Man vs Machine: Real Estate vs Machine
Okay, so refute it all you want, it’s looking like tech advancements is here to stay, regardless. AI (in its various medium and formats), Tech usable, they’re permeating almost all field of human endeavour, and the real estate space and hub is no exception.
Here is a list of popular gadgets impacting the real estate business in the current climate.
Amazon Echo: Hey Alexa
Amazon Echo is already taking centre stage in the international real estate industry. Granted, there’s ongoing debate about the lead generator effectiveness of this most popular device in the voice-activated internet (VAI) domain. But imagine the possibilities and ranking that comes you’re your brand/business or estate being recommended by Alexa. Slick huh? Such marketing flamboyance that can be worked to your advantage.
Apple AirPods
Want a mobile listing centre that triggers a pairing process by merely opening up the case? Then Apple AirPod is the “IT”. Super light-weight and easy to carry around, the Apple Airpod charge up while stashed in their dental floss-sized case.
For Apple on Apple type scenarios, with 2 clicks, here’s Siri. Trying to search up a potential listing or confirm an appointment on the go? Siri’s got you.
Gnarbox Portable Backup Drive and Editor
This is life made easy for new generation brokers who are already scoring success with drones and 3-D tours for market listings.
This is the for the new-gen brokers who use drones and 3-D tours to market listings. This is the required tool which will make their life very easy.
The husky, postcard-sized Gnarbox swiftly syncs and organizes photos and video content from any camera or smart device. Loaded with onboard wifi to stream data and 128 GB or 256 GB of storage space, an additional advantage is that it comes packed with its own editing software that runs in consonance with an app on your device. You can connect via USB 3.0 or 2.0, SD card, Micro SD card, and a mini USB 3.0.
Ricoh Theta V
Taking potential clients on a 3-D tour? Add this player to the fix and it’s full on opera. Clients will be blown away. They’ll see everything outside of exploded floor plans.
Ricoh Theta V grants 360-degree, fish-eye camera features, literally the size of a television remote control, and captures candid 12-megapixel images. It has almost three times the shutter speed of the Theta S. This lets you click sharper images even in low light and with far less image noise when shooting the sunroom.
DJI Spark Drone
Yes there’s all kinds of premium, amaze-ball type drone models, but the DJI spark drone is the perfect setup for an agent who is new to aerial listing photography. With built in stabilizers for superior balance, this automatically creates a 10-second final edit of your flight path. You can use this for quick-hit marketing on social media or listing landing pages. It employs programmed flight paths and gesture control to capture up to 16 minutes of 12-megapixel footage.
DJI is the leading name in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) cameras, and the Spark was made to entice new practitioners.
To go with these are some interesting Tech Trends really serenading the real estate space:
Blockchain
Blockchain is the causal technology behind cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, but it’s not just the new payment methods that are set to change the way we do real estate. What’s worthy of note is that blockchain operates on decentralized database that can’t be compromised as the claim goes, and so veracity of data is highly guaranteed and makes for a total inclusion for every property in a region.
The good news is, for real estate players, both agents and customers, if blockchain becomes widely accepted it could exponentially reduce fraud occurrences and grant much more access to data, however there’s a need to revamp the standing order so that integration of blockchain information with current workflows happen.
Augmented and virtual reality
AR and VR technologies have been big news for a while now as they’re rapidly becoming more and more viable as consumer technologies. Imagine people taking a virtual tour of a potential house before they went to see it. It could make the whole process much more efficient and it could also make people more likely to make a purchase.
Meanwhile, augmented reality could come in useful when people are trying to visualize what an empty house will look like once they’ve moved their furniture inside. If a potential buyer has already taken the step of planning out exactly what the house is going to look like, the chances are that they’re keen enough to make an offer.
Big data, AI and machine learning
These three technologies when used collectively, are a powerful force AI (Artificial Intelligence) can be used to process the data through the process of machine learning, identifying new patterns that we might not have seen before. Just imagine how powerful it would be to have advance notice of a trend that will affect house prices.
This data (and the ability to understand it) could well be the key to success in the real estate industry moving forward. If we’re able to get a comprehensive view of the housing market, we can more accurately react to what’s happening and use data to back decisions instead of simply reacting to things on a hunch.
Chat bots
As artificial intelligence gets better and better at processing natural language, so too will the chat bots that AI powers. In fact, they’re rapidly becoming the new norm across a diverse range of industries thanks to their ability to reduce the amount of time that employees need to use while empowering the consumer to look at what’s on the market and to find answers to simple queries about house prices and availability.
The great thing about chat bots is that they can work around the clock, 2-4-7 without tiring, so if nothing else then they can at least provide your real estate business with a more powerful way to process customer queries for out-of-office hours. Used correctly, they can even become a key part of your marketing approach, capturing data and generating real estate leads that could go on to become paying customers.
Conclusively, tech, like all major transformative events in human history, is certain to have wide reaching ramifications. But with careful forethought these can be addressed. In the short to medium term, the advantages of tech and AI in enhancing our lives, will likely outweigh these risks. Any major conception that touches human lives in a broad manner, if not handled properly, can pose immense danger.
It’s a slow-paced start in our home front here, talking about the Nigerian real estate space, but with the strong entrance of millennial type, futurist, avant-garde real estate players and service providers in our real estate play field, what’s not to say that the status quo isn’t going to change? As can be visibly seen, disruptions are steadily happening in this sphere, and isn’t letting up any time soon.
How Nigerian real estate players will bear the brunt of financial implications and the import of tech in a system “seemingly” set up bureaucratically to slow pedal with tech inclusiveness?
Now that’s another matter altogether.