Swipe Right: Tech’s Impact on Real Estate -08

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How do you feel about technology? I mean, are you super excited and really into it, or does it kind of give you the ebee jeebies? Today, we're discussing the ups and downs of the latest tech trends in the real estate world and where we think things are headed. Tune in.

You're listening to Real Estate Energized, where real estate meets real life. I'm Dill Ward.

And I'm Nicholas Nascimento, and we are not just realtors. We're your guides to the world of real estate with a deeper twist.

If you're thinking about moving sometime in the future, are already in motion with an upcoming move, or are a real estate professional who recognizes there's more depth to real estate than just a transaction, then join us on a journey as we unlock the real stories of personal growth that happens while buying and selling real estate.

Each week, we'll bring you unique perspectives and profound life lessons we've seen through our clients and our own experiences. Let's get started.

So, Dill, what do you think of this house?

It's like a weird smell. It just and the carpet, I mean, come on. Like, shampoo your carpet, please. What? I mean, why do they have so many dog statues in there?

They, no. Dill, there's a ring camera.

A what?

So, is this you? Have you found yourself in a scenario where you're in a house, you're talking about it. You realize that there's a camera within earshot of you, and you just figure, oh, crap. What did I just say over the last 20 minutes?

I know. Technology is literally everywhere, and I can't believe I mean, especially with how many packages everybody gets now. Everybody has a ring camera so they can track their packages. But in the real estate environment, it can be a real liability.

Liabilities aside, the benefits are obvious. Like, it's great to know when things get there. It's great to know when your partner's home, and, you know, it's great to know when there's, like, somebody lurking around your front door that you don't know and you wish you didn't know they were there to begin with because, honestly, it's not great to know that there's people lurking around your house, but it's good to know if you're concerned about that.

I mean, I have had so many different conversations with agents over the past couple years about situations where their clients we're listening in to every visit to the house and then narrating play by play. First, they walked in. They didn't take their shoes off. Why didn't they take their shoes off? Then they were looking at my books on the bookshelf. Like, they get so obsessed about what's happening during the showing.

For all of its benefits, it can be a bit distracting from the benefits of, you know, just getting people into the house and finding out what they think through the opinion, the filtered opinion of another real estate professional who's going to sugar coat the best parts for you.

Yeah. Speaking of getting to the house, let's talk a little bit about the evolution of all the apps and all the ways that we can, you know, look at 200 homes while lying in bed and I really think that it's kind of cool because back in the day, you would take someone out to see some houses in an entire afternoon, maybe you could see 7 or 8 houses, and then they would have, like, that amount of information to choose from. But now, before someone has even stepped foot into a house, they have looked at hundreds of homes. And let's face it. When you run out of homes to look at, you just start looking in other cities. You're like, oh, maybe, that completely across the country. I wonder what houses they're going for.

Yeah. It's strange how quickly you can go from looking at, like, I mean, where we're at in Portland to just like, you know what? Maybe I want to live in Minneapolis instead. And you just, like, spread out and everything in here and there and in between can become an opportunity for you to look at. And you can get very detailed information about houses because technology is so advanced that you can actually walk around a house. And I'm sure that soon enough, we're going to have some VR headsets accommodating just doing tours of a house where you actually feel like you're walking through it.

Yeah. I mean, right now, it's kind of required. You know? People want to know what the floor plan is. During the pandemic, we sold so many homes while people were sitting on their couch somewhere else in the country and I like to say realtors really became infotainers. You know? We had to be funny, and we had to be informative, and we had to tell them what it smelled like. And, you know, the ability to do virtual video calls became the technology got better. The Internet bandwidth got better. All of these things have really evolved the knowledge and information that a buyer has coming into to the market more than ever. They may have been looking at lineup properties for years before they ever actually stepped in and wanted to consider buying.

Yeah. And, largely, like, it's not that it hasn't ever been impossible for people to visualize what houses look like from afar, but the new impact, it kind of gives, like, more detailed perspective on like, you can actually go into the apps, and you can measure like, you can estimate how big a window is if you want to try and figure out what curtain you're going to hang there. Like, I remember in the last house we bought, we were sitting there, like, measuring out each room, trying to figure out, well, how many square feet of wood floor are we going to have to get for this room? And it was wild. Like, the amount of detailed information you can get from technology right now on a house you're going to buy can be overwhelming sometimes.

