Real Estate / Simulations: Are they for real?

The new neighborhood going up in Karkur, south of Haifa, looks gorgeous in the simulations shown on the builder's Web site. The sky is blue, a lush green lawn graces the front of the buildings, and palm trees are planted along the broad paths traversing the lawn.

An equally alluring picture shows the nighttime image of the three residential towers planned for the Sharona project in Tel Aviv (the South Kirya compound). The three future towers are in the center of the picture, surrounded by greenery.

In the architect's conception of the tallest skyscraper in Israel, to be built at the Elite intersection in Ramat Gan, the building towers high above the current holder of that title, the Moshe Aviv tower.

In all three cases, there is no way the surrounding neighborhood will resemble the simulations once the projects are completed.

These are just three examples of many. Contractors everywhere have turned the marketing gimmick born just a few years ago into standard practice.

Builders try to capture sales contracts via simulations, 2-D images and virtual 3-D tours, offering a glimpse of the future. But the actual future and the one you're basing your home purchase may be radically different.

The simulation of the Karkur project, for example, does not show the old - some might even say neglected - neighborhood a few dozen meters away.

In the image of the Sharona complex, the artist "forgot" to draw the three tall office buildings on nearby Ha'arba'a St. - the Platinum, Millennium and Tichon towers - which will stand shoulder to shoulder with the future luxury residential towers.

The virtual depiction of the Elite tower utterly fails to jive with reality. The building will be 70 stories tall, just six stories above the Moshe Aviv tower, but the picture shows a much greater height advantage.

Marketers, who slave hard to produce these images, admit their primary goal is to "get the consumer into the sales office." From there, it's up to the contractor's reps to do the rest.

At one of the housing fairs held this year, we met a couple in their 30s at a sales office of a large company. A pretty picture of the project it was building in the Tel Aviv area was prominently displayed.

"That image is amazing and the balcony looks great," the wife whispered to the husband as they waited in line to speak with the marketers. Yes, the image worked like a charm.

Conceptual illusion

Dan Zakay of the Department of Psychology at Tel Aviv University says that the images are designed to create a "conceptual illusion" that enhances our impression of the projects the contractors are hawking.

It's easy to create this cousin of optical-illusion, too. All the artist has to do to make the centerpiece look more attractive is downplay the background objects, he explains. The central attraction looks larger. Moreover, the background colors aren't natural either. They are selected to create a romantic or pastoral atmosphere. "Colors can be used to arouse various emotions," says Zakay.

Zakay adds that certain elements in the simulations of the towers increase the sense of exclusivity.

"The more life-like a stimulus is presented and highlighted, the greater its chances of being remembered later," he says. "A certain psychological interpretation states that towers are presented to resemble a giant phallus, which subconsciously arouses masculine feelings with which a buyer might want to identify."

Creating a buzz

Haim Kakun, marketing vice president at Bonei Hatichon, makes the case that these days, builders have no choice.

"The simulations and 3-D videos that show the interiors of apartments and buildings have become compulsory when selling property," says Kakun. "We invest a lot of thought in them, and the work on them alone takes about a month. Considerable thought goes into every little detail of the images and videos."

He says colors play an especially important role.

"We choose the colors based on our target market," he says. "Black, white, gray and silver, for example, are more suitable for the high-tech crowd, whereas colors such as beige with red accents are more attractive to young families and couples upgrading their housing. The furnishings of the virtual apartments are carefully chosen, too. We use items from various catalogs, and of course use only the best lighting fixtures, tables and living room furniture, in order to create the best illustration of the potential of each apartment."

Sometimes the simulations are so successful that home buyers ask where they can buy the furniture in the pictures, Kakun says.

"It hasn't happened yet, but the day may yet come when furniture companies ask us to use their products in our images and videos, as a form of sales promotion," he says.

How close are the virtual representations to reality?

"Of course the images maximize the potential," Kakun says. "As I already pointed out, we use the best furniture. On the other hand, they portray the building plans much better than the floor plans of the apartments, which everyone sees, but only 5% actually understand. For years I tried to explain to people who came to buy a home that they have to think what they want inside the apartment, and choose a suitable floor plan based on that, but when they look at the plan most of them couldn't figure out if their bed and chest of drawers fit in the room.

"That's where the computerized images and videos illustrate for people exactly what they are buying. Fortunately, with today's technology we can depict things closer to reality, with doorways and windows exactly to scale."

The highest standard of fantasy

Lior Marom, an architect at Metaphor 3-D design studio, which provides services mainly to the construction industry, says he and his colleagues are essentially realizing fantasies.

"On the one hand, we have to act responsibly, and on the other hand, we are realizing fantasies. Reality is always stronger than any image, and we strive to create a simulation that reflects the optimal reality. Still, there is a measure of responsibility."

Who determines the boundaries of that responsibility?

"Each developer, architect or designer has his own yardstick," says Marom. "I do not blur adjacent buildings completely. I believe it is important to integrate them, not make them disappear altogether, but to highlight the project itself."

What do developers ask you to emphasize in the simulations?

"The front of the building and the street, plus interior images of the living room and master bedroom. These are the two main spaces that are important to marketing," says Marom.

The images and angles are not chosen at random, but rather in order to show the external aesthetics of the building and two rooms that are usually the most important in any home.

"The living room is important because it is where people will entertain their friends and the bedroom is important to make the couple buying the home feel pampered," Marom says.

To create the nicest reality, Marom notes that he and his colleagues use images of the best European furniture, mainly from Italy. The design lines are usually sharp and the items are chosen from the catalogs of the best furniture design companies.

"One always has to aim high, because if we use images of mediocre furniture companies, the image will not be as nice and the fantasy will not hold up," says Marom, adding that the luxury level of the project itself has no bearing on the images.

"Even if a project is not thought out, we give our best, at least in the fantasy. We provide the highest possible standard."

Computerized imaging, which is supposed to show potential buyers how their lives could like in their dream home, is a strong marketing tool. There is no doubt that there will always be a discrepancy between this visual representation and reality, though some can stretch it too far at times.