PropTech - Transforming Real Estate with Analytics and Visualization

These days, digital transformation is an integral aspect of maintaining the viability and competitiveness of any business, and the real estate industry is no exception.

For instance, according to Grand View Market Research, the global PropTech market will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.8% until 2030, thanks to the rapid adoption of technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI), and virtual reality (VR).  In general, they have made a great contribution to optimizing analytics and visualization aids in real estate transformation.

At the same time, all of these technologies, aimed primarily at increasing the productivity, transparency, and accessibility of real estate operations, today can provide faster and more effective decision-making. And this, in turn, is the key to strengthening business competitiveness in the market. In this article, you will be able to learn more about the role of advanced technologies in the digital transformation in real estate and check specific use cases of their application in popular software solutions improved by the Visual Craft team.

Analytics and Visualization in PropTech

So, what benefits can you achieve through the modification of real estate by means of analytics and visualization? Let’s consider the below in more detail:

• Data-driven decision making. Analytics provides end-to-end visibility into the situations that real estate professionals face every day and helps them make informed decisions using the analysis of data from various sources, providing unobvious insights based on discovered patterns, trends, and correlations. Also, with predictive analytics, companies can more accurately determine what the results of their specific activities will be.
• Improved risk management. Real estate professionals can benefit from instant intelligence generation (using historical data and current market trends) regarding real estate investments.
• Productivity increase. Companies can resort to analytics aid in real estate transformation to optimize their internal business processes – it allows them to instantly detect downtime and stages that require optimization. This way, they can enhance their competitive advantage by delivering services to customers faster and also reducing overhead costs. 
• Increasing awareness about customers. Analytics can provide real estate employees with valuable information about customer preferences, behavior, and demographics, as well as help them in assessing customers’ trustworthiness.
• Visual data representation. When it comes to visualization, real estate companies can use it to create virtual tour solutions, as well as generate easy-to-read reports that include complex data sets. Ultimately, all this also has a positive effect on the quality of decisions made.

Project Spotlight by Visual Craft

Now, let's check two cases of modification of real estate through visualization and analytics that were brought to life by the Visual Craft team.

Redatum

Redatum is a popular data analytics solution for the North American real estate market. The main development process was entrusted to the client's team, however, due to the large amount of work that was reflected in the constant growth of the database and the number of program code builds, the client decided to delegate some optimization tasks to us. Specifically, we had to completely revamp the look and feel of the user interface to make it more user-friendly, while also optimizing performance for an ever-expanding feature set.

To do this, we carefully analyzed the existing application architecture to identify gaps and consider opportunities for optimization. In particular, the insights obtained formed the basis for a new strategy for introducing dynamic report customization functions, which was quite challenging due to constant scalability and real-time data processing. In this regard, we decided to move from generating static PDF reports to interactivity, which, in turn, required the introduction of advanced data filtering and real-time data generation capabilities. As for optimizing work and speeding up content loading, we resorted to data indexing, splitting large SQL queries into smaller ones, and caching frequently used data.

As a result, the Redatum’s performance increased by ~92%.

Zoning Analytics Platform 

Zoning Analytics Platform is a comprehensive online solution with advanced zoning intelligence aimed at aggregating, analyzing, and visualizing real estate data. As in the previous case, the client decided to turn to us to optimize an already-launched product. In particular, it was necessary to reconsider existing methods of managing real estate data, improve user experience and accessibility, and strengthen system fault tolerance.

For example, to solve performance issues caused by huge volumes of zoning data and real estate details, we developed sophisticated data loading strategies (including intelligent preloading and load balancing) and dynamic caching. We've also introduced an advanced search feature that allows users to navigate through millions of addresses and links.

A separate task was to improve the user experience, which included setting up ckEditor through the implementation of custom plugins, updating map data in real-time through their multi-level presentation, and creating an adaptive interface. Among other things, we performed a progressive refactoring of the program code, implementing asynchronous API calls and caching, thereby increasing performance and scalability. Finally, we have introduced new functionality for importing and visualizing 3D building models.

As a result, the client received an advanced solution that fully embodies the most promising PropTech trends.

The Future of PropTech

In this section, we propose to consider some technological trends transforming real estate with visualization and analytics.

• Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML). These two concepts can be implemented in PropTech solutions using real-time predictive analytics algorithms, natural language processing algorithms, as well as explainable AI algorithms. For example, predictive analytics can find significant use in dynamically adjusting real estate prices, while NLP can be helpful in analyzing unstructured data. In terms of explainable AI, these algorithms provide transparent insight into model predictions and decision-making processes.
• Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology. Despite the fact that this technology has been used for a long time in all business industries, today, its effectiveness can be increased through the integration of smart analytical tools. Such integrated solutions contribute to a more efficient search for optimal locations, assessment of zone characteristics, and analysis of regional market trends.
• Blockchain. Blockchain technology can be useful in terms of ensuring the security of transactions and eliminating intermediaries. In particular, when applied correctly, blockchain can minimize the need for offline meetings by transferring all kinds of transactions to the digital plane.
• Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR). AR and VR technologies expand on data visualization capabilities, enhancing the customer experience through virtual tours and interactive real-time delivery of real estate data.
• The Internet of Things (IoT). Implementing Internet of Things solutions helps businesses consolidate data on occupancy, energy consumption, and environmental conditions. Instead of the physical participation of live specialists in the process of collecting this data, companies can now use sensors and other low-resource devices.

If you are interested in PropTech modification of real estate by means of visualization and analytics, feel free to contact us, and we will do our best to help your business grow.

Conclusion

As we can see, transforming real estate with analytics and visualization will gain momentum in the coming years, so if you want to form a stable foundation for the further development of your company, you should pay attention to technologies and complex solutions aimed at solving these problems. In particular, you can contact us, an experienced team creating cutting-edge PropTech software, to order custom development for your real estate business.