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CEO at Rex Software Anton Babkov says that there are big rewards for those who move quickly enough to keep up with the tech revolution sweeping through the industry. REB sat down with him to learn about the next tech innovations to impact the Australian real estate landscape and how you can prepare to take advantage of them.
Real Estate Business: How much will tech play in the future of Australian real estate?
Anton Babkov: It is pretty critical. It underpins a lot of the activity right now already from a customer-facing standpoint. There is a lot of back-office stuff that gets automated. I think we will see more of the kind of activity in the next five to 10 years. This will create a lot more room for client services and free up agents to spend more time with clients — client contact time, negotiating time, client feedback time.
REB: What are you seeing in the UK market?
AB: A lot more interactive customer-based technology. Online auctions have been around for a while and might become a lot more plentiful. VR, AR, self-service inspection bookings are some of the things that are happening at the moment. So, disintermediating portals to make a deeper connection between the agents and the clients on the other side.
REB: Where will this make the most immediate impact?
AB: In the area of remote purchases. Offshore buyers want to get a look at something more quickly and VR is a really interesting immersive tool, with features like 360-degree video and walkthroughs. One drawback of VR at the moment though is that the technology isn’t there, so a lot of the interesting camera tech that was set up for VR in the form of 360-degree camera tech is now being used in that form without needing a full VR experience.
REB: What other benefits will come from the VR experience?
AB: We think it will also (and it is already having this effect) move people further down the funnel as they make contact. So, people already know a lot about the data, the pricing, the suburbs, the photography of the property so they can make a judgement of whether or not they want to inspect. I think that VR helps with that even more.
Obviously, when you are selling a new apartment building, or selling a project for a land estate and giving people a view in context, it kind of helps you paint a picture in the same way that property developers have been trying to do for a long time.
REB: What other applications of this tech are we likely to see?
AB: There will be a splintering of the service that happens on the sales side. It already happens quite a lot on the property management side. One thing that we have seen in the UK that is interesting is a company that finds people that know a local area really well, and then set them up as local experts to agencies so that agencies don’t have to run property inspections themselves. It takes away some of that overhead. So in the back office, I expect we’ll see a lot more of these kinds of specialised services pop up. It turns a good agent into like a kind of conductor of a bunch of other things that are going on... people that position themselves as experts.
REB: How easy will it be to adapt to these changes?
AB: Agents that have a tech-focused mindset and a view to where these shifts are going be able to leverage these tools. Because of the consumerisation of tech, a lot of the tools are quite easy to plug in. These lightweight experiences have really democratised what small business can do, given that they can move much faster.
REB: What should the industry be doing right now?
AB: Agencies that have between 20 and 40 selling staff have a really interesting opportunity to start now looking at what more they can integrate, what more they can improve in terms of thinking in a more sophisticated way about what they can do.
REB: What are the dangers of being too slow?
AB: Well, you will go. The issues are that if people are getting in front of your clients by doing things more efficiently than you can, then you are going to face a lot of financial pressure.
If you are not getting in front of the people that are in the market, then you are going to get less business. And if you can’t deliver that business as efficiently as others can, then as commission rates drop, you are really going to struggle.
REB: What are the rewards of moving quickly?
AB: Agents are able to command higher commissions by offering better-quality services and a broader range of solutions. They are going to have a better outcome — better resourcing to hire more staff, better staff, more tech and [they can sell] to market more effectively.
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