Spain: Technologies that revolutionize the real estate market

This article was written and published in Spanish and has been translated into English via Google Translate. Click here to read the original article.

Technology in the real estate sector has received investments equaling of almost $4,000 million since 2019 started, according to data from the US consultancy CB Insights.

Although it may seem one of the most stagnant economic sectors, real estate is stretching at a dizzying pace and thousands of startups are developing improvements to make it more attractive to customers.

For this reason, in Business Insider Spain we have deepened in which are the most relevant areas towards which these technological innovations are being directed at the international level: from drones to control properties to visits to virtual reality homes or platforms in which to carry out all the purchase process

"When we talk about technology in real estate, we're really talking about a year or a year and a half ago ... that time you were crazy when you started talking about this, but it was already starting to sound, and now it is when I really am seeing an involvement of the traditional companies in the technology and when they are already seeing that yes that it has an effect ", indicates the real estate manager in the Citibox app and proptech expert Alfredo Díaz-Araque.

In that sense, the first step of the companies has been, without a doubt, "very simple things, like everything related to marketing," says Diaz-Araque, as has been the case of web portals or show flashy reality glasses virtual in the fairs of the sector, "but with the rest of technological applications is a path that still remains to walk," he says.

The real estate sector was digitized with the arrival of web portals that allowed those interested to see photographs of real estate, read its technical details and contact owners without having to physically go to an estate agent or go through the streets looking for signs of " sells "or" rents ".

Since then, the proptech, or technology applied to real estate is a niche market that does not stop growing.

"Last year there were $ 3,419 million of investment in technology in real estate and growing," says the digital director (CDO) of the real estate consultancy CBRE, Christopher Ulled, citing data from CB Insights.

Likewise, Ulled refers to the map of the proptech in Spain of Finnovating, which has registered 259 important Spanish-only startups in the sector (and estimates that it will employ 7,500 people in Spain in 2019).

And a study by Juniper Research points out that only the proptech platforms for rents will enter 6.5 billion dollars in five years.

However, then, what major technological changes are renewing the sector? Is real estate taking on the arrival of robots, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, which is landing in other markets? We ask the experts what are the most innovative technologies that are being applied:

Visit homes through the computer

 Virtual reality is the main technological innovation that is being implemented in the sector to get closer to the customer (beyond the already very entrenched real estate portals), as the experts agree, although it still has a long way to go.

"In the sector there are many virtualization solutions, and in Spain there are many startups that have focused on that: there is almost a saturation of them," says Ulled, from the consultancy CBRE.

Matterport is one of the leading companies in virtual reality technology within the sector, according to Forbes, which allows you to "visit" a home through the web thanks to an impressive tool very similar to Google Street View (here you can see an example) . In addition to the visit to the home, you can attach explanatory notes or links, so that by double clicking on the marble countertop in the kitchen you can check its brand and price, and the same with the windows or lamps in the house.

In Spain, the real estate company from Madrid Gilmar uses the technology of this company from San Francisco (USA) so that customers can visit some of their properties on their website (like this one). They also use Idealist (as in these houses) and Colonial (as in this tour of their offices).

Other companies that have developed technology to show homes with virtual tours are Floorfy and Archimia.

Virtual reality glasses, on the other hand, are not very widespread. "At the level of marketing or fairs, this type of thing does apply, but then nobody goes to an estate agent to see houses through virtual reality glasses," Ulled explains. "It is very good and it attracts attention, but it has little practicality," he remarks.

This article was written and published in Spanish and has been translated into English via Google Translate. Click here to read the original article.

Join us in Bangkok the 19th to the 21st of March for the Property Portal Watch Conference.