The fast-paced advancement of computing technologies and concurrent boom of data have combined to increase the capabilities and efficiency of the analytics industry. In the real estate sector, sharpened analytics translates to an increase in volume, accuracy and relevance of insights. And as big data continues to gain a foothold in urban settlements (leading to the creation of so-called smart city movements), it is expected that these insights will gain more depth and relevance.
AI- and analytics-derived insights are critical to the long-term survival of urban centers. Predictive analytics can delineate viable real estate investment opportunities while serving as a mechanism to detect and assess future market trends. Tech-based statistical analyses of this sort are currently at the forefront of the world’s sustained drive to cut costs and increase productivity with scarce resources.
Better Construction For Fewer Resources
In line with deriving the most value from the currently available pool of scarce resources, technology is also pioneering the development of novel construction procedures that utilize half the resources and time needed by conventional means to produce even better construction results. Modular, offsite and prefabricated construction, for instance, leverage economies of scale, projectwide standardization of design elements and off-site prefabrication to shunt conventional construction bottlenecks.
The result is a dynamic construction process that is operational with the tightest of resources and deliverable to virtually every construction need of the 21st century. A significant number of startups have already adopted this ingenious style of construction and with their ongoing pilot projects are already demonstrating — to critical acclaim — the nascent benefits of modular construction to the real estate industry in general.
Smarter Cities For An Efficient Real Estate System
As the internet of things, increased connectivity, cloud computing and intelligent offices/residences all converge in the 21st century smart city, they usher in a new angle to operational efficiency in the real estate market. This synergy of innovative technologies and real estate — or proptech, as it is better known — exploits the inherent capabilities of next-gen technologies to provide a richer, fuller and more fulfilling real estate experience to all stakeholders in the real estate market.
In Hong Kong, for instance, Microsoft just recently teamed up with Ricacorp to launch an AI-powered platform that allows users to locate what would be ideal homes for them. Elsewhere in the city, VR and AR are providing buyers with a redefined viewing perspective. When there’s a need to inspect homes and other properties, distance is no longer a barrier. For cities like Hong Kong, where foreign direct investment in real estate is a major source of government revenue, providing buyers with an immersive buying experience is a welcome development.
More consequentially, however, the paradigm shift from conventional city frameworks to an interconnected smart city backed up by proptech is cutting operational costs for both real estate developers and consumers themselves. It is estimated that on full implementation, intelligent cities will prosper a cost saving of almost $5 trillion in the next four years. Driving these cost savings is the pivotal redefinition of how utilities are managed both on the micro scale by the consumer and on a macro scale by government agencies.
Reimagining Urban Centers
With global population peaking to all-time highs and given the fact that more than half of the world’s population dwells in urban centers, there’s a need for a more robust urban framework to accommodate the growing needs of urban centers. Technology presents an outlet to achieve this. Smart building systems maximize available urban resources to deliver an urban fit model of housing and living that adequately caters to the needs of urban dwellers while minimizing the environmental impacts of real estate. Environmental impact in this sense connotes both the physical impression of housing/office facilities and the effects these facilities have on the immediate environment.
Today, urban centers feature highly optimized real estate setups that defy traditional housing models. When paired with improved energy efficiency, smart grids and other components of smart cities (all derivatives of technology), they provide for a suitable model to foster sustainable urban settlement.
While the concept of smart cities and smarter home designs represents the advanced applications of technology to foster sustainability, other less complex but nonetheless effective tech derivatives are also being implemented to critical acclaim. Sharing and maximizing the use of available real estate is now possible thanks to the workings of startups. Transportation is taking a new dimension with the introduction of ride-sharing services like Lyft and Uber. Sustainability is the key to the future of real estate, especially in densely populated metropolitan cities of the world. These ideas are being successfully implemented in the real estate industry and will continue to flourish under the tech-driven culture that is the current paradigm.
