7 Ways IoT Is Disrupting the Real Estate Sector
Remember the classic Toy Story? The crux of the story revolves around the toys of a kid coming to life at night. They talk with each other, play around, resolve conflicts among themselves, and more.
What if we told you that we are living in a real-life Toy Story?
If you pay close attention to the current scenario, it’s almost similar. The only minor difference here is that toys in the real world are expensive gadgets and devices connected to the internet.
Together, they form an ecosystem called the Internet Of Things and communicate with each other, collect data about their owners, process it for better user experience, and help in elevating their lifestyle. Also, the toys, we mean the devices don’t just communicate at night. They talk during the day as well.
Data transmission and processing is perpetual in an IoT network and this is exactly what makes several aspects of our lives simpler. Our wearable health device is constantly keeping track of our heart rate, sleep cycle, and vitals, smart home automation solutions taking care of the safety and security of our house, smart refrigerators ensuring our food is fresh for a longer period of time, and more.
IoT is here as a blessing in our life and this blessing is gradually seeping into other industries as well. Specifically, in the real estate space, IoT is being experimented for new use cases.
Statistics reveal that by the year 2025, there will be approximately 75.44 billion devices connected to the internet. Also, the consumer IoT segment is also anticipated to reach a global value of around $142bn by 2026.
Experts and companies are deploying smart connected devices for diverse purposes and the results are astounding as well.
That’s why, in this post, we will explore the different ways IoT is actually revolutionizing the real estate industry with its features, capabilities and offerings.
What Does IoT Mean For The Real Estate Industry?
Real estate is a very complex industry. There are tons of legalities, paperwork, expenses, efforts and compliances involved at every stage of the customer journey. From the time a potential lead decides to visit a real estate property to the time their mortgage is processed and they decide to move in, intricate processes and workflows are plentiful.
These critical processes also come with tons of scope for error and even the minor ones could delay the purchasing process. Besides, this phase of evolution in real estate is also undergoing a massive transformation as the mantle is being gradually passed from baby boomers to millennials.
Consumer dynamics are changing, where the use cases of properties are being redefined as well. Consumers no longer want to pay mortgages throughout their lives. They want subscription-based properties like how they would use Netflix.
Further, consumers are also becoming picky at the same time. Customization is at the heart of everything today and this is becoming evident in purchasing properties as well. So, real estate agents have to go an extra mile in understanding their tastes and preferences to suggest properties they are most likely to buy.
For all these concerns, one ideal solution is IoT. With a host of IoT products and tools, real estate agencies can automate paperwork, use data to personalize property recommendations, offer flexible and smart contracts and do more. Currently, IoT application for real estate is gradually moving away from simply being home automation solutions to more advanced, nuanced and contextual to both sellers and buyers.
Understanding The Value Of IoT In Real Estate Agencies
1. Helps In Faster Decision Making
Like we mentioned, with data at the heart of IoT, real estate companies can make good use of it to show properties and spaces that consumers are most likely to purchase. When customers are shown recommendations based on their interests, the decision-making time is decreased and becomes more accurate as well. Apps can consistently learn from their users’ preferences, likes, and dislikes and optimize recommendations.
2. Great Impact On Energy Efficiency
Energy conservation is a way of life today. As consumers and people of earth, we no longer just talk about conserving energy and protecting the environment. We have begun taking actions and making lifestyle changes to accommodate this purpose. With IoT, this becomes a lot more attainable as IoT-enabled devices immensely help in energy conservation and moderated consumption.
IoT Sensors and devices ensure lights and taps are turned off immediately and automatically when not in use. Illumination intensities can be controlled and cooling systems adapt to human presence and behavior as well. Through charts and visualization of energy consumption data, consumers are empowered with responsibilities to be better informed about their consumption levels as well. By offering us clarity on what to do, IoT ecosystems are making sure the roles are 50-50 in energy conservation.
