Ravi Chandran
Robot property agents may be a stark reality in the not so distant future
Buoyed by the prospects of decreasing interest rates, positive sentiment and increasing prices property prices in Singapore have rebounded. The buoyant property market, is shining the spotlight on the maddening and painful home buying process. California based investment advisor, Ross Gerber, believes that to fix to the inefficiency of the home buying process, the real estate industry has to adopt what the stock, bonds and commodities market have had for a long time.
“The real estate industry desperately needs what stocks, bonds and commodities investors have had for decades: a transparent, predictable and liquid market that not only captures supply and demand dynamics but allows for expeditious, low-cost and hassle-free transactions. Such a market would increase activity, lower broker fees and make it easier for homeowners to unload properties.”
He adds: “Although creating a truly electronic real estate market has many challenges, if the major players in the market get together and create this exchange it would revolutionize a truly inefficient market. It would help consumers by lowering costs and fees as well as creating a much more efficient market to buy real estate. Buyers will really get the house they want without the personal issues of the seller and sellers will know that their house will actually sell, although they must accept the true market price of the house. With more transactions, less hassles and standardized paperwork and procedures, this electronic real estate market will revolutionize the industry.”
Robot property agents a reality
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A 2013 study by Oxford University estimated that artificial intelligence (AI) has a 98 per cent chance of replacing estate agents and hence making home buying process that much simpler. In the US alone, by late 2016 US$1.8 billion had been invested in real estate tech start-ups, and it hasn’t slowed up since. The Singapore Government is cognisant of the need to keep up with changes which will be seeping the real estate industry by introducing the Industry Transformation Map (ITM).
The National Development Ministry earlier said that its goal of promoting such tools is for property agents and property portals to be able to automatically verify key details all with the click of a button. The Ministry believes that this will be an opportunity for firms a well as agents to undertake significant process innovation to become more productive. And at the same time make the process so much more efficient, effective, transparent, and competitive.
Very soon, AI will have an impact on traditional real estate business operating models. Whether this impact turns out to be positive or negative depends largely on how real estate players will use them to their advantage to make the home buying process simpler for the consumer.
More and more local real estate players are developing proptech and AI to make home buying process simpler and with that, robot property agents will become a reality and human real estate agents will face the increasing prospect of their jobs being displaced by automation in an already overcrowded market.
New technology that is being developed by established listing platforms and startups may give rise to robot property agents ultimately edging human agents out of the picture. Mr Paul Ho, chief mortgage consultant of iCompareLoan said that in this new landscape where robot property agents are on the horizon, human agents “must upgrade or die”. He believes that agents must adopt technology and automate their workflow or risk being replaced by automation, technical tools and robot property agents.
Mr Ho said that iCompareLoan’s Home Loan Report is one such tool agents can make use of to augment their services.
The Home Loan Report tool is a Singapore’s first one-of-a-kind analysis platform that provides latest updates of detailed loan packages and helps property agents, financial advisors and mortgage brokers to analyse home loan packages for their clients and give unbiased home loan / commercial loan analysis for their property buyers and home owners.
As buyers of the future grow more discerning, agents cannot afford to just rely on their personality or their experience to attract clients. Buyers and sellers of the future will increasingly rely on agents to have knowledge on property finance calculations and this is where the Home Loan report comes in.
This trademarked tool is a one-stop solution that can help deliver a detailed home loan report to property agents in 3 minutes flat.
This is especially helpful when agents who do not have knowledge on property finance calculations make cold calls to potential clients and need to have a thorough analysis at hand in order to best direct each client on what their property buying and selling options are.
Such a report will not only help agents deliver the best possible property options to their clients, it will also help prevent the agent or potential buyers or sellers from wasting each other’s time since they already have all the information they need on the potential client’s buying or selling prospects at hand.
Mr Ho asserted that property agents who want to continue working in the industry must set themselves apart and position themselves as thought leaders, especially in this day and age where digital marketing largely drives the economy.
What’s especially good about the trademarked Home Loan Report is that the more agents use tool, the more traffic it will bring to the agency’s website. This feature is great for leads capture and brand recognition.
If you want more information on our trademarked Home Loan Report, just email our chief mortgage consultant, Paul Ho, with your name, email and phone number at paul@icompareloan.com.
If you are home-hunting, our Panel of Property agents and the mortgage consultants at icompareloan.com can help you with affordability assessment and a promotional home loan. The services of our mortgage loan experts are free. Our analysis will give best home loan seekers better ease of mind on interest rate volatility and repayments.
