Real estate experts face multiple challenges that can be solved by modern technology, such as AI and various smart algorithms. The previous technological revolution, which involved the rapid adoption of the Internet and Internet-capable devices worldwide, has already significantly transformed the field. Before the 2010s, real estate brokers had to rely on in-person communication and, depending on the region, were assisted by telephone technologies. This meant that communication in the field was slow: in order to achieve client buy-in, brokers usually had to arrange a meeting or a series of meetings with clients in several locations.
The Internet and smartphone revolution of the 2010s enabled rapid communication between real estate experts and their clients through chat applications and gave tools for simplifying property search by enabling them to effortlessly share photos and videos of discussed properties. Real estate software development solutions have already transformed the field significantly and are certainly bound to continue transforming it. In this article, we review some of the technologies that are especially promising and can genuinely help real estate teams work smarter.
Streamlined online transactions
15 years ago, the digital transformation of the banking sector was still in its early stages. While many banks started adopting online tools, they were often limited both in function and usability. Today, the market is completely different, offering many great opportunities for real estate experts. Firstly, all stakeholders in real estate now have access to both online mortgage services and various online finance apps for smaller payments. Services like Rocket Mortgage or Chime focus on a fully online experience, allowing their users to manage their real estate transactions (from property purchases to utility payments) online. Secondly, services like DocuSign enable all parties to review and sign various documents from the comfort of their homes via an online service.
One of the most common barriers to acquiring property is the fear of excessive paperwork. This often can delay purchase decisions by several months or even years if a potential buyer has many other work and family obligations. Now that everything is fully online, there is no need for clients to carefully budget their time to sign all the documents. This is vital for helping real estate teams work smarter because they can now shift their focus from tedious bureaucratic tasks towards analytics or better communication practices.
Enhanced Communication on Digital Platforms
The smartphone and Internet revolutions certainly made communication easier. You can simply text a customer or a broker via a messenger app or write them an email. There is no need to schedule calls or use answering machines anymore. Still, messengers and email introduce many inconveniences, too. Since they are generally easier to use than phones, many brokers and users can be overloaded by messages. Even with spam protections, many people have dozens of contacts on various apps. As a result, it is easy to miss some messages or even forget to respond to them.
Brokers that often work with dozens of clients simultaneously are especially vulnerable to this problem. Moreover, many messages that real estate experts receive are simply requests for information that are rarely converted into sales. Since many real estate teams have to deal with them daily, this obviously decreases the amount of time they can dedicate to potential customers or analytical tasks.
Modern agentic AIs or chatbots with complex algorithms enable them to finally solve this problem by automating many requests for information. AI or algorithm-based chatbots can answer the most common client questions and even search various databases for information on particular properties for sale. This approach offers better communication tools for people who simply want to understand the current state of the real estate market and simultaneously removes pressure on the schedules of many experts.
Advanced Data Analytics Tools for Better Decision-Making
Modern real estate experts have access to a wide range of advanced data analytics tools and, more importantly, to much larger amounts of data than in the past. In the 20th century, the majority of the statistical information had to be collected and processed manually. Today, we have access to computing devices that can do millions and even billions of calculations per second.
On the one hand, this enables us to process tremendous volumes of information. There are now multiple large-scale and well-maintained tools for processing real estate marketing information. They enable real estate teams to automate most processes related to data analysis and quickly generate high-quality visualizations of the most important data sets.
On the other hand, real estate agents now have access to better data collection tools. They can quickly review their finances and track all transactions via automated tools. It is much easier to understand the overall efficiency of ads, too, by analyzing how many people reviewed particular properties or showed interest in certain services. All this simplifies analytics, decreasing the amount of labor necessary for collecting and processing information.
Improving Client Experience with Virtual Tools
We have already mentioned that smartphones started a revolution in real estate by enabling brokers to quickly create photos and videos of various locations. Today, data-based technologies allow them to go much further. By combining several photos, one can create full-scale 3D exhibits, allowing clients to review property layouts from the comfort of their homes. More importantly, recent advances in AI will likely allow real estate agents to go even further. With modern artificial intelligence tools, they will be able to create fully interactive experiences that, potentially, can enable prospective buyers to not only see general layouts but also redesign those virtual locations by moving or adding furniture or changing some design elements. Since many clients like to renovate properties after purchasing them, this service can further drive user retention by allowing customers to have an even better understanding of the property they want to buy.
Conclusion
To summarize, data and technology not only can help transform the real estate sector but are already transforming it and making the everyday work of experts easier. Some technologies simply remove tedious tasks, enabling experts to focus on creative work. Others simplify and streamline creative work, making it easier to create advanced analytical tools. Moreover, the technological market is mature enough to enable custom development for real estate apps. Companies like Keenethics can deliver custom applications tailored towards the specific needs of particular teams. The usage of such software can offer a decisive advantage to many teams by enabling them to automate tasks that are specific to their niche/region and that are rarely covered by mainstream software aimed at the general market.