Yeah. I want to give a shout out to Hannah if she ever listens to this, I'm so glad that she sprung for the 3D on the house that we bought because I'm pretty sure we logged a lot of hours analyzing every square inch. Zooming in, looking at baseboards, and looking at electrical outlets and counting where the outlets were and just getting so obsessive. Because what else are you going to do in 30 days while you're waiting to buy your house?

It's true. But then there's some ways where, like, technology can stump us. Like, when you go into a house and it has a smart breaker board or, you know, the electrical panel is it's got, like, blinking lights, and it's got, like, you know, Wi-Fi levels. And you're like, hold on a second. This is the first time I've seen one of these.

Okay. You're talking about our house again, and I'm just going to put a, you know, throw a little shade. In our house, Nicholas has gone so crazy. Every single light switch is controllable by our phone. But the one problem is then you can't just switch the light switch on the wall because now you're messing up the system in the app. So, like, it’s great, and it's super cool because I can turn lights on when I'm at my office. But at my house, I can be turning lights on and off. But it's kind of annoying when I'm in the house and I don't have my phone and I just want to, like, hit a button.

Though, as a seller, it's really beneficial when you're, like, thinking about, well, I've got somebody who's going to go and look at the house, and it's going to be at least a day or 2. I'm out of town, so it'll be a day or 2 till I'm back at my house. So, what if they leave all the lights on? And if you have smart switches in your house, then you can just shut it all off from afar. You can be in Hawaii and turning the lights off on your home.

Warming it up.

You can warm it up. Yeah.

Put on some music.

Oh, yeah. You know?

I mean, we are at a really interesting time in the evolution of technology because we've got some early adopter type folks who are just going all in on every smart home thing there is. At the same time, we still have a market for people who don't want any technology, who are, like, afraid of keyless entry. You know? They're like, this is not safe. And I've had clients where they're going to purchase, and the seller is making such a big deal about the value of all the smart home stuff and the buyer's like, yeah. I'm going to rip that out immediately. So, it's an interesting time where the valuation of these upgrades, these smart home upgrades, how different people perspective.

In a lot of ways too, the you know, you kind of have to have a mixture of, like, high-tech and a little bit more of the medium tech. Like, it's ideal to have Ethernet cables around, and it's great to have, you know, lights that are on Wi-Fi controls and to have your thermostat being controlled by some smart computer. But, yeah, in the end, the user that you're going to appeal to is going to be the buyer if you're in a selling mood, you know, or you're selling position. And so, you kind of have to keep that in mind.

Another thing that I really think is called the evolution of there's an app for that. Right? When you're in a house and you're trying to figure something out, the fact that you can download the Sherman Williams app and see what the colors of the house would look like if it were green or gray or blue, or you can take room measurements from your phone, or my favorite one is so simple. Like, we're in the backyard, and someone always says, which way are we facing? I just pull out my compass app, and I'm figuring, hey. This is south facing, and then you can switch to another app, and it'll tell you how much daylight you'll get in your yard. And I think, the ability to parse information, to make decisions so quickly is it's pretty cool.

It is. One thing that does make it funny, though, is there's times where technology kind of maybe overperforms in a very bad way. Like, sometimes there's some AI imagery for furniture that does not look like anything I've ever seen for furniture and does not look at all comfortable or for scale for the room that it's in. And it almost becomes laughable how far technology oversteps the boundary. But I think that knowing that there's that learning mechanism, like, that learning aspect, and it's going to get better, it's a little bit endearing and frightening at the same time.

Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about AI because it's definitely showing up in every single piece of software or app that you use now. It's like you log in and like, did you know you could do this with AI in this app? And it's really becoming integrated. I know a lot of people are starting to embrace using ChatGPT and some of the just basic interfaces. But I really predict in the future, we are going to all have our own personal AI trained bots that interact with our consumers. Our consumers are going to have theirs that want to interact with their realtors and be able to put all the information that needs to be gained through that filter and through that system to hold and be able to create inquiry to whenever needed.

