May 11, 2020 The Impact of Technology on the Real Estate Industry

A look at how both residential and commercial real estate is evolving through digital technology.

Digital tech has left its mark on real estate businesses in a variety of ways, delivering dramatic improvements in productivity, efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Here is a look at the types of technology that are at play in this industry’s transformation and how both the residential and commercial sides of real estate are evolving at the moment.

Lead generation & general marketing

Equipped with the latest software tools, a realtor can generate leads and promote their listings with greater ease and to a wider audience than ever before.

Whether seeking out prospective clients proactively or simply publishing the details of the latest property investment opportunities to popular platforms, the proliferation of the internet and the host of real estate-related solutions it plays host to have empowered organizations of all sizes.

The most popular real estate websites attract hundreds of millions of visitors each month and this has not just helped with property sales but also the rental market.

Transactions

Real estate transactions are notoriously difficult to manage, but with the right real estate broker software it is surprisingly simple to track and orchestrate every aspect of this process.

For example, agents can now use software to keep tabs on everything from the state of specific listings to commission earned on sales and other legal and financial factors that come into play.

This is not just appealing in terms of improving the efficiency of the process and keeping clients happy, but also makes it much easier to ensure that agents and real estate organizations as a whole are compliant with industry regulations. Then when the time for auditing inevitably arrives, the software provides an indelible record of every transaction that can take the stress of being scrutinized by outsiders.

Communications

Another compelling improvement that technology has brought to the real estate industry is that of allowing agents to communicate more effectively with clients, across a range of platforms and mediums.

From standard phone calls to emails, instant messages and social media interactions, operatives can engage with and target current and prospective customers in whichever way makes the most sense to them.

Agents are also taking advantage of tech to showcase the properties they have to offer without necessarily requiring that interested parties visit in person. A combination of AV know-how and streaming solutions means that posting a virtual video tour of residential and commercial premises is a breeze. This means that even if the buyer is on the other side of the world, they can get an in-depth overview without having to visit in person. Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are also being adopted for the same reasons.

In-home tech expectations

From the perspective of home design, it is now necessary for architects and building firms to take the elevated expectations of tech-savvy residents and customers into account.

The rise of smart, connected hardware to monitor everything from heating and light to entertainment and security means that people are looking for these features when browsing listings and agents need to be able to oblige with suitably up-to-date properties.

This is also true in the commercial sector, since businesses need to be able to know that they can access high speed connectivity to fuel their digital needs, or else they may find that no matter how perfect a location might be, it simply cannot be considered because of some network-related limitations.

Ultimately the real estate industry is being shaped by both internal and external pressures exerted upon it by technology and so far is managing to thrive in the 21st century.

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