What place for digital in real estate?

 

In real estate, undoubtedly even more than in other sectors of the economy, the coronavirus crisis has forced professionals to accelerate digitization . However, barely ten years ago, this partnership between real estate and digital seemed anything but obvious: the adoption of new processes and innovative tools was coming up against a sector known for its inaction.

But times have changed: real estate can no longer escape the digital tidal wave ; new services are disrupting practices and transforming the customer journey; sellers and buyers swear by the web when starting a project; the user experience has changed dramatically. All trades are affected, including (and especially) those of the transaction . So much so that we readily speak of a “digital real estate agent” to clearly show this connivance between the advisor / negotiator and the new tools he uses to carry out his activity and offer the best possible service.

This (r) evolution has been largely pushed by the customers themselves, in a vast forward movement which has the merit of recalling an obvious fact too often neglected: housing concerns everyone and represents one of the main concerns of the French .

Consequence: in 2021, more than ever, the digitization of real estate is no longer an alternative, but an obligation . For customers - who need to go and find information and advertisements online. And for professionals - with the aim of developing their activity, or simply maintaining it, and continuing to take on mandates .

How is the digital revolution expressed in real estate? What consequences for your daily activity? In this article, we offer you a (long) focus on the in-depth transformation of the real estate sector and professions .

Real estate and digital: an inexorable, but gradual upheaval

At the dawn of the XXI th century, the entire economy is transformed by digital. Any? No ! A sector populated by diehard professionals is still resisting the digital invader. And that sector is real estate.

Indeed, real estate and digital have not always gotten along perfectly. While most economic sectors embraced the digital revolution (sometimes forced and forced, it is true), the field of stone has long lagged behind, showing a caution that is easy to reproach it today. , but that some valued yesterday by arguing that precipitation is never a good advisor.

Digitization of real estate: professionals VS clients

For years, the digitization of real estate has boiled down to the creation, by both large groups and local brands, of a website used as a simple virtual showcase . A home page, a contact page, service pages - and so on. Many professionals continue to use their platform in this way, a practice which has naturally raised the question of the interest of a real estate agency website in the age of social networks and other instant communication tools. (But this is another story).

In fact, this very partial digitization was backed up by a continuation of traditional business processes and “old-fashioned” prospecting methods : manual data entry, tedious administrative formalities, prospecting sessions prepared via formal meetings in front of a Velleda table, etc. As if we agreed to take a step towards digital while taking three or four steps back in the process. With an inevitably negative impact on the user experience.

Because, at the same time, customers were fully embracing digital technology . No need to remind you how quickly the French adopted the Internet, email, the dematerialization of documents and procedures, the smartphone, connected objects - as if they were the most natural things in the world. This appetite for all-digital technology naturally encompassed their first expense item (and one of their main concerns): housing. In search of simplicity, immediacy, but also transparency, they welcomed with open arms the possibilities offered by the web in terms of real estate. Starting with the ad portals reserved for individuals.

The emergence of PropTech

An event was needed to shake up the real estate sector on the professional side, to show that it was possible to make things happen in a world known for its inertia. This event was the rise of AirBnb.

A revolution in the hotel industry rather than in real estate, do you think? Yes and no. Of course, the first sector affected by AirBnb is the tourist hotel industry. But the power of the blow struck by the platform has affected all sectors linked, more broadly, to housing and the concept of habitability . Because the site, created in San Francisco in 2008, has not only shaken up tourist habits by offering everyone to rent their own accommodation to passing people: it has shown that it is possible to design accommodation differently. and to question a sector (Hyderabad real estate) that we believed to be immutable .

In short, AirBnb is the birth certificate of PropTech . And this is where things really changed. PropTech (“Property Technology”) is the universe of innovation applied to digital real estate, just as FinTech applies to the world of finance. A universe made up of a myriad of actors, often startups, who have made it their mission to bring down one by one the ramparts that surround the real estate sector, and to improve or reinvent the services offered by “historical” professionals in fields as varied as transaction, construction, rental, management, trustee, etc.

