but empty, which is exactly what some buyers want: a clean shell they can imagine furnishing themselves.
Walk through the Standard tour below. Drag to look around and click the hotspots to move between rooms, or open it full screen.
The Premium tour: furnishing a 1900 apartment for today
Once the empty apartment exists as a tour, I can walk through it and decide how people would actually live there. My rule for an Altbau is to stay contemporary without fighting the building: keep the door frames, the wall mouldings and the cornices, and let the furniture work around them.
For this apartment I chose a light, neutral palette with dark wood and a few brass details. I picked every piece myself, mostly real products from brands I trust:
- Living room: sofa by Meridiani, coffee table by Cattelan Italia, lounge chairs by Gubi, custom TV wall and bookcase by MD House, lighting by Gallotti&Radice
- Kitchen and dining: a custom fitted kitchen, appliances by Miele and SMEG, dining table and sideboard by Bonaldo, chairs by BoConcept, lighting by CTO Lighting
- Bedroom: king-size bed by Bonaldo, custom mirrored wardrobe and dresser, lighting by Astep
Curtains, rugs, mirrors and pendant lights finish it off. This is the tier where the apartment stops being a floor plan and becomes somewhere you could move into next month.
Walk through the Premium tour below. Drag to look around and click the hotspots to move between rooms, or open it full screen.
The Designer tour: the details people remember
The Designer tour is the one I'd show a developer who is selling several apartments in the same building: a virtual show flat. It takes the Premium interior and styles it from a mood board until it feels lived in. This is also the slowest part of my work, because every object has to earn its place.
Here that meant paintings by Fintan Whelan and Dorota Jedrusik, Taschen books on the coffee table, Bang & Olufsen and Audio-Technica on the shelves, plants, cushions and throws. Most people will never notice that the TV is playing Dune. The ones who do remember the apartment.
The point isn't decoration. It's showing a buyer the life the apartment can hold, which a photo of an empty room never will.
Walk through the Designer tour below. Drag to look around and click the hotspots to move between rooms, or open it full screen.
What the showcase proved
It can be done in a week. The redesigned layout, the 3D model and the fully styled Designer interior took me one week, and I never set foot in the apartment: all I had was the floor plan and a few poor listing photos I found online. That is fast enough to rescue a listing while it is still live, not months after buyers have stopped clicking on it.
A client project takes longer, three to four weeks for a Designer tour, because it includes your feedback and up to three revision rounds.
Are you an agent, developer or owner in Vienna, Bratislava or Budapest with an apartment that's hard to picture? I work fully remotely: send me the floor plan and a few photos of the current state, and I'll tell you which tour fits. Prices and timelines are on the 360 virtual tours page.
The short version
A virtual renovation is not virtual staging
Staging puts furniture into photos of the room as it is today. A virtual renovation rebuilds the room first: walls, floors, doors, bathroom and kitchen. In a tired Altbau, a new sofa in front of the same peeling paint changes nobody's mind.
Most of the value was in the floor plan
Three changes to partition walls turned an awkward layout into a four-room apartment with a 20 m² kitchen and dining room. I never move load-bearing walls on paper, because a buyer would need an engineer and a permit to build it.
Pick the tour by who is buying
For a 100 m² apartment, Standard (€460) suits buyers who want to furnish it themselves, Premium (€870) a single listing that should feel ready to move into, and Designer (€1,280) a developer selling several units from one virtual show flat.
It can be done in a week, remotely
From the old floor plan to a fully styled Designer tour took me one week, without ever visiting the apartment. All I had was the floor plan and a few poor listing photos I found online.