3. Improves Home Search Experience
One of the biggest offerings of IoT is the beacon technology. Small devices capable of transmitting information to users through app-based push notifications, these beacons have been used in the retail sector to promote and push sales. Now, they are being used in the real estate space as well. Beacons are simplifying the process of property hunting by making customers to manually visit only those properties which they are really interested in.
On detecting the proximity of customers, beacon technologies transmit data on a particular property such as images, videos, mortgage details and more. They offer a personalized experience to customers, who then manually visit the property if they are convinced initially.
4. Maintain Infrastructure
Infrastructure maintenance is made simple and effective with the deployment of IoT devices. Properties – both commercial and residential – that are locked without owners are always at the risk of fire, burglary or other crises. IoT devices ensure these instances are kept at bay through automation and advanced monitoring.
Commercial properties that house heavy equipment are also taken good care of by predictive maintenance technology, where IoT devices accurately predict when the equipment would malfunction and automatically trigger a service request.
Besides, IoT also takes charge of tackling instances of fire, short circuits, leakage of toxic gases and more seamlessly.
5. Enhanced Safety And Security
Apart from properties that don’t have owners staying in the premises, there are also those that have elderly people who intend to sell their properties to prospects as well. Oftentimes, there are also solitary owners. Frequent visitors who keep checking out properties is a risk for them as background checks are not conducted during the initial stages.
Also, it is a risk exposing the layout of the house to more people. In such cases, IoT decreases the risk involved in property visits by detecting movements and keeping automated notifications to the local police departments and other stakeholders on standy. Sensors and monitors can record faces, send them to the department and help in the tracking of felons in case of emergencies as well. However, things could get to this stage, devices ensure the neighborhood is alarmed by intrusions.
6. Reduces Carbon Footprints
Devices like air conditioners and refrigerators contribute to a major chunk of residential carbon emissions. In general, we as humans are unsure of how to quantify energy usage and consequences as it has largely remained an abstract concept. However, with IoT, we can quantify the aspects and get details in real-time about carbon footprint from our homes and properties.
With the details, we can take corrective measures to minimize emissions and use devices more judicially. Besides, IoT-enabled devices also come with automated sensors that automatically either switch off devices or moderate temperatures based on the number of people or food items.
Also, companies are trying to implement gamification concepts in minimizing carbon emissions as well. Insights from an entire neighborhood show details on how much your neighbors have contributed to emissions and how they are handling their emissions. Through a leaderboard, ranking can be established and property owners who consistently have low emissions can be offered incentives.
These measures also lay the groundwork for smart cities.
7. Improved Customer Experience
Customer experience can be immensely amplified with the use of IoT. Like we mentioned, real estate involves tons of paperwork, documentation, legal prerequisites, loans processing and more. These are the pain points real estate companies face when trying to deliver a smooth customer experience as well.
With IoT, these hiccups could be resolved through automation and real-time updates. Another major concern customers face during property hunting is validating the pricing of properties. While real estate agents guarantee best prices, customers really want to verify if the price they are about to pay is legitimate and worth it.
Through IoT-enabled devices, real estate agents can show credible insights on market values, the process of calculation, graphs on how the pricing has increased over the years, upcoming projects nearby, government initiatives and more. With the right details, customers also understand the depth of the waters they are trying to get in.
The Future Of Real Estate
The future looks promising and exciting for the real estate industry. Going forward, we anticipate more collaboration between devices and humans to jointly offer services and experiences.
While IoT has already made its way into the industry, blockchain technology is just following in terms of peer-to-peer payments and smart contracts. Real estate agents will also have more assistance from chatbots and virtual assistants that could qualify leads and transfer to them to close deals immediately.
Technologies like Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) are also being used to promote virtual house tours, immersive interior designing experiences, and more.
To sum up, it’s an exciting phase currently with technologies and concepts coming together to offer the best of experiences to us. Looking back, we could say that it was IoT that spearheaded the transformation in the real estate space.
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