PropTech is - for example - Meero (marketplace dedicated to the subcontracting of real estate photographs), Habiteo (specialist in 3D modeling of real estate for developers) or Matera (digital alternative to professional trustees) . But also virtual visit services, data management, real estate promotion, etc.

Services capable of responding to concrete needs expressed by users , and which have started to be gradually adopted by professionals to better meet the expectations of their customers, following the axiom "in Rome, do as the Romans" (in l occurrence: "in a world where clients are very fond of digital real estate, make sure you digitize your business").

At the same time, real estate agents, negotiators, heads of agent networks and developers have implemented increasingly developed management tools - transaction and prospecting software, dematerialization of certain processes (the electronic signature is an excellent one. example), etc. - which enabled them to optimize their processes and speed up their decision-making. But in this context, digital real estate has mainly manifested itself through signs of dematerialization rather than through the digitization of their business procedures. A subtlety that we analyzed in a previous article .

The acceleration due to the pandemic

And then the pandemic happened . It did not initiate the process of digitizing real estate, but it can hardly be denied that it greatly accelerated it by forcing professionals to find solutions to continue their activity in full confinement. As we underlined in our review of the past year, if the sector has done rather well despite the successive closures of the banners, the obligations relating to teleworking and the prohibitions to organize visits - the heart of most trades in the transaction, just that - it is especially because of the strong resilience of the players in the sector who have taken their destiny in hand to continue to exercise against the wave, in particular by relying on digital real estate and its many opportunities.

Concretely, this accelerated digitization has taken several forms:

  • Implementation of virtual tours and “video tours” to counter the ban on physical tours in spring and fall.
  • Support for sellers and buyers throughout closing periods to help them pursue their real estate project, thanks to digital media (website, social networks, etc.) and to messaging and videoconferencing applications. With the consequence of an exponential increase in transactions carried out the day after the end of the first confinement.
  • Use of the electronic signature to materialize sales that were suddenly stopped by confinement.

So many methods and tools that have shown that in terms of real estate and digital, it has become possible to take charge of a transaction and process the various stages remotely, while limiting physical contact between the people. (A 100% online process that we had already demonstrated in an old blog post , which turned out to be strangely premonitory ...)

This acceleration of the digitization of real estate must be taken seriously by the players in the sector, because these new practices could be called upon to continue . Not only because it is impossible to say when this health crisis will end; but also because customer behavior could be changed for a long time, including long after we have gotten rid of Covid-19.

Digitization of real estate: new services with high added value

If digital real estate has finally imposed itself despite the initial resistance of players in the sector, and if customers have adopted it so quickly, it is above all because this fundamental movement has been accompanied by the establishment of new services characterized by their enormous added value for the benefit of users (individuals and professionals).

Real estate digitization as seen by individuals

Let’s look first at individuals . We do not have to think too far to understand all that digital has brought to customers wishing to improve their access to information, the efficiency of services and the transparency of processes. With, in all this, a strong practical dimension: just as it is easier to order products on an e-commerce platform and receive them directly at home, it is easier to consult real estate ads online and to contact whoever it is without having to leave home or push the door of an agency.

Hence the success of emerging services considered today as “must have” for professionals : virtual tours, interactive maps, website dedicated to the promotion of real estate, etc. Services that allow customers to have a complete view of the real estate offer, whatever their project - geolocation of goods, detailed description, real-time availability for buyers; advanced promotion tools, dedicated mobile application, instant communication for sellers; online rental management, rental profitability simulators, dematerialized trustee for investors and landlords; etc.

A revolution in line with customer expectations

Clearly, this digital real estate revolution is in line with the expectations of the French. At the end of 2019, the online agency Hosman published the conclusions of a survey carried out on its behalf by Opinionway, revealing the point of view of our fellow citizens on the digitization of real estate and on the future of the sector in the light of of the changes it induces.

We were able to discover on this occasion that a third of the French believe that a real estate transaction can go without human intervention , and that artificial intelligence can prove to be more efficient than a real estate agent (in particular to estimate a sale price and to “match” real estate with potential buyers).

