I thought I would post what could be a glimpse of real estate in the future. This is going to be part of some posts I do on how the real estate industry might change in the future. This is just an exercise in ideas and creativity.
The Home Buying Process
The home buying process becomes completely web-centric. In fact, there is something called a Home Core Page for each property across the internet. The Home Core page is address-specific and represents a known capture for the entire web-published history of the property. The information is presented in such a way that allows for home buyers (and anyone interested for that matter) to get a very quick understanding of a home, its characteristics, photos and other imagery, and property values.
What the Home Core site shows for a home:
- All pictures and photos for the property across the entire web taken at any time.
- Full satellite imagery for the property and identifying points of interest. This would include Google Streetviews, Microsoft bird’s eye views, and any other information. Imagery could be dated to show time elapsed. Streetview information is combined to allow for the entire neighborhood to be zoomed into for a virtual community tour. This would include virtual tours that have been posted to the web.
- All recorded tax information for the property.
- Calendar of events going on in the vicinity of the home.
- Environmental or “green” improvements to the property. This would tie in to service vendor system to provide detailed work-order information for the property that is entered by service vendors and contractors. This could tie in to a “Green Rating” score that would compare the home’s green standing to those of nearby properties.
- Remodeling and other improvements to the property. This would tie in to service vendor system to provide detailed work-order information for the property.
- Repair history of the property. This would tie in to service vendor system to provide detailed work-order information for the property.
- Owner history on the property. Shows all previous owners, what they paid, improvements they made, etc.
- Utility usage including averages based on a Smart Grid technology. Users would be able to drill down into exact usage for the home as well as identify who provides key services to the property.
- Local weather information provided.
- It would provide local disclosure information on the property in terms of airports, parks, schools, demographic information on the area, and other information pertinent to residents.
- For future construction of homes, the property layouts and architectural details could be included.
- Information on whether the property is for sale or rent.
The Home Core site is a compilation of any and all datasources that can become essentially a home’s website, as full with information and specific to that property as a Facebook page would be.
The Home Core portal would be available for any property address where information exists regardless of whether the property is currently for sale or not. It can become the digital personality of the home itself and be “owned” by the homeowner to some degree. The owner would retain the ability to market the property here which would then tie into a broader collection of properties for sale in the area. In some sense, this would be owner driven marketing. However, the question of contracts and other duties more aptly performed by a real estate professional would be the piece to understand and evolve.
When the buyer enters the house, they are greeted by a kiosk that the owner has set up the shows the Home site for the property. The screen is a 27 inch thinline monitor (only about 1/2 inch thick and ultralightweight) touch oriented and allows the buyer to access the Home Core page where every bit of recorded and known information on the house is presented.
The Home Selling Process
Because of the extensive property information that can be consolidated into one main view, one can imagine that the homeowner has control over their property. So, it isn’t hard to imagine the ability to post the property for sale.
Now, visibility of the property being for sale typically involves a Multiple Listing Service rather than as a For Sale by Owner. However, given the proliferation of information across the web, the web can essentially become the repository of all information on every home. As such, search capabiities in the search engines would collect any information that indicates the home is for sale and compile it in a place that allows for buyers to find it. For instance, think of the Home Core site being tapped into a compilation of homes in the neighborhood for sale which are then tapped into a zip code of homes for sale and so on. If the data becomes prolific on the web, there is all the expectation that it will be searchable, sortable, and synthesized into user-friendly tools for review by buyers and sellers.
In some sense, the development of the web would be the cracking of MLS as we know it.
Where Do the Realtors Go?
For the professionals in the business who believe that each real estate transaction can indeed be very complex and does require negotiation and expertise that can’t be automated, these people will work to hone their negotiation skills and other expertise and build niches for themselves in the marketplace.
There is certainly still a place for Realtors in this picture though what that would be is less clear. Because the web and information on the web will be ubiquitous, Realtors may not be needed for the marketing aspects of selling a property and more the above in order to navigate the many aspects beyond marketing a home for sale or purchasing one.
Would Information on Homes for Sale Be Scraping?
There is a term referred to as ‘scraping’ whereby a search tool or website pulls in information on homes for sale from sites licensed by the various MLS tools and presents them. The National Association of Realtors recently has taken issue with Google for their belief that Google ‘scrapes’ MLS information from other sites and presents that information to searches in violation of MLS licenes.
In the future, the information on a property could be gathered to the point that a separate home marketplace begins to take form outside of any MLS as mentioned above. There won’t be any scraping as the website and information it contains will largely be in the public domain.
Just a Glimpse
This is just a fun post to talk about how the web may work in the future to consolidate all searchable information into a synthesized fully-functional portal for that information. It is the next generation of search – to synthesize into a useful format all those search results that currently exist today.
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