Real estate agency is both a labor-intensive industry and an information-intensive industry.
"Labor-intensive" and "information-intensive" seem to be contradictory concepts, but they are harmoniously unified in real estate agencies.
Just imagine, when home buyers face and screen a dizzying amount of real estate information, including location, apartment type, supporting facilities, property management, appreciation space, etc., real estate agencies have an impact on the final decision of home buyers, in fact, relying on information. This is achieved by selectively outputting the information that homebuyers need without reciprocity - that's why we call it "information intensive".
When the buyer proposes to visit the model house and experience the housing facilities, the real estate agency needs to coordinate the time, allocate manpower to accompany the customer, and continue to output information in the process, so we can call it "manpower" dense".
Excerpted from the Colliers International report "The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on the Real Estate Industry"
With the sharp rise in labor costs and the iterative upgrading of information technology, this industry characteristic of real estate agencies makes it "natural" with the possibility of being replaced. According to the statistics of the report "The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on the Real Estate Industry" released by Colliers International at the end of last year, the probability of real estate agents being replaced by machines within 20 years is as high as 86%; in other words, in the near future , Robots or AI will most likely replace humans as the best real estate agency of the year for various real estate companies. A number of game changers have joined the real estate agency, an ancient and traditional industry closely related to life.
REX - Real Estate Exchange. This California-based real estate brokerage company is trying to apply the latest artificial intelligence and machine learning technology to the real estate brokerage process, and has achieved breakthroughs in traditional real estate brokerage companies in the following two aspects:
(1) Actively seek potential buyers. In the past, real estate agencies only passively displayed information about house sales, waiting for interested buyers to come to the door, while REX can use AI deep learning network platforms (Zillow, Trulia) real estate based on the information provided by sellers Buying information, accurately match potential buyers for customers, and advertise to them in a targeted manner, thus greatly improving the efficiency of house sales.
(2) Intelligent property navigation. When the owner entrusts REX to sell the house, the company will install a guide robot in the owner's home. The robot can partially replace the human intermediary, answering questions for potential buyers when visiting the house, and providing real estate-related information on the interactive interface, This greatly saves the labor cost of the intermediary company. With the assistance of AI, REX not only avoids the inefficient waste of advertising resources, but also invests the saved labor costs into businesses with higher added value, so they significantly reduce the commission from the traditional 6% to 2% It's not surprising that it's left or right.
Zenplace. Similar to REX, this company is also committed to being intelligent in the tour guide to save labor costs to the greatest extent; however, Zenplace pays more attention to the interpersonal communication factor in the tour, and their approach is to place a A mobile robot, the display screen of this robot can not only directly connect with the real estate agent in the company's headquarters, but also the real estate agent can freely control the movement of the robot to lead potential customers to visit the house and communicate in real time. The information required by the customer is pushed on the screen, and even the customer can directly complete the relatively cumbersome purchase or rental procedures through the built-in application of the robot. In fact, this is just one part of Zenplace's AI-driven smart home and property management business.
VirtualAPT. This technology company from New York is trying to use VR technology to simplify the tour of real estate agents. They use self-developed VR shooting equipment to provide real estate agents with high-quality VR videos of their houses for sale, so that they can be easily Provide potential home buyers with an immersive tour experience on the premise of leading customers on-site. For only 50 cents per square foot, the real estate agent can achieve a win-win situation where both the real estate agent and the potential client need not be present at the same time.
At present, most of China's real estate intermediary industry is still in the stage of simple display of online platform information and small-scale commercial promotion, which is seriously out of line with the current state of strong demand in China's real estate market. In this wave of technology represented by artificial intelligence, it is expected that relevant practitioners including the above three companies will reshape the ecology of real estate agencies from the following three aspects:
The sales information accurately matches potential customers. Real estate intermediaries in the era of big data must use AI to collect, analyze and evaluate potential house purchase and sales information in order to continue to maintain the information advantage in intermediary activities, accurately locate potential customer groups, and provide them with customized business information. Shorten the sales cycle and increase the turnover rate.
The virtual assistant optimizes the shopping guide consultation link. As a consulting service industry, traditional real estate intermediary activities generally require the presence of brokers and clients at the same time. Such efficiency is somewhat outdated in the era of artificial intelligence. With the help of VR, virtual assistants and other means, the repetitive work of shopping guide consultation can be greatly reduced, helping intermediaries to concentrate on solving customers' personalized problems.
Digital paperwork shortens the real estate buying and selling process. In the process of buying and selling houses, a large number of legal documents and certification materials need to be signed. Natural language processing and image recognition technology can quickly scan transaction documents, and digitally process and process the information. Both the operator and the intermediary can save many time-consuming and laborious steps in the process.
China's urbanization is still in the process of accelerating. Although the policy has one or another control over the real estate industry, it is foreseeable that for a long period of time in the future, the purchase of a house will still be the rigid demand of ordinary people. Smarter and more flexible real estate intermediaries are the current market needs and the meaning of the further development of urbanization.