Three Real Estate Technology Trends You Need to Know

The Pandemic’s Lasting Impact on Real Estate’s Technology Needs  

IT professionals have seen how technological needs have changed in the last few years. The most significant difference in the real estate sector is obvious: People have spent much more time at home. Real estate organizations have used enhanced technology, including artificial intelligence tools (AI), to manage this shift. 

We often advise clients that the IT industry changes every five to seven years, so being ready for the impending innovation curve is important. We’re often asked to build disaster recovery and incident response plans for clients to prepare them for catastrophes. Still, many of the most prepared were unprepared for this unprecedented public health crisis. The less prepared had no real plan. They scrambled as fast as they could with the spirit of “move fast and break things.” 

Retaining stability is ongoing, with seasoned and unseasoned real estate firms having found a sense of technological rationality. Our team has found interesting trends in real estate clients’ IT implementations. Here are three of those transformative trends with which we’ve assisted clients. 

Three Transformative Trends in Real Estate Technology  

Enhanced Video Surveillance 

With more people staying home, building owners and property management companies have had increased demands on their traditional video monitoring and access control systems. Data became significantly more voluminous, and systems couldn’t measure and manage the needs of properties with the increased number of residents, delivery people, workers, etc. 

Traditional storage of video systems has been 30 days or less. Many states now require longer retention. For example, New York State requires three years of retention to cover the statute of limitations for liability. With the courts backed up, our clients typically see legal judgments issued 12-18 months post-event. The only way to refute or substantiate a case is through properly archiving video systems. Historically, long-term storage was costly. However, with new cloud and local storage, long-term video storage is much more affordable—with many clients retaining three years of video. 

Some buildings had 24x7 monitoring. However, with the large number of people entering and exiting buildings, monitoring the number of potentially harmful triggers became overwhelming.  

To augment or replace a first line of defense, artificial intelligence-driven technologies can now power state-of-the-art cameras to detect and deter loitering and vandalism. These robotic functions monitor and alert in real time and even make announcements by placing vandal-resistant speakers. 

 AI and Deepfakes 

Although it’s impossible to predict the future, we have noticed a rise in AI and deep faking, particularly related to cyber security and real estate. It’s not a question of “will they?” but “how will they?”  

This last year has been incredibly dynamic in terms of AI and how bad actors use it to accomplish hacking techniques. These techniques have morphed from traditional “hit and run” cyberattacks to more “impersonations of people” using their voices/emails/facts about them to carry out nefarious activities.  

In a recent cyber incident, a finance person transferred millions of dollars to bad actors after being convinced by his leadership, who were all AI-generated deepfakes on a video call, to agree to the transfer. In another recent incident, a family member sent thousands of dollars to someone they thought was their family member on the phone, supposedly stuck in the wrong spot. The voice was faked so clearly that it was indistinguishable.  

Deep fakes are on the rise and a way to impersonate anyone if needed.  Given the high stakes of various elections, impersonations via AI may be the first (rather than one) tool the bad actors will use. 

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)  

Many organizations have decentralized and hired outside their traditional geographies. Core teams of investors, developers, and bankers are now having difficulty communicating effectively. 

Because many of the constituents in mortgage banking were hired quickly and had individual sales processes, our clients have been in the dark about various performance metrics. This made it difficult to effectively re-engage past customers, determine mortgage officer performance, and securely control sensitive contact information across the firm. 

Customer relationship management (“CRM”) technology can help organize the vast collection of siloed contacts, provide unified marketing, increase sales and efficiency, create key performance indicators for management, and leverage a company’s website as a new business generator. 

The Future of Real Estate Technology  

The common theme is that the real estate sector is experiencing a technology explosion in tools and software, with artificial intelligence being a driving element. Smart organizations are embracing these new technologies; however, cyber security and bad actors are still a concern. A thorough IT assessment can help organizations understand where they could benefit the most from the aforementioned technologies and solutions.