But it turns out these virtual real estate walk-throughs go back much further than expected. A new study published in the journal Early Popular Visual Culture, found examples of a fancy London real estate firm offering proto-virtual walk-throughs of property listings dating back as early as the 1830s. Though cosmoramas, like their better-known peepshow cousins, were widely used as a form of 19th-century visual entertainment, this is one of the first known examples of the technology being used for a commercial real estate application. A newspaper advert for a real estate listing promotes the immersive benefits of a cosmorama. Meanwhile, more and more competition for a shrinking supply of properties, led to the creation of the first specialized real estate agents.