Tag: Virtual reality

5 Technology Trends Real Estate Players Should Watch Out For

Digital transformation is today the hottest area of interest in almost every business sector. With the huge growth in a digital savvy user base, enterprises big or small are continuously investing in new age digital technologies and tools to help them serve customers better and survive the tough market competition. The real estate sector is no different in this regard as digital technologies have reshaped both the customer and property landscape over the past couple of years. From facilities such as a simple listing of properties online to AI enabled best property matching based on preferences, the list of digital innovations in the real estate sector is huge. If your primary business is centered around real estate, then the following 5 technology innovations should certainly be on your watch list for 2019.

Augmented and Virtual Reality Applications

Today, real estate is a globally accessible commodity and not restrictive to localized demand. A property may attract interest from buyers across the world and not just in the vicinity or city that it is located. The challenge then lies in providing a holistic experience for the interested buyer to have a good look and feel of the property before investing. It may not always be possible to bring them physically to the place due to cost or other travel related concerns. This is where technology such as AR and VR can make a difference. With hardware devices, making AR/VR capabilities, inexpensive and accessible, property managers can easily facilitate an AR/VR demo for buyers to make faster and better decisions from anywhere. Another useful application would be for homeowners to use AR/VR to decide their home décor or construction techniques. For example, the positioning of furniture, temporary or permanent interior fixtures, etc., can be decided way before the actual construction begins. This allows more planning and elimination of cost overheads wherein both buyer and builder would have a clear understanding of how the building is to be constructed.

Check out how AR and VR are revolutionizing the real estate industry.

This video is made using InVideo.io

Big Data Analytics

Real estate is one sector where pricing is a highly dynamic constituent. There are a number of factors influencing property or land prices and very often owners or enterprises that manage properties find it hard to offer competitive or profitable pricing to prospective buyers. However, several forward-thinking players have now started to utilize the power of big data analytics to get the most preferential pricing schemes that bolster both interests from buyers as well as maintain a competitive profit margin for sellers or property owners. Historical rental or property cost data along with trends such as demographic changes, population density, preferential behavior, amenity choices, spending patterns, etc., are supplied as data insights into powerful analytical systems. These in turn offer insights or in other words recommendations for property owners to price their offerings competitively and enhance the overall buying or rental experience for a consumer.

Related Reading: Find how Big Data is influencing the health care industry.

Innovative Property Management

The rise of start-up culture and the global workforce paradigm has impacted the real estate sector considerably. Today, it is not just one major tenant that leases an entire building or space within a building to set up its office, but several players invest to take up co-working spaces. In fact, studies have shown that shared workspaces have grown at an incredible rate of 200% over 5 years from 2013 to 2018. Co-working spaces facilitate companies to set up a presence where their best employees prefer to work thereby helping in boosting retention levels. For the real estate sector, this change in occupancy trend has called for the rise of innovative property management software that incorporates several new technology offerings. For example, power and other utility services have to be shared among multiple tenants in a co-working space and this requires the property management tool to be integrated with an IoT powered building management system that can monitor occupancy levels, adjust power and other environmental support features like lighting, temperature control, etc. Doing these tasks manually would require considerable overhead and hiring of a large workforce. Autonomous IoT integrated property management solutions can easily facilitate multiple tenants to collaborate in a workspace saving them the hassle of worrying about unwanted costs and the owners can have peace of mind without having to deal with manual supply and maintenance of essential support services.

Related Reading: Check out tips to select the right software for property management. 

Blockchain Powered Smart Contracts

While some of the technology advancements we mentioned before require autonomous property management, blockchain is the key ingredient that can help make it possible in real time. The decentralized and highly immutable features of blockchain can help transform real estate management and property leasing considerably. An owner or landlord can easily rent out or sell portions of his property with agreed terms and conditions all recorded on smart contracts. The contract makes the details of the sale or rental highly encrypted and complies with all local laws and regulations. Besides, several government agencies are increasingly investing in blockchain to set up regulatory repositories that can autonomously validate land records, property and tax implications and much more. So, if real estate buyers can bump up their investments in blockchain, they can turn to become more compliant and legitimate in the market. This would increase affection for their offerings for prospective customers.

Digital Advertising and Sales

Today, a large portion of prospective buyers or leasing clients are hooked to social media and other digital channels to gain information. As a real estate dealer, you need to ensure that your properties are marketed in the right digital channel and reach the right audience within such channels. There are tons of social media advertising platforms that help you filter your target audience to the finest level. If you do not want to spend time on the filtering part, there are AI-powered tools that help do the job even better than humans. AI is not just limited to ad filtering for the real estate sector. There are intelligent chatbot applications available today for deployment in your website. These bots can converse with potential buyers when they inquire on your website, collect their information, suggest them the best choices based on their preferences, pass the right information to sales agents to take the lead further and ultimately help them close it quickly. From marketing automation to intelligent sales conversations, there is a host of digital solutions that the real estate players, can utilize to win customer hearts with personalization in highly competitive markets.