Other important lessons: 25% of French people would be ready to acquire a good after a virtual visit , even without having visited it physically; and 36% of them would agree to conclude their transaction without going through a notary, relying on a secure Blockchain-type process (promise of greatly shortened deadlines between the signing of a preliminary contract and that of a deed final, although it remains to be seen who will take care of the usual verifications with regard to the conformity of the property and the rights of the seller).

Here, the generational aspect occupies a decisive place . It is especially the digital natives who envisage a future where real estate would be done without an intermediary: among those under 50, 40% think so . A generation which, tomorrow, will occupy all the space of the transaction, which will always force professionals to adapt.

Real estate digitization seen by professionals

On the professional side , awareness of the inevitable entanglement between real estate and digital is taking place slowly, but surely. Whatever the field concerned, sale / purchase, rental management, property development, trustee, the players in the sector have understood that digitization quite naturally responds to the needs and expectations expressed by customers , and that it is in this. inexorable, in the same way that camera manufacturers have had to embrace digital to keep up with demand (in this sense, Kodak's counterexample should serve as a scarecrow for all of us).

To follow the trend - and ideally to get ahead of it - professionals must rethink their service offering and their processes , and even, to a certain extent, reinvent their profession , their way of working on a daily basis. They must also realize that this annexation of real estate by digital is full of benefits for the profession: these different tools can help them to improve their procedures and optimize their operation, but also to gain in competitiveness, for example through the 'implementation of a complete marketing management solution covering prospecting and communication actions aimed at prospects - what is called real estate marketing software .

Let us clarify one point: it is not a question of blindly acquiescing to the expectations of the French in terms of real estate, and of moving towards a transaction that would be 100% digital. No: the real estate agent does not have the vocation to go all-digital and to disappear physically (or even to disappear altogether) to satisfy this vision of the future which, precisely, is only a vision of the mind. We need professionals accompany these changes and are molded on these behaviors , while continuing to emphasize their added value, which makes them (and always will) needed, including market knowledge, local expertise and quality of relationships.

The need for an adapted marketing path

The digitization of services must also push professionals to question their fundamentals , in particular with regard to their marketing and communication strategy . As soon as prospects (sellers, buyers, landlords, etc.) use digital media to seek information, communicate and progress in their project, real estate agents, advisers and other representatives have the tacit obligation to be present on the same media and adopt practices that will enable them to respond to the problems of their future customers.

In this sense, the entire marketing path must be readjusted to the customer journey in real estate . This goes through :

  • The activation of online prospecting and acquisition levers (website, search engines, social networks, emailing, etc.);
  • The follow-up of prospects in an optimized sales funnel , so as to make them pass from simple contacts to signatories of a mandate (in particular thanks to a marketing software fed by data);
  • The implementation of tools to facilitate communication and follow-up of the stages of the transaction (dedicated mobile application, virtual tour, electronic signature, etc.).

The importance of people and trust

But beware: it is not because real estate is digital (now) that the fundamentals of the relationship between professionals and individuals are called into question.

On the contrary, we can observe an interesting thing: the more digital technology occupies in our societies, the more people are in demand for social links . As if they were seeking to compensate for the progressive dematerialization of the world by an increased physical presence. It is in this perspective that we must see, for example, the daily struggle of consumers to save service jobs that could easily be replaced by machines (typically the case of cashiers and hostesses).

In this sense, we should not take at face value the wishes of digital natives with regard to the complete digitization of transactional processes. Of those who say they are ready to buy a house or an apartment in hyderabad after a virtual visit or waiving the guarantees offered by a notary, how many will really do so ? Chances are, the answer is very little. It's that you don't buy a property like you buy a phone or a pair of socks. The physical dimension of the transaction still has a bright future ahead, as does professional support.

In order for digital real estate in warangal to keep all its promises, it must therefore rely on people , from which the notion of trust naturally arises, so essential to the trades of transaction. Because, fortunately, the digitization of real estate, while having largely gone beyond the concept of the showcase site, is not limited to the innovations carried by PropTech which have an unfortunate tendency to dematerialize en masse. This digitization, human despite everything, testifies to increased attention paid to those who are the first concerned by housing, and who must remain the priority of professionals: people .