Top 5 Real Estate Technologies To Know About

Posted by Kristin Savage on October 18th, 2018

Technology has become part of our lives more and more in the past years. We can see it in each of our activities. So, when it comes to real estate, technology had to influence it as well. Gone are the days when real estate investors found new investment opportunities after reading the real estate section in the newspaper or they heard about it by the word of mouth. Now, there are a lot of technologies that have changed the real estate market completely.

The real estate technologies do not only influence and shape the industry, but they also change the way the investors find about new investment opportunities and approach them. Both realtors and buyers need to keep up with technology trends if they want to keep exploiting the market. What is more, thanks to the new technology apps, they are able to plan their investments better and maximize their efforts.

This article presents you which are the top 5 real estate technology apps changing the market right now. Get ready to stay ahead of your competition and use these top technologies to revolutionize the market.

Top 5 Real Estate Technologies to Know About

1. Blockchain

There has been a lot of buzz around blockchain lately. This technology uses cryptocurrencies and has become the newest method to do real estate transactions as well. Bitcoin no longer represents one of the newest payment methods, but it has also changed the way real estate investors do deals. Blockchain is an efficient way to create a secure decentralized database. Therefore, you can easily create records for each of your property across the country.

When you are a real estate agent, this can be a revolutionary way to prevent frauds. If this method will become popular and everyone would start using it, you will have real-time access to data about property and homeowners. This will be extremely helpful for both real estate investors and agents, helping them shape their strategy based on the data they can access to via blockchain. On the other hand, implementing this technology worldwide would require them to change mindsets and integrate blockchain in their current way of working.

2. Augmented and Virtual Reality

Can you imagine how great it would be to virtually take a tour of the next house you want to buy before you can actually visit it? Virtual reality can make this and much more possible. For clients, this can be a great opportunity as they don’t have to drive from one city to another to visit a house. Thanks to the 360 degrees tour they can discover each corner of the house and decide whether they should buy it or not. In addition, if you want to promote a property still under construction, virtual reality technology can help you keep an eye on its evolution and present each step to real estate investors.

On the other hand, augmented reality represents a smart marketing strategy for your real estate business. Augmented reality adds the gamification feature in your property presentation, attracting the investors’ interest even more. For example, you can implement the “test-drive” feature and allow the buyers add various furniture elements and test how various wallpapers and decorations would look in each room. You can also develop an app which allows the interested buyers to discover the nearby amenities once they direct their smartphone at the building. 

3. Real estate robots

The modern real estate buyers don’t have time to lose. They want an immediate answer to their questions. According to the CEO of PickWriters, many real estate professionals are already using templates that answer the most frequently arising questions, and successfully adjust them for the most diverse audience. However, if you want to maximize your profits and spend less money on employees, you can use technology to get your buyers the answers they need, in just a few seconds. You can use chatbots, voice bots, and virtual assistants to take care of all these. They will not only answer to your customer’s questions without delay, ensuring a top customer service experience, but they will also help you get more free time and thus focus on other important tasks.

There are several chatbots you can use to help you. They identify certain keywords or actions which helps them offer timely and efficient assistance. You can find them on Facebook and on several other websites. When it comes to virtual assistants, Siri is the most popular. You can use it to schedule meetings, create alerts and reminders, or discover the latest real estate news.

4. Artificial intelligence, big data, and machine learning

Why are these technologies so great? They work together to help you find about the upcoming trends before everyone else. Artificial intelligence uses machine learning to process big data. Therefore, you will be able to immediately identify patterns and use them to strengthen your position on the market. Imagine how powerful you will become when you use a technology that tells you whenever changes might appear on the market.

Think for a second how would your business be influenced if you knew that a large number of college graduates are looking for rent in your area. Can you imagine how your business would look like if you didn’t know about this trend and you had to face it all of a sudden? This is the trick about artificial intelligence and big data. It helps you stay prepared before anyone else and gives you time to plan your strategy ahead.

Big data is also extremely helpful when you want to determine patterns on your buyers’ behaviors. Based on the past trends, you can easily make associations and determine which will be your buyers’ next steps. For example, you can use CRM and populate it with a lot of details about your clients. When combined with other apps, CRM can collect the data about your website’s visitors and can help you predict which are going to be their next steps. Thus, you will know when to contact one of your customers and successfully close a new deal.

5. Automated valuation models

When you want to buy a house, you know how difficult it is to determine whether you are paying the right price or not. There are a lot of real estate sellers who try to sell their properties at the maximum price and this is exactly what you want to avoid. Therefore, you need to ask for the opinion of valuation experts to determine if you should pay less for that property.

But, what if you wouldn’t have to spend a lot of time and money on finding the right expert to correctly evaluate the property you want to buy? Thanks to technology there is a solution to this problem too. You can use the automated valuation app that uses a mathematic model and an expanded database to compare your property to other similar properties on the market. It uses several criteria to determine the right price for your property like status, finishes, and other relevant factors.

Now, real estate investors can know for sure that the price they are going to pay for a property is the right one. On the other hand, real estate sellers can use these models to fix the price of their property, knowing that either way they cannot augment the price too much as nobody will accept it. In addition, in comparison to valuation analysts, these applications are extremely efficient and objective. Therefore, the final result cannot be influenced by any other factors but the market’s specifics.

There is no industry nowadays that can resist to technology. Real estate has to keep up with the trends also. Big real estate companies have already embraced the fast technology pace and they use the 80/20 approach. This means that they spend 80% of their time on regular activities and the rest of 20% to discover new technologies and implement them. By introducing new technologies in real estate, you will use your time and resources more efficiently and count on more objective data when you seal the deals.