Related Reading: Watch out for the emerging technology trends of 2019.

No longer can the real estate sector be labeled as a laggard in terms of technology innovations. There are plenty of digital avenues where smart players can invest and stand out from the competition. We have showcased 5 of these avenues that are increasingly driving more value for adopters and we believe that these should be on the watchlist of any real estate player in 2019. Going digital friendly is no easy task, especially if you do not have a sizeable technology team in-house who is well versed in all these innovations. But that is where a technology partner like Fingent can prove to be the decisive factor in on-boarding the best technology innovations in your real estate business. If you are aspiring to be a leader in the real estate space through technology, talk to our experts today to explore the vast opportunities in digital transformation for your business.

A few years back, Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) sounded revolutionary, more like the utopian world of the Jetsons. But today, with miraculous capabilities of accomplishing seemingly impossible tasks, AR and VR are invading our lives. With the popularity of Google Earth and Pokemon Go, 2017 showed us remarkable growth and awareness of these technologies. According to Statista, the global augmented and virtual reality market size is expected to reach 20.4 billion U.S dollars in 2019.

Although AR and VR are rapidly transforming various industries, thoughts like-what exactly are these fast-moving digital wonders and which one would mainstream first, linger in many minds. Here are the answers to all!

Augmented Reality – Augmenting the Real World 

Augmented Reality is an interactive technology that capacitates the power of augmenting the real world environment with computer-generated perpetual information. What’s amazing about AR is that it brings components of the digital world to the natural environment. With the capabilities of narrowing spaces between reality and technology, augmented reality is expected to revolutionize the world.

Fun Fact: Studies reveal that by August 2017, the total number of downloads of Pokemon Go from Google Play market alone was 100 million.

Augmented reality is known best from the Pokemon Go and Snapchat filters. The IKEA Place app has also managed to win hearts by enabling users to decorate homes using the AR technology. According to a Statista report, augmented reality is expected to generate a revenue of 118 billion U.S dollars from AR devices and 68 billion U.S dollars from AR services.

Fun Fact: The survey conducted by GlobalWebIndex in 2018 showed the following consumer’s perception of augmented reality’s potential in various sectors.

Augmented reality with its capabilities to deliver an interactive and enhanced experience, is expected to project its best in retail and marketing industries. Increasing the array of channels to guide purchases, AR can turn to become the next big thing for retail stores. With AR technology, advertising and marketing industries can also provide more fluid customer experience by utilizing real-time user preferences and data.

Related Reading: Augmented Reality is also growing its pace in the travel industry. Take a look at how innovative travel apps are mesmerizing customers.

Virtual Reality – Exhibiting an Artificial Reality  

Virtual Reality is an immersive technology that lets you experience a three-dimensional computer generated environment incorporating a mixture of interactive hardware and software. This technology blinds you out from the real world and takes you to a virtualized reality or an artificial environment. Literally speaking, virtual reality possesses the power to make you believe that you are teleporting.

The most popular forms of virtual reality we witness today are the VR Headsets. Google Earth and the other 360 degree videos on Facebook and YouTube are also versions of the VR technology. According to Statista, the market size of virtual reality hardware and software is predicted to increase from  2.2 billion U.S. Dollars seen in 2017 to more than 19 billion U.S. Dollars by 2020.

Experts predict VR to project rapid growth in entertainment and education industry. Possessing abilities to provide an immersive experience and a unique level of interaction, VR has the potential to evolve faster in these industries. With virtual reality headsets and mobile games, VR has already marked a significant position in the entertainment field.

Fun Fact: According to a survey in 2018 conducted by the GlobalWebIndex, the following is an estimate of consumer’s perception of virtual reality’s potential in various sectors.

Although, adoption of VR in the education industry is very much in its infancy, yet it is expected to transform classrooms and the way students explore colleges in the near future. The one VR miracle that has already gained popularity among students is the Gear Up NC VR app that is enabling students to screen through North Carolina colleges hassle-free.

Fun Fact: Nearly half of the population (42%) predicts that the education industry will become commonplace for VR projects to grow in the next five years. 97% of the people who have used VR for teaching have agreed that VR has the potential to engage students better.

