Real Estate Digital Landscape
| “48% of investors are most interested in investing in solutions for property management, the highest of all categories, followed by 19% in construction and development.”
– PwC |
In just a couple of decades, the real estate landscape has undergone a dynamic transformation, with a more informed, connected, and immersive experience. We can say that we’re building an infrastructure of digital real estate, where advanced technologies, apps, and devices have started the transformation to redefine the way people search, visit, and experience buying and renting real estate properties.
According to the above report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), real estate business owners accepted this transformation, and approximately half of them are inclined to invest in a digital means for property management. It showcases the behavioral changes in real estate buyers and the market’s maturity that now buyers do ample web research, experience properties through AI and VR-based virtual tours, consider online reviews and analyses of the properties, online price estimation and rent comparison, and more before making a final purchase.
To put this into context, each real estate company must adopt the digital transformation; have a website, eCommerce app, and social media presence to optimize the customer buying journeys powered with the digital experience platform and other advanced technologies to grow and thrive. Here is our expert guide to redefine strategies for digital real estate and thrive to rise in the digital experience world.
Digital Real Estate: The PropTech Era
| “75% of America’s leading real estate brokerages are already using the technology and almost 80% reporting that their agents have adopted AI tools to integrate into their work,” as found in the 2024 Delta Media Real Estate Leadership Survey. |
The digital transformation and revolution in real estate opened the door for technological advancements that resulted in “PropTech.” PropTech is the key component to transform the real estate industry and redefine the customer experience (CX), property viewing, property research, marketing, and sale and buy functions with the most advanced technologies. It uses digital platforms, solutions, apps, and social media to enhance real estate operations like virtual tours or property viewing, online property listing platforms, property valuation, EMI estimation, digital documentation, and smart homes.
Image Courtesy: 3D Vista
The virtual tour of the property is one of the finest uses of cutting-edge technologies to digitalize real estate. It enables potential buyers to explore property or home from the comfort of their place using a smartphone, laptop, or tab. It eases the job of real estate agents and executives, saves time for buyers, and speeds up the decision-making for buying, renting, and leasing. Additionally, it gives customer insights to identify preferences, demand forecasts, and more to further promote and follow-ups based on these insights and customer data.
One more interesting development in digital real estate is the introduction of cloud-based applications for documentation, verification, agreement, and more. Everything from a lease agreement to deeds; everything can be stored on the cloud, and contracts and renewals can be obtained using electronic signatures without physically visiting, with timely reminders and automation.
Digital real estate is reshaping every facet of the industry; let’s discuss the strategies to stay relevant with the shifting preferences of buyers and their reliance on technology to thrive in a futuristic real estate world.
eCommerce Website and Application for Real Estate
Real estate businesses should offer the convenience for their target audience to search, explore, and shortlist property online. A website or eCommerce platform enables the real estate business to be accessible to clients 24/7, brings more visibility to a wider target audience beyond physical boundaries, and makes it more flexible.
It’s one of the effective strategies to attract prospects and generate leads to boost sales teams and sales opportunities for real estate agents. It enables a more engaging customer experience (CX) that facilitates the idea of omnichannel experience across the touchpoints. Ensure the eCommerce application and website are well-designed, easy to navigate, mobile-friendly, and SEO-friendly so they speak with prospects and encourage them to convert. Get an eCommerce expert consultation to build an eCommerce website that meets customer expectations and helps to stay competitive.
One of our clients from the real estate industry found that their existing website lacks the competitiveness to cater to audiences from different natives. They needed to modernize their online presence, fix the complexities of online deposits, incorporate multi-lingual support, and provide an engaging UX interface that simplifies functionality and enhances customer experience (CX). Krish thoroughly examined the client’s requirements and suggested switching to Headless Commerce for their real estate website. We also integrated import APIs for seamless data transfer and efficient data management. With the introduction of high-performance APIs at the front end powered by commercetools’ data modeling, we ensure that the website offers enhanced UX, seamless navigation, and elevated customer experience (CX).
