Most of the biggest changes in society in the past 20 years have all been brought about by technology. Just think, for example, how much the internet has changed how people communicate, consume media and purchase products. This change has been felt in nearly every industry on the planet, and that is also the case for real estate.

How people buy homes today is starkly different than how they bought homes twenty, ten or even just five years ago. The industry is certainly changing, and most of this change is being brought about by the advancement of technology. With that in mind, below is an overview of the ways tech is changing the game in home buying.

Online Real Estate Listings

In the past, finding homes for sale was a much more cumbersome process. Without the services of a real estate agent, it would certainly require a lot of work and driving around. Today, the process has been streamlined and made far simpler due to the advent of the internet.

One person can sift through thousands of online real estate listings in a single day. This makes the process of finding a home far easier and more efficient than it was in the past. These listings also give homebuyers access to far more information regarding a home for sale including things like the home’s purchase history, tax information, school ratings and information about the surrounding neighborhood.

Online home listings do a great job of finding home buyers homes that fit their criteria in much less time than would be the case without them. Statistics state that 80 percent of home shoppers now search for homes online.

Real Estate Apps

How people use the internet has also changed considerably in the past several years. StatCounter published statistics that showed mobile internet use exceeded desktop and laptop internet use in 2016. As such, most people now shop for their homes on their phones as well.

Doing so can give home shoppers access to an array of useful real estate apps. Apps can help home shoppers get in touch with real estate agents as well as property managers. They can be used to quickly search through online listings. They can also be set up with alerts. For example, if you want to buy a home in a certain price range in a certain neighborhood, a real estate app can be setup to alert you when a home is put on the market in that town in that price range. There are many different ways real estate apps can be used to help you with the buying process.

Virtual Tours

In the past, taking a tour of a home required setting up a tour with a real estate agent and physically driving to that place to view the insides of the home to get a better idea of whether or not it was worth the price being asked for. Most people, of course, did not have the time or resources to take tours of too many homes. This is especially the case when a person had to move far away from where they lived previously.

Today, technology has helped bridge some of that gap by making virtual tours in all three dimensions commonplace. Thanks to Apache Kafka stream processing made simple due to new cloud powered streaming platforms, you can take exhaustive 3D tours of an entire building both inside and out in high definition detail. This can certainly relate far more information to a homebuyer than simple photos can.

While most people may still want to take a tour of a home in person before committing to buy, 3D virtual home tours can help eliminate the need to spend as much time and resources touring homes in person you wouldn’t end up buying regardless. RTV states that more than 50 percent of adult internet users take virtual tours.

Technology, especially information technology, has had a huge impact on business. This is certainly the case for real estate and the home buying process. It better informs home buyers about properties and helps them complete the process far quicker than would be the case without the assistance of this technology.