How Big Data Can Help the Real Estate Industry

For decades, real estate agents have gotten to know properties one by one, then presented their selling points to potential buyers. As the number of properties for sale increases and competition in the industry increases, big data can help real estate agents stay ahead of their competition and provide the best possible information to potential buyers. 

Let’s look at several ways that big data can help the real estate industry: 

Informed Real Estate Agents Stand Out in Online Marketing

While it used to be easy enough to stay on top of all the property listings in your area, it’s becoming more difficult for agents to compete with online listing sites that have access to large amounts of data. Informed real estate agents are using big data trends to gain unique insights into the areas that they serve. This allows them to stay ahead of the curve by using this information in their online marketing efforts.

As you build a social media presence, design a website, and market your real estate business, you’ll stand out in the crowd if you have cold, hard facts about the area you work in. This solid information sets you apart from other real estate agents in your area, showing potential buyers that you care about their needs and are willing to go the extra mile to answer their questions. 

Stay on Top of Foreclosure Information

Consumers are more interested in foreclosures now than ever before, as homes that have been foreclosed on are typically for sale for a much lower rate than the going rate in the neighborhood. Big data allows real estate agents to stay on top of trends in the industry, so that they are aware of which neighborhoods are struggling, as well as where and when foreclosures are happening. These informed agents are uniquely prepared to pick up foreclosures and add them to the list of homes that they market. 

Examine Health and Safety Issues

With big data, real estate agents can examine health and safety issues surrounding properties they are attempting to sell. By accessing public records for assessments and inspections in the area, real estate agents can gain information going back for multiple years. This information can be extremely important while trying to sell a property. Whether you’re selling residential or commercial properties, it’s crucial that you have all the information available before making a presentation to a potential buyer. 

 View Industry Wide Trends

Access to big data also allows real estate agents to compile information about an entire neighborhood, street, or school district. This information can be especially useful as you advertise homes in that area to potential buyers. Trends such as average income, school successes and limitations, arrest and drug abuse statistics, and more can all be very interesting to families moving into the area, and can also impact property values. As an agent, staying on top of these local industry-wide trends can be incredibly important. 

When you’re a real estate agent, finding the best possible information for your potential clients is essential. It can be tough to do this on a property by property basis. Instead, use big data and the internet to your advantage, so that you can gather the information you need quickly and effectively, then compile it in an attractive manner. 

How Experimentation Can Fast Track Big Data Capability

As more businesses explore the vast expanse of big data utilities, it is becoming clear that big data delivers more when managers are ready to be a bit creative. For a real estate business, big data can provide many standard utilities. Standard because soon most of the real estate organizations will gain similar big data advantages—this trend is already underway. So how does a real estate business make itself unique and more competitive?

This is where experimentation comes to the fore. Big data analysis can yield lots of actionable information provided you are ready to take some chances, allow room for creative experimentation, and use data sources that seem irrelevant at first sight. Here we discuss more about how experimentation can drive better ROI for your big data investment.

Big Data is Being Widely Embraced, but Who Will Benefit More?

We understand that big data is still new for most organizations. They are approaching big data with some apprehension along with lots of enthusiasm. It is unfair to expect such businesses to get creative with big data at the outset. This doesn’t make sense, particularly when digitization hasn’t been associated with the real estate industry in a larger perspective. We realize that most businesses in this niche are finding it difficult to let go of their legacy protocols, wanting to hold on to the traditional methods of working. However, the big data voyage has begun, and soon most businesses will be at ease working in a data-driven environment.

There is another aspect to this realization—some organizations have adaptability as a part of their core skills. On the contrary, some are deep rooted in hierarchies and don’t venture beyond the realm of expected outcomes. It seems that the more adaptable businesses have a better chance of extracting better ROI from their big data adoption. The more established businesses will take time as their bigger teams and numerous offices multiply the hierarchy, breeding lesser elasticity.