Virtual Reality (VR) and Virtual Staging for Realty
Image Courtesy: Virtually Staging Properties
| “Goldman Sachs Research expects virtual and augmented reality to become an $80 billion market by 2025 that is already transforming sectors like real estate, healthcare and education.” |
The digitalization of the real estate industry has one of the most immersive and engaging experiences with virtual reality (VR). The VR enables buyers and agents to visit property comfortably and virtually from their homes. Even the sales teams can use Virtual staging; the guided walkthrough videos with relevant interior help prospects visualize their desired experience with preferred interior designs to identify and shortlist the properties with virtual tours only. It empowers real estate agents to showcase properties at their higher potential so buyers can move further in decision-making.
Big Data Analytics for Customer Insights
The real estate industry has turned into a massive storage of data that can be used to extract meaningful insights, and later on, this information can work as a building block for informed decision-making in a quicker way and even identify potential risks. Data from visitors and prospects can be processed to learn about prospective buyers’ insights, preferences, behavioral analysis, and buying capacity to make predictions and targeted promotions to convert.
Big data and analytics are essential strategies for real estate businesses to analyze and forecast market trends and prospect preferences to provide personalized property recommendations and pricing that empower buyers to make informed decisions as well as enable agents to focus on potential buyers. Focus on CRM integration with the real estate website to get into your prospect and other real-time customer insights that enable automated lead capture, personalized customer interactions, improved sales tracking, and finding quality leads so the sales team can easily focus on customer engagement, relationship, and deal closing.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) for Real Estate
Incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) into real estate operations and other functions is a strategic move for property businesses. AI empowers real estate businesses to bring automation into their daily operations, including loan origination, underwriting, ethical tenant screening, energy resource management, interior design generation, construction development management, and virtual assistants for real-time support.
With the use of predictive AI, real estate professionals can identify and analyze various matrices, consumer behavior, and market patterns and trends that manual analysis usually fails to calculate accurately. Using these AI-powered insights, these professionals can do market forecasts and risk assessments to consult their investors to make more confident and informed property buying and selling decisions.
| “AI and Generative AI among top 3 technologies expected to have the biggest impact on real estate.” |
AI will be a game changer for real estate businesses to thrive in the digital landscape. The use of AI-powered valuation models enables real estate professionals and companies to analyze property characteristics, development scope, market trends, and various economic factors to transform property valuation with more accurate and reliable property assessments for their investors.
Another aspect of real estate and property is timely maintenance, where AI works effectively. Integration of AI applications to evaluate and determine building health and predictive failures of residential and commercial properties empower property management companies, owners, and builders to strategically schedule maintenance routines, allocate resources, and assess risk to prevent damages. It ultimately converts into improved customer satisfaction, enhanced customer experience (CX), and minimized long-term expenses.
Conclusion
Digital transformation is at the forefront of the real estate and construction industry and is committed to making the real estate experience more user-friendly, flexible, accessible, and transparent, where unpredicted scenarios can be minimized. The digital era of the real estate world is more engaging, informative, insightful, and profitable for each stakeholder, including real estate companies, property owners, investors, brokers, tenants, and construction companies.
We can see the bright and rising future of the real estate industry standing tall on the perfect mix of real estate and technologies. The aim is to build an infrastructure with advanced technologies to explore the limitless possibilities that efficiently transform the traditional real estate business into a futuristic real estate that brings each stakeholder more convenience, efficiency, and profitability. We must accept that embracing digital real estate is a necessity to stay relevant, profitable, and thrive in the digital landscape.
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Sumesh Soman is an Enterprise Sales and Client Management professional with expertise in eCommerce & online marketing. Since a decade, he has been working as a strategic, digital commerce consultative resource for global clients. Having deep relationships with key platform and ecosystem partners, he is an expert at empowering driven and efficient digital transformations that exceeds client goals.
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