Technology is the driving force behind change in all major industries of the world.
Tech has been changing our lives forever, and every industry finds use cases and advantages in the benefits that come from every new technological advancement. In the information age, technology is highly influencing change in every major industry and real estate is no different.
The tech transforming real estate comes from varying fields, and we have done the research to pick out the most influential ones for you. All of these are impactful, but some, like OktoHub, are focused on benefitting real estate professionals, their work, and their growth.
Let’s dive in to better understand each one.
Tech That’s Transforming Real Estate
Here are the technologies rapidly changing the real estate industry and paving the way for its future.
IoT & Smart Homes
The Internet of Things (IoT) is transforming real estate by empowering homes and buildings via the use of smart devices that use sensors, data collection, analysis, etc. to provide solutions. These smart devices can be automated to perform tasks and take commands from anywhere in the world.
The data they collect allows people to check utility usage, reduce their carbon footprints, and lower their utility bills among many other benefits. This data collection can be even more useful and effective in buildings, large projects, and other commercial real estate.
Since IoT devices have been around for a while now, their prices have gone down, causing them to become more commonplace. As of now, there are currently well over 20 billion connected IoT devices, and this number is expected to go over 38 billion by 2025.
Some of these smart home devices have helped improve tenant and resident experiences substantially. Buyer and tenant demands for smart homes are increasing because of these improved experiences, which is why real estate professionals also find smart homes to be easier to sell or recommend.
Moreover, real estate professionals can integrate IoT tech into their marketing plans, and property managers can benefit from them for repairs and maintenance of homes and buildings.
Virtual Tours Using Virtual Reality (VR) Technology
Whether museums or real estate properties, virtual tours have been trending since the beginning of the pandemic, and this is all thanks to virtual reality (VR). This VR tech is transforming real estate, enables a high increase in the effective management of physical spaces.
Virtual tours are highly beneficial for buyers because they allow them to save time and resources while giving a high-quality experience with spatial visualization of properties without leaving their homes. There are plenty of benefits of VR technology, including:
Remote Viewing
Buyers and real estate professionals can experience properties from halfway across the globe.
Efficient Marketing
Sellers and real estate professionals save time and resources on open houses or marketing their properties to individual buyers.
Easy Access
Anyone can access the virtual tour using applications and mobile devices, and multiple users can have private tours at once.
Augmented Reality (AR)
Similar to virtual reality, augmented reality technology is creating immense benefits in the real estate industry. AR’s capability to create virtual 3D objects and accurately place them in any setting is excellent for buyer visualization.
Buyers can correctly map the dimensions of their furniture, art, belongings, etc., and then use AR to see them placed in physical spaces or virtual replicas of properties. AR allows them to see how the property suits their requirements as if they have already moved in.
This allows them to investigate properties in greater detail, make informed decisions and improve decorating processes.
Real Estate Assistance with OktoHub
Real estate professionals often deal with multiple aspects of multiple clients and their properties. Staging, open houses, inspections, paperwork, meetings, and closing deals — they have a lot on their plates. With increasing competition, they have to compromise on many things to get more clients.
The reality for most real estate professionals is that their work and portfolios rarely allow for consistent income because they mainly work on commissions. Hence, long-term hiring commitments to secure assistance are out of the question.
This is where OktoHub, the first on-demand real estate assistance program, comes into play. It is tech that is transforming real estate for professionals. It eliminates the need for a long-term hire and instead lets real estate professionals pay for one-time task-based assistance.
OktoHub achieves this by letting them create a network of trusted real estate professionals around them, which can be used to get assistance on all kinds of real estate tasks. Real estate professionals never have to compromise on family time, deals, or clients ever again.
They can not only pay for assistance but earn from assisting other trusted real estate professionals in their network as well. This means OktoHub has three-fold benefits – gain assistance when needed, earn for assisting, and create a reliable network of trusted professionals.
As any real estate professional will tell you, networking is a big part of their job, and OktoHub enables them to create new opportunities through networking, apart from on-demand assistance.
Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies
Cryptocurrencies and the blockchain technology behind them are rapidly changing many industries for the better, and the tech behind them is also transforming real estate. Like some other industries, the real estate industry is where blockchain technology can thrive for many reasons.
As of now, real estate practices can and are benefitting from this tech for the following reasons.
Low Risk of Fraud
Current real estate transactions and ownership statuses are made on legal paper, which can often be duplicated with false information for fraudulent activity. However, smart contracts based on blockchain technology can link ownership of the property to the blockchain.
These smart contracts are made using encryption and use blockchain cryptology as protection, which makes it impossible to alter or forge once encrypted.
Up-to-Date Record Keeping
Blockchains are excellent at record-keeping, as they are secure ledgers protected by cryptology. For real estate, this means being able to access up-to-date property information that is otherwise hard to come by.
Blockchain technology can theoretically be used to store, update, and access key property information, which is all time-stamped and immutable once encrypted on the blockchain.
Reduced Need for Paperwork
Whether you are a real estate professional, seller, buyer, or tenant, no one likes tedious paperwork; luckily, smart contracts can eliminate much of it. Instead of filing paperwork and requiring notaries, smart contracts are time-stamped and directly verified on the blockchain.
Reduced Number of Middlemen
Several mediators involved when closing real estate deals, including bankers, brokers, notaries, etc. Blockchain technology allows you to save money on some of these middlemen because it eliminates the need for their services.
These security, record-keeping, and efficiency benefits of blockchain technology lead to the first sale of a property using blockchain in 2017 in Ukraine. This tech is transforming real estate and will continue to take over this industry and many other industries in the coming years.
Conclusion
Besides the one mentioned here, there are many more technological transforming real estate, including Big Data, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and geolocation technology that we have not mentioned.
We can discuss them another time. For now, we thought to bring your attention to these more pressing technologies that are greatly affecting and changing the real estate industry. They are directly affecting how real estate professionals, sellers, buyers, and tenants experience real estate.
It is always better to stay informed of how technology is driving industries, like real estate, and what the future has in store for them.
If you want to learn more about tech that’s changing real estate or learn about OktoHub, please visit our website today.