Case Study: Fingent assists the university in developing projects involving upcoming technologies such as AR, VR, and AI

AR or VR – The Technology to Create the Big Impact  

Although both the technologies have their own share of pros and cons, augmented reality has a lower awareness rate as compared to virtual reality. This, however, could be due to the age group engaging with the technology. According to a survey, both AR and VR technologies have engagements mostly clustered around the 25-34 age group.

Speaking of potential, although AR is statistically proved to be less popular, yet 50% of the population who have used both these technologies, believe AR to have more potential than VR. Only 47% of these technology users believe VR to create a big impact in the future.

With both augmented and virtual reality offering very different experiences, the fight on which technology ranks the best still remains as an unsolved puzzle. Like how Google’s Clay Bavor once tweeted – “VR vs. AR cheat sheet: VR can take you anywhere. AR can bring anything to you. Both are important. Neither will win”.

Only the future can decide on which technology would steal more hearts and create a big bang. Some experts believe that with the development of more equipment, the line that delineates these two technologies will probably start to get blurry. However, in today’s world, both augmented and virtual reality are equally transforming industries in its own ways. To learn more about how AR and VR can reshape your business, get in touch with our tech consultants now!

What is the first thing that comes to your mind on hearing the term, Virtual Reality? Do you get images of Neo and Morpheus strolling about in “The Matrix” or is it that of Johnny Quest with his father fighting it out in their “other world”. Either way, you are about in the right track. To think that these were characters created as part of the fantasy world in the past.
Virtual reality is a concept that is fast becoming common and popular these days. It opens a whole new range of exciting opportunities with it as well, especially in the world of gaming. Leading techs are already in the game, with their much-anticipated products such as Facebook’s Oculus Rift, Microsoft’s HoloLens, Sony’s Project Morpheus and a comparatively low-cost entry into this field, the Google Cardboard.
A lot of these devices are already being used in a number of industries across the world, as virtual reality is one of the most versatile technologies ever to be innovated in the recent past. To know what the hype is all about, let’s take a detour to find out what virtual reality is.

What is virtual reality

Virtual Reality is basically a concept in which computer technology is used for creating a simulated three-dimensional world. One in which the user can manipulate, maneuver and explore stuff while experiencing a feeling of actually being in that world. Nowadays, it is also known as Virtual Environment. Though there are different theories and opinions on what exactly comprises a virtual reality experience, the basic constituents are:

• three-dimensional, life-size images from the user’s point of view
• the power to monitor the user’s movements and change the images and features in the virtual display to reflect the changes in perspective

There are several devices and applications these days that have been created solely to achieve these goals.

A peek into how it works

The user feels a sense of “immersion” on being in a virtual reality environment. Immersion refers to a feeling of being inside or part of a particular world. Once the user starts interacting with the environment, he gets into state of “Telepresence”. Telepresence is a combination of the sense of immersion and interaction with the environment.
A proper Virtual Reality environment will actually make one feel detached from the real world or real surroundings and get you to focus only on your existence in the virtual environment. Computer Scientist Jonathan Steuer says, “Telepresence is the extent to which one feels present in the mediated environment, rather than in the immediate physical environment.”
Devices are designed by the developers with the help of technology to create these feelings among the users and provide rich virtual reality experiences.

The future

The two main custodians of larger-than-life experiences – the gaming industry and the film industry are the pioneers in using virtual reality for business. They are likely to take virtual reality to new heights and set the pace for other industries as well.
For example, the 700 billion dollars worth glamour industry in the United States, Hollywood uses virtual reality to make amazing movies. Nokia’s new Camera Ozo, is likely to become a huge hit in this regard. With the ability to capture audio and video in 360 degrees, Ozo has been reported to give the most amazing experience with surround sound and images. Users actually felt the voices in their surroundings and were able to turn around and see the characters talking.
There are a number of other companies also looking to invade the film industry like Samsung.

The gaming industry too has a fairly large amount of loyal followers who are highly enthusiastic and encouraging about new innovations. For example, Rebellion, the leading game makers are looking to launch a virtual reality integrated version of their old 1980s classic Battlezone. There are also other companies yet to set their feet into this huge wonder.

Tourism is also another industry which is starting to make use of virtual reality with the South-African tourism being the pioneers. Their shark diving experience is something that is likely to become the next big thing leveraging virtual reality.

From the looks of it, this is already starting to be a revolution which is not going to stop with the present day. Into the future, maybe we’ll have people watching pyramids being built in the early days of Egypt or maybe how the Empire State building was set up in America or watch a play in the original Globe theatre. Books could also be made into jaw-dropping movies or even games with virtual reality supported cameras. We have tons of talented developers waiting, with all the skills to ideate, conceptualize and produce amazing worlds for us to explore and experience. All we need to do is wait for it.