How Technology is Changing the Real Estate Business Landscape

ESV Hassan Sadauki Kibiya

To argue that technology is fast changing the real estate landscape is to say the least. Over the years, technology has been changing the entire business landscape, including the real estate space.

Globally, real estate brands have been leveraging technology in serving their array of clients in the entire value chain of real estate business. Real estate businesses are becoming technology driven, allowing the industry to deliver top-notch services to the real estate consumers.

In advanced and Less Developed Countries (LDCs) of the Word, professionals in the real estate space are increasingly deploying hi-tech technologies that integrate their entire business operations like leasing, development, maintenance, sales, listing, and marketing. One area that technology has affected so positively in the real estate industry is marketing. With the advent of social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tiktok, real estate marketing has been taken to a new pedestal that allows the real estate professionals and consumers to connect, interact, and close deals in a most seamless manner. Digital marketing in the real estate business has come to stay, and for real estate brands that are forward thinking, there is no better time to embrace digital marketing than now. Take real estate video marketing for instance, no better option is more preferred by prospects and clients to video marketing.

Technology, simply defined, is the systematic application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes as it relates to the real estate space in this case has helped the industry to grow in leaps and in bounds. With the help of technology, soft wares upon soft wares have been developing for real estate services across the ecosystem. Virtually all aspects of real estate today have technologically driven software that helps in providing the needed solution.
In surveying and evaluation, which is exclusively and legally assigned to estate surveyors and valuers by law, modern valuation software is changing the narratives of valuation from primitive to top-notch, thereby giving all stakeholders the accurate result and value. And the report can be interpreted to clients, even to a larger audience with the help of web conferencing tools like Zoom and Skype.

On how the Nigerian real estate practitioners can leverage technology in their business transactions, there is a need to bridge the huge knowledge and skill gaps in most real estate firms as far as technology is concerned. Firms should adopt the development of staff and the deployment of technology as a long term strategy. The professional bodies in the built environment should encourage technological skill acquisition in their various professional bodies.

The government at all levels has a pivotal role to play in this regard. The needed congenial business that will entrench technologically driven businesses should be put in place. Government agencies that are saddled with the regulation of the real estate sector cum businesses should encourage the use of technology. One of the ways in which the Nigerian real estate sector can compete favorably with its global competitors is to fully tap into the vista of opportunities as provided by modern technology.
ESV Hassan Sadauki Kibiya, is a registered Estate Surveyor and Valuer. He sent in this piece from Kano, Nigeria.