Yeah. I think that there's some really interesting stuff that's going to be on the horizon regarding that. And I think that, you know, ultimately, there's so much to be gained from better learning system of how to anticipate what's next for us as people, you know, and to kind of stay ahead of our struggles that we're coming into.

For my real estate industry colleagues out there, we just got to embrace it. You know? Just allow it, learn, play. Technology can be so fun when it makes things more efficient. I'm really loving the AI searching tools that are starting to get more proficient where someone can say, I'm looking for a 3-bedroom house for a bedroom for my kid and an office, and you can, like, really interact with the data in a different, more emotional, tangible way. I think that's going to be a lot, more advanced as we get better and will make it more user friendly.

But it would be cool to see AI scrubbing the public remarks on listings so that we can filter out all the things that say ADU potential. So, you can actually just get actual duplexes and not some that are duplex potentially.

Yeah. I don't know. If you're listening out there in a market where there's always something that bugs you. You're trying to do a search, and some anomaly just keeps thwarting your information when you come up on your search. I'm sure every market has its own, but here in Portland, what he's referring to is, whenever someone's looking for an additional dwelling unit, usually, that means they want an additional dwelling unit. They don't want in additional dwelling unit potential, aka a hundred, $200,000 additional needed to make this property have that possibility.

Or, you know, the mucky basement that's unfinished that has the potential to be an ADU. Then there's also the other one that occurs, which is the 1 story living, but it's still a 2-story house. So, yeah.

Yeah. I think consumers have so many more abilities to really look at the listing. And, also, easy to be overwhelmed. I mean, not all data is accurate. I mean, let's look at these algorithms of price valuations. They can't take in all the information that is more tangible, more human. Like, you know? Does this house smell bad, you know? It's just never going to be part of the valuation.

I'm really looking forward to smell visions at some point.

You always say that, and then I say, no. You'll regret that.

Yes. I know.

But I think, like, the one thing that I've noticed that people come to the table very overwhelmed, because a lot of times, it will show the sales records, and it will say, well, I don't understand. It was just sold, like, last year for this amount, and this happened and that happened, and they're trying to make up all these stories in their head about whether or not this is, like, a scam or a good deal or this or that. And I'm like, hey. Why don't you just focus on, like, do you even like this house? Because if you don't, it really doesn't matter. You don't need to know the story.

They came off the market, and I know for sure that there's something wrong with this house. And, you know, in the end, it could just be that they got sick, and they're like, we need to stay home and pull it off the market, and we don't want to be interrupted so, we'll be back. But, yeah, you could find out, like, later on that, like, your fears can really get ahead of you if you have information that you don't actually have the motivations behind it.

Yeah. Or you can't make sense of it, and now you're just locked up on that instead of moving on to the next thing. And I know that that happens. It just happens to all of us, us included, even us professionals. You know what we're looking at. But back to the technology side, another thing I really love is apps that have allowed us to make digital showings, like, be able to book appointments and stuff, I think it's made it super easy for sellers to have a little notification, hey. Clean up and get out of there because someone's coming over. I think all these different, those have just have made the home buying and selling process more efficient.

Yeah. There are a lot of things that are somewhat filterable in that way of you can just task it in a way of saying, hey, Will. I need 2 hours’ notice, so block out the next 2 hours of windows until, you know, I'm available. And it's really cool. I definitely think that we're headed towards some interesting, some new developments too.

What would you say is the number 1 new fun gadgety tool thing that you, like, can't wait to get?

Oh, I would say that it's got to be I think that the smart electrical panels seem like a really interesting new development, because there's so much to be gained from, like, how much electricity we're using and where it's going to and which breaker systems. I get a little nerdy about electronics. That's just obviously the scenario.

I know. I love that there's, this is something everyone should get in their home. I think we should one too, by the way. We don't have one. But these, like, leak detectors, you can put them on your water lines, on your dishwasher, on your ice maker. Because water damage is brutal when that happens. You know? So, if a pipe busts or something comes loose, then now you're flooding your house.

