New technologies are springing up every day, disrupting various industries in major and unexpected ways.
The real estate industry has not been immune to these new technologies, with so much changing over the last decade. These technologies are now impacting the way real estate agents work.
With new technology comes more choice for real estate consumers when it comes to buying and selling properties.
Staying at the top of new trends will help you continue staying ahead of the game.
Without further ado, let’s take a look at the top 7 trends that are set to shake up industry this year and beyond.
1. Augmented and Virtual Reality
Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are a huge thing right now and are fast becoming a necessity for consumers.
The two technologies have huge potential in disrupting how agents showcase houses.
With virtual reality, you can now take your home buyers through a virtual tour of the houses you’re listing. They no longer have to make home visits that tend to be time consuming.
With virtual tours, potential clients can view houses from wherever in the world they are giving agents the opportunity to expand their businesses out of state because it eliminates the need for buyers to have to fly or drive for hours just to view a house.
With AR on the other hand, buyers get to use the technology to decorate a potential house using their phones or tablets to give them a real-life idea of how a home would look with their personal touch.
With these two technologies, you can close deals faster, giving you more time to chase listings.
2. Chat Bots
Chat bots have become the norm for big companies that take customer service seriously. Chat bots are changing the way businesses interact with their customers.
By utilizing chat bots, a business can greatly reduce the amount of time that employees need to interact with customers, while increasing the quality of customer support offered.
Real estate agents can automate certain services to chat bots, reducing the amount of time they need to be in the office and increasing the time they spend chasing leads and closing deals.
You can get chat bots to take care of processing customer queries, collecting leads and sending them to your CRM, setting reminders, scheduling meetings, as well as capturing important data such as current property news.
If you use them correctly, chat bots can be a key part of your marketing strategy. Add chat bots to your Facebook business page and marketing website to simplify your workload.
3. Big data
Businesses are using big data to analyze customer behavior in order to make predictions such as future purchase behavior.
Have you noticed how accurate Netflix is at suggesting shows for you or just how appropriate Facebook ads and Amazon product suggestions are to your purchasing needs? That is all because of big data.
With big data, you learn what your clients need even before they know that they need it. With such information you’re able to offer them exactly what they need increasing your chances of winning more listings.
4. Push Technology
Push technology is another trend that you need to pay attention to. With push notifications, you can easily send information that your clients are looking for to their smartphones or desktops through web push notifications.
Research has shown that push notifications double conversions, as well as customer retention.
Use push notifications to let buyers know of new listings and prices, open houses, price reduction and so on.
You can also send sellers industry news and tips to help them sell faster and at higher prices.
5. Automation
Automation is another trend that is becoming pretty popular in the real estate industry. By letting various technologies handle most of your marketing tasks such as online chat, email marketing, social media management, invoicing, scheduling meetings and so much more you get to run a business that doesn’t need you.
Freeing up more of your time will allow you to spend that extra time doing the things that actually need your attention, like hosting open houses, showing houses and closing deals.
Automation lets you take care of your administrative tasks while handling the more important business tasks, effectively giving you the chance to stay ahead of the competition.
6. Use of Drones
Drones are certainly not a new concept, but they are quickly shaking up the real estate industry. Initially popular among wedding photographers, real estate agents are now catching up and using drones to capture professional pictures and videos of homes.
With a drone, you’re able to take better pictures that capture the homes you’re listing from all angles, giving potential buyers a better view. Drones will also allow you to take high-quality videos that you can use to take buyers through a tour of the home before they get to visit it.
7. Mobile Technology
Mobile phones are fast becoming more important than desktops. People are using handheld devices to conduct internet searches more than they do desktop computers.
If you haven’t yet thought of integrating a mobile strategy in your marketing efforts, this is the year to do so.
You can start by making simple changes, such as making sure your website, images, videos and animations are mobile responsive.
Ensure that your website content is legible on mobile, and use landing pages that are mobile ready. A good practice is to keep paragraphs on your webcopy short. Use 2-3 sentences for each paragraph. Such paragraphs are easier to read.
Use large call to action buttons to make them more visible on mobile and increase your conversion.
Your emails should also be mobile responsive to increase their effectiveness. Make sure that you enable emails to be viewed on mobile devices.
Mobile responsiveness actually boosts your popularity on Google search, making it easier to find you on the search engine.
If you utilize these fast-growing technologies, you will certainly see a surge in your leads. To turn these leads into listings, you have to prepare for every interaction.
We have a pre-built listing presentation that you can modify to fit you and your marketing plan. You can get this entire presentation for $97 and customize it to how you do business… and your marketplace.
If you’d like to get your own copy of the listing presentation, just visit www.InstantListingPresentation.com.
Joe Nickelson is a real estate professional dedicated to helping home buyers and sellers achieve their dreams of owning property, and helping real estate agents stop using the sometimes-vicious tactics that weigh on their consciences. He believes that the Smart Agents books will, quite literally, change people’s lives for the better. Check out his full bio here!
