Real Estate Marries Technology

According to a year-end 2014 report from the Federal Reserve, the U.S. real estate market is worth an estimated $40 trillion. Of that, residential real estate represents about $23 million, or more than half. Even more telling, new home mortgages were up 15 percent in Q2, 2015, compared to a year ago (according to Black Knight Financial Services). Eighty (80%) percent of 2015 buyers had credit scores above 700. That is a lot of serious money in one sector, and a lot of obvious wealth-building material. In spite of which, real estate has historically been one of the last sectors to use technology to improve its ability to offer the right property to the right buyer at the right time. But all that is changing. With the U.S. economy – and especially the real estate vertical – improving, the potential for even more sales is huge. There is in fact so much promise in the real estate market that some experts are predicting $1 trillion in sales by 2030. That is only 15 years away! The challenges are evident, and they can make or break not merely the industry but each individual realtor. These challenges are represented by higher and higher values and more complicated titles. Titles now passing through numerous financial institutions with more entities (brokers, lenders, builders, appraisers, inspectors) involved. As well as a great deal more data per transaction as the entities submit their various and often very complex reports. The days of the handshake are long gone. Now, it is more than a single individual can handle to simply remember all the listings, let alone all the potential lending opportunities for buyers. Gone, along with that handshake, are hours spent traveling from house to house, and phoning ahead to make sure each house is available for viewing. A common and a thankless task that produced about one sale for every 30-45 hours spent selling. If the agent was lucky. Today technology is here to help, and mobile technology is becoming the bright star of real estate. There are virtual tours, even virtual signage thanks to Apple’s iBeacon. If an agent’s territory is large, the homes for sale spread across miles. Now there are drones to take aerial photographs. There is even the instant availability of “mailing lists”, or blanket e-mail/text announcements, not to mention social media, which can spread the message of a new listing far and wide – instantly! Perhaps more important, at least from the real estate firm’s point-of-view, technology cuts costs. Where a blanket mailing once cost $50 or more, the same can be achieved by keying in a few numbers on an iPhone or other mobile device. That can deliver a social media blast across at least a dozen different forums. This leaves time, and more importantly money, for real estate firms to move into the “how-to” side of home ownership. For example, a new homeowner wants to install a garbage disposal or dishwasher, but doesn’t want the expense of hiring a plumber. How convenient if the site from which they selected the home also has advice on these homeowner-related concerns? Moreover, how many sales might this kind of service insure in the future? Want to try the most technologically advanced land website for free?  Click here for free trial: www.LandHub.com/Landing