Real estate is one of the oldest industries in the world. People have always needed a place to live and call home. Although real estate as we know it has not actually been around since the dawn of man, it has been in existence for several decades, and because of this, it has had time to develop and change drastically. Due to the recent advancements in technology, real estate has a very bright future, but I wanted to take a moment to look back at some of the tech that has changed real estate over the years.
Internet
To be fair, the introduction of the Internet didn’t solely affect real estate; the entire world was given the ability to communicate instantaneously with one another and, naturally, this astounding technology greatly impacted various aspects of society. It’s not everyday that such a versatile and unique invention comes along, so when the Internet was created and then permeated throughout the public, it changed almost every major industry, real estate included.
Like most professional industries, real estate was impacted greatly by email. Before then, realtors could only communicate via telephone, physical mail or in person. With email, realtors and clients could communicate at all hours of the day, instantaneously. But the biggest advancement for real estate has to be the ability to utilize online real estate sites for listing and buying homes. The Internet allowed for sellers, buyers and realtors to truly take control of their listings. Sellers can upload photos of their listings to sites like Zillow or Homes and give potential buyers an idea of the home before they even visit for a showing; buyers can get great feedback on realtors from actual users in order to make informed decisions; the Internet truly allowed for major progressions in real estate that helped streamline the process of buying and selling a home.
Social Media
Without the Internet, we wouldn’t have social media, but I still feel as though social media has become its own separate entity. It may be hard to believe it, but social media in its most basic form, was invented in 1997 with the creation of a website called Six Degrees. Since then, we’ve had a complete digital and social revolution with sites and applications like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram taking over the majority of the world’s Internet users. Coincidentally, each of these social media profiles has allowed for new and exciting ways for realtors to reach out to potential buyers. With Facebook, realtors can host live viewings of their listings and showcase the house to hundreds of viewers in order to accommodate almost any schedule; with Twitter, realtors can give quick updates to listings in real-time; with Instagram, realtors can host a variety of videos and photos of their listings. And each of these platforms allows for realtors to communicate directly with their clients at all times.
There have been a bevy of technologies to release that have drastically impacted real estate, however, I feel as though these two technologies have done the industry a great deal of service. I may discuss these other technologies in a later blog.