This week's Product Roundup just so happens to take place wholly in Asia.
We'll start in China, where an AI assistant has received great reviews from Anjuke...
Xing Hongyu, CTO at Anjuke, has delivered a keynote speech explaining the success of an AI assistant that has been rolled out to Anjuke, the Chinese real estate portal operated by 58.com.
According to Hongyu, the AI assistant has served hundreds of thousands of brokers and brought more intelligent, more technological and high-quality services to more than 10 million house-hunting users.
Xiaoan Assistant improves the efficiency of agents through tools such as smart listing, smart micro-chat, and smart follow-up of business opportunities. Agents only need to enter the listings into the system, and Xiaoan Assistant can intelligently analyze the platform's customer demand for housing and the distribution of listings, and provide guidance to agents on listings.
Brokers can easily make professional house-viewing videos. When a broker records a video of a property, the AI can intelligently identify the house space layout, home appliances and furniture, and other decoration conditions, and intelligently generate the content of the house-viewing, video cover and subtitles. AI house-viewing videos have been played more than 100 million times.
Meanwhile, an intelligent micro-chat function can realize automatic replies, respond to customer inquiries promptly when the broker is busy, and can also provide professional speech suggestions when the broker replies autonomously.
Xing Hongyu said:
"The application of the Xiao An assistant is based on our analysis of the behaviour of large mass of users on the platform. It closely follows the complete service chain of real estate marketing and revolves around high-quality housing data."
Xing Hongyu also said that since its launch, the smart Xiaoan assistant has brought significant improvements to brokers in terms of work efficiency, call retention rate, and response time.
AtHome.jp now has partnerships with 53 rent guarantee companies after signing up two new partners, Insurance Co. and Entrust Co, for its 'Smart Application' service which allows online applications for rental properties.
AtHome.jp will continue to work to expand collaboration with rent guarantee companies, provide a comfortable environment for consumers looking for housing, and promote further operational efficiency and digital transformation in the real estate industry.
Tenants making Smart Applications can have their information such as name and address linked to rent guarantee companies allowing for east and speedy review requests.
Previously, when applying for a guaranteed review with a rent guarantee company, handwritten application documents were sent by fax or mail, which required work such as checking for deficiencies, but the ability to link application information through "Smart Application" not only reduces the workload and costs but also shortens the lead time from application to the start of the review.
The April 2020 amendment to the Civil Code made it mandatory for guarantors to disclose the maximum amount. The use of rent guarantee companies, which pay rent in advance in the event of rent arrears, is expanding.
According to a survey conducted by AtHome.jp in April 2024—of AtHome affiliates nationwide involved in rental brokerage and rental management—69.8% of respondents said that they use rent guarantee companies in more than 80% of all rental transactions.
PropertyGuru has launched a reality TV show, Home Run, joining American real estate Zillow (Zillow Gone Wild) as a real estate portal with a branded TV show.
Home Run, set to be hosted on YouTube, will pit three agents in competition against each other to see who is the top agent in Singapore. The winner will take away a prize of $15,000 in PropertyGuru credits.
The show debuts on November 25. Watch the trailer below!
Another notable real estate portal with a TV show is REW in Canada, which has a Netflix-style branded real estate series, "RealTours", also hosted on YouTube and specialising in Canadian real estate.
Saudi Arabia-based proptech company Wasalt has entered strategic collaborations and signed memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with three local property developers.
Wasalt will partner with Dar wa Emaar, Fursan United, and Maskan Arabia Company—the latter two of which offer real estate investment services.
Proptech company Bayut, part of the Dubizzle Group) has signed a strategic collaboration deal with Riyad Bank—which is majority-owned by the country's government.
The deal will see Bayut KSA provide real estate services to the bank, including access to Bayut's real estate marketplace, real estate agency finder, new projects segment, interactive map viewer, drive time feature and 360 degree virtual property tours.
Bangladesh's leading real estate portal, BProperty, has partnered with Sheba.xyz, a services marketplace, to bring priority access and exclusive discounts on essential services to its clients.
Under this partnership, Bproperty clients can avail of various discounts from 2 per cent up to 20 per cent on 53 different services of Sheba.xyz. Clients of Bproperty would be in the privileged position to receive all such services from Sheba.xyz, including cleaning, plumbing, electrical, and maintenance work.
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