Yeah. And, you know, we all have been in the house where you're like, wow. It smells really musky in here, and you sense that there's got to be something that's causing this muskiness. It's water somewhere, but, like, that worry about, like, where would the water be? Like, you just can't ever figure it out. But like, having something like that could just tell you, oh, hey. Your toilet downstairs is, like, is running or dripping, and you had to fix that. You know? What do you think you are the most interested in, so far as, like, technology that you'd like to see Dill?

I would like something to come and cook dinner and clean the house. That would be perfect.

What was that, Justin's character?

Yeah. I was just recently in a house with someone. You know the Samsung refrigerator that you knock on and you can look at it? And I just remember because I'm more familiar with it now, I've seen it in a lot of homes. It's starting to kind of show up a lot. My client was like, what is this? And I just, like, knock on it, and then the light comes on, and you can see inside. And they're just like, why? Just like because then you have to open the door to see what you have in your fridge. It's just stuff like that that I'm like, I don't know if this is actually helping humanity at large.

Like, old telephone lines.

Yeah. I know.

And some people, like, get confused.

Telephone lines, and I'm like, oh, it's an antique. There's a telephone line.

You know, our children are going to come into a house, and there'd be, like, a telephone plug on the wall. I'd be like, what is that? That's where the telephone was hung on the wall.

I really like the new TV that's frameless. That's like art. I think that's kind of cool.

That's pretty cool.

Seamless and a few houses that people will sometimes will put, like, a fire looking thing on and I think that's really cool.

I saw some that were like windows. It felt like you were in a skyscraper, and they had them, like, set up in, like, the spacing of a window is crazy. But, yeah, I think that in every generation of technological advances, there's a wave of things that just become moot. One of the things I think that's kind of losing its luster is the hardwired audio equipment. Well, with, like, the advances of Sonos and, like, the surround sound that you can just set it up, and all you have to do is plug it in. Feels like all those really extravagant audio build outs are kind of less of a selling point for people than just having, you know, Ethernet cables or, you know, some of the other simple tech conversions.

Yeah. It takes up a lot of space too. I'm just thinking of the homes where I've seen these media consoles that, like, take up an entire closet, have a receiver and all these wires running everywhere that nobody knows. The next person never knows, by the way, how to use your system. So, leaving it behind isn't really that helpful.

Yeah. No matter how much you spend on it, it's still going to have that learning curve that they may never be able to conquer. Another thing since we were talking about receivers, you know those the radio the little, like, push to talk radio systems that were in.

Oh, intercoms.

Intercoms for every room? I see those nowadays. And they're like, that seems so advanced at the time that it was designed. Mom, I need a sandwich. You know? Like, it's crazy. It's just,

you know something I am really grateful for, though? Let's face it. You move into a house. There are appliances. Nobody has left the books. If the books even existed, they got thrown away a long time ago, but now every single product manual is online. And, in fact, having the books is kind of annoying, so I just tell people, hey. Throw them away. Just Google it. Like, the whole PDF is online. And if you download the PDF or the manufacturer's brochure and everything, you can search it. So, when it's blinking green twice, you can search in your PDF.

Blinking green. Why?

Why?

Troubleshoot. Green.

I know. I love that.

Yeah. Everything from your furnace to your refrigerator, your television, any of these things have, like, manuals that can give you some idea of, like, how to troubleshoot common problems, and everything's Google able or searchable on the Internet.

Well, and I love that you can make a digital home book. Right? We used to have a big binder full of all these things, but now you can just have all the PDFs. It's all there.

Yeah. So, I think things are looking really bright.

I can't wait to see what the future holds.

As we close the door on another incredible episode of Real Estate Energized, we want to express our heartfelt gratitude to you, our listeners. If you're looking to buy or sell real estate anywhere, and need a great agent, or you are an inspired agent yourself, connect with us.

We hope you found inspiration and insight in this episode. Remember, real estate is not just about walls and roofs. It's about the stories and dreams that fill those spaces.

Stay tuned for more exciting stories and life lessons in the episodes to come. And if you have a unique real estate story or topic, you'd like us to explore, reach out in the links below in the show notes.

Until next time. Keep dreaming, keep growing, and keep finding joy in the journey. Thanks for joining us on Real Estate Energized!