Big Data can Look Ungainly, But Don’t Fret - Placate Your Team

Big data involves high volumes, mammoth disparities, and real time performance. This means lots of data is collated from various resources, including data that is highly unstructured and processed in real time. During the initial few weeks, you might feel that your big data team is trying to do too much. However, don’t have doubts about this—the typical big data environment is very challenging and to others, it can seem very perplexing.

Data analysts work together, forming strategies on the go, hungry for processing more data. Once you have established a basic level of understanding with your big data team, try to establish an experimentation policy. The idea is to make the team feel that you support a certain degree of experimentation. The team should know that running correlations or comparisons that don’t amount to any conclusive information will not be ridiculed. You can ask the team to allocate certain hours or weekdays for running experimental data studies. This is vital to discover unexplored market service combinations and unearth new consumer zones.

Buy and work leads smarter, contact only the customers you want to engage, and enable your employees to be productive. Connect with your target audience with Live Connect today!

Big Data Strategies in Real Estate

Predictive analysis and data mining are yet to become a big deal in real estate, but big data is slowly and surely penetrating this segment. Some analysts might question the relevancy of big data in a business where the consumer/homebuyer typically ventures into the market every 5 to 10 years. We argue that this is precisely the reason big data should be used in the real estate niche.

Why Remaining Connected with Customers is Necessary?

Property purchase decisions are heavily impacted by the goodwill a business can generate and sustain. Here, consumer preferences don’t undergo overnight changes like those seen among fast-moving consumer goods. Real estate industry has a special space for references where past clients are invaluable. Having happy, if not loyal, clients can translate into feeding other lines of business like refinancing. If you can maintain a connection with your past clients, many more serious queries are likely to flow from friends, family members, office colleagues, and even neighbors.

Some folks argue that typical retail businesses, like apparel, have more to benefit from big data rather than real estate. Let us take an example to argue our point here—a young family of four with working parents is expecting another child. Such information is often announced in the form of social media updates. A retail business can use this data to send emailers and SMS with links to newborn clothing range. Now, how can a real estate business use similar data?

When a baby is on the way, it is most likely that the mother has taken temporary leave of absence. There is going to be lesser money to pay the bills. With the newborn retail niche overburdened with branded products, the expenses are also likely to rise. Limited to a single income and facing more expenditure, the family might seriously consider refinancing to save money. With three children, they might reconsider moving to a bigger property.

A real estate business can make relevant interaction by emailing pictures of bigger accommodations with more study rooms and better schools. This strategy is a combination of tracking social media conversations and hyper-targeted marketing. Here, a single Facebook update can lay the basis for a new sale or at least create a very serious home-buying or refinancing query.

There is more to tracking consumers’ social media behavior. Online experts now offer targeted social media analysis. They identify audiences whose recent shopping behavior suggests a definite buying capacity. Home purchases might be offline, but online consumer behaviors can help real estate businesses identify more, promising consumers.

Big Data Strategies Deliver but Be Patient

The strategies we discussed above take time. Signing up with a social data analysis firm doesn’t mean that you will be overwhelmed with a glut of serious queries. This is a gradual process where hurrying into decisions can mean disaster. Secondly, keeping past customers engaged isn’t easy. This is particularly true for real estate where the consumer-connect is soon lost after the transaction. This is where data-sharing practices can solve the problem.

If you are ready to share data about the payment pattern or the mortgaging history of past clients, you can get valuable information in return. For instance, some of your past customers might be avid environmental enthusiasts. You can start a small blog or a newsletter about green building practices. Here, you reason to seek an association is logical since you are in the housing niche. Among consumers, such information is less likely to be spammed because it is relevant to them. The e-mailer/newsletter can carry a small, hyperlinked logo, directing the browser to your parent website.

Buy and work leads smarter, contact only the customers you want to engage, and enable your employees to be productive. Connect with your target audience with Live Connect today!