Data is growing everywhere. Big Data Analytics is emerging as the lynchpin for transforming data to business benefits. The advancement of Big Data Analytics is having an impact in most of the industry sectors; real estate is also not an exception to it.
The real estate firm, REA group has put in giant steps towards applying Big Data Analytics in this sector. They have developed a search engine which can give recommendations to potential buyers. It also makes the property buying and selling process much easier. Here, firm even predicts the potential value of a property by collecting various data and with the help of algorithms. The firm is hopeful that their search engine and price estimation tools will go a long way in improving transparency and efficiency of real estate transactions.
However the appropriateness of big data analytics in real estate is being questioned by many experts. One reason is the lack of data so as to make a meaningful interpretation. The data is not typically qualified as ‘big data’ considering the volume of data available to make decisions. Real estate is still an unorganized business, so availability of data is a big challenge. There are arguments that Big Data Analytics is precise and fact based and it has got the ability to outdate the human decision making process. However here again many of the real estate professionals are in a argument with the applicability of big data algorithm to replace human wisdom of property sales as it is impacted by a lot of external factors which are quite dynamic and unpredictable in nature.
Most of the companies are adopting big data analytics in real estate to basically bring out crystalline information. Big Data has got its own significance in case of projects involving huge budgets, by giving accurate information ranging from top to bottom. Hence management of these projects becomes much easier. It also helps to identify the apt area for the development based on property trends. Big Data is not restricting their usage in providing information to consumers; it is also taking considerations for the societal development at the same time. But it needs to be seen how far this would get adopted and accepted in the industry!
