Big Data and Analytics in Rental Housing: Demand Forecasting, Price Optimization, and Service Enhancement

About twenty years ago, rental housing companies relied solely on their experience when making decisions. However, as technologies that use big data proliferate, these tasks become automated, and the results of their execution become more and more accurate. For example, big data can be used to identify local trends, predict prices, improve service quality (for example, based on social media reviews), and more. Let’s discuss these opportunities in detail below.

Understanding Big Data and Analytics in Rental Housing

Formally, there are four big-data-driven analytics formats that are used in the field of rental housing. 

• Descriptive analytics. This type of analytics involves analyzing historical data to get an overall picture of past trends and events. In the context of a given business niche, this may include an analysis of past rental prices, tenant demographics, property characteristics, etc. Typically, such big data real estate software is used to find areas for improvement.
• Predictive analytics. Real estate big data analytics, along with historical data, also can use statistical algorithms and machine learning methods. This can be helpful in forecasting rental demand, identifying market trends, and predicting tenant behavioral patterns. More advanced analytical algorithms also involve the development of decision-making models based on the received insights.
• Sentiment analysis. Such analytics involves the analysis of textual data from social networks and the general Internet mass (reviews, overviews, comments, etc.) to determine global sentiments and opinions. In this way, companies can obtain an average rating of tenant satisfaction and check their reputation.
• Geospatial analytics. This type of real estate data analysis is geo-referenced and can be used to identify areas of high demand, as well as assess the proximity of real estate to urban infrastructure.

In general, depending on the type of big data real estate analytics, companies can benefit from informed decision-making, increased operational efficiency and customer experience, improved pricing models, better resource risk management, and comprehensive and accurate analysis of upcoming market trends.

Demand Forecasting in Rental Housing

Understanding demand is one of the decisive factors that determine the viability of any type of business, not just real estate. So, let's take a closer look at what is meant by demand forecasting while using big data for real estate.
Analysis of historical data. Big data in real estate provides companies with valuable insights into rental demand, including occupancy rates, booking patterns, and seasonal fluctuations.

• External data integration. Big data technologies ensure the integration of external market data into demand forecasting models, taking into account macroeconomic indicators, demographics, local events, and social trends.
• Social media analysis. Big data also enables the collection and analysis of information from various online sources, including classifieds platforms, social media, and review websites. All this can help in building competent marketing strategies.
• Booking details. Rental providers can use booking data to create accurate, real-time demand forecasting models.
• Data from smart home sensors. Such sensors can be used to collect information about the behavior of tenants to determine their lifestyle preferences.
• Dynamic pricing. Big data commercial real estate analytics can be used to implement dynamic pricing based on demand forecasts.
• Mutually beneficial cooperation. Finally, rental providers can collaborate and share data with other companies to pool resources and better predict demand.

Price Optimization in Rental Housing

When it comes to optimizing pricing models, there are also several places to introduce big data.

• Market analysis. Big data allows rental providers to gain insights into historical rental prices, demand trends, and competitor offerings and prices.
  Automatic real estate comparison. Big data technologies can be used to effectively compare rental properties with those that have identical features, locations, and amenities.
• Customer segmentation. To personalize offers for different groups, companies can use big data analytics to segment tenants based on factors such as demographics, preferences, and rental history.
• Price testing. Companies can implement price testing and optimization processes through A/B testing or experimentation and then use big data to objectively evaluate the results against all relevant parameters.
• Analysis of external factors. Big data analytics can incorporate external factors such as economic performance, inflation rates, and general market trends into pricing models.
• Competitors analysis. Also, don't forget that big data can be useful in tracking and analyzing competitors' pricing strategies.

Service Enhancement in Rental Housing

With regard to improving the quality of services, we can identify at least six areas for optimization with the help of big data in commercial real estate.

• Supply and demand analysis. Big data analytics can provide valuable insights into rental market trends, including supply and demand patterns. Through this, companies achieve a better understanding of emerging trends and more informed decision-making.
• Development of personalized recommendations. Big data can provide renters with personalized property recommendations tailored to their preferences, budgets, location, and lifestyle.
• Risk assessment. Companies can also speed up tenant verification processes by automatically analyzing credit history, rental history, and social media profiles.
• Optimization of maintenance and repair. Big data collected from smart home devices helps in improving the quality of their services related to the maintenance and repair of rental housing.
• Ensuring energy efficiency. Among other things, the analysis of energy consumption patterns based on big data contributes to improving the energy efficiency of rental housing.
• Predictive services. Also, some companies implement big-data-driven models for predictive maintenance to anticipate equipment failures and identify maintenance needs.
  

Ethical Considerations and Data Privacy

Finally, let's talk about the data privacy aspects that real estate companies using big data should take.

• Informed consent. Big data analytics for real estate should be carried out with the informed consent of the persons involved. In particular, they need to know the purpose, scope, and possible consequences of data collection and provide their consent before any personal information is collected.
• Data anonymization. To ensure the privacy of customers, companies have to anonymize personal data. This ensures that it won’t be possible to compile an informational portrait of individuals when using this data.
• Data minimization. The principle of data minimization suggests that only necessary and relevant data should be collected so as not to increase risks connected with privacy and misuse.
• Security measures. To protect the collected big data, companies must implement appropriate security measures, including encryption, access control, secure storage, and regular security checks.
• Ensuring user rights. Customers must have the tools to control their data and be able to exercise their rights, such as the right to access, correct, or delete their personal information.
• Standard compliance. Companies must comply with relevant data protection and privacy standards, such as GDPR in the European Union or other local laws and regulations.
• Regular audit and accountability. Companies should also conduct regular audits and have accountability mechanisms in place to assess and enforce ethical standards and privacy practices. This includes internal audits, external assessments, and hiring dedicated privacy and data protection experts.

Conclusion

Together with the colossal prospects for the future of big data in real estate that open big data, it is important to understand that the development of technological solutions based on this tech concept is quite complicated. Therefore, if you realize that existing market products do not meet your requirements and you need to create a custom big-data-driven project, you will have to collaborate with a team with many years of experience in this. In particular, you can contact us to enlist the support of seasoned experts in big data and real estate software development.