“This year the human race is producing more data than the previous 5,000 years combined. Data is so powerful that in the future, nation states will fight over it for power.”
This thought-provoking statistic set the stage for a much-anticipated panel discussion at RISMedia’s 2017 Real Estate CEO Exchange in New York on how brokers are leveraging the application of predictive analytics and big data in their businesses to better serve consumers’ real estate needs.
The opening remarks, presented by panel moderator Dave Garland, partner, Second Century Ventures and director of Strategic Investments for the National Association of REALTORS®, led the way for an engaging discussion with several industry leaders on the forefront of using predictive analytics and big data in real estate to change the way their business is being conducted now and into the future.
So what is predictive analytics, and why is it so important to the real estate industry? Simply put, “Predictive analytics is analyzing extracted data, using old data to predict the future,” Garland explained. “The big difference now is we have new data points that we can apply to our industry. We’re moving from the idea of hindsight to insight to foresight.”
The idea of using data in real estate isn’t new—think tax records, comps, valuations, or even local school, business and crime statistics. But with consumers demanding more and more information, and more data being available on consumer behavior than ever before, the use of predictive analytics—being able to accurately show buyers and sellers what their home will be worth in the future, backed up by data science—is the game-changer.
“‘Big data’ sounds like it’s really far out there, but earlier today I had a meeting downtown and on my phone, it said it’s going to take me 28 minutes to get to the next place I was going, and here’s an Uber so you can get there,” said Jeremy Sicklick, co-founder and CEO of HouseCanary. “The fact that it knew where I was, where my next meeting was and what the traffic was, and linked to an Uber to get me there—that is predictive analytics. So what does that look like in real estate over time?”
HouseCanary CEO and Co-Founder Jeremy Sicklick discusses predictive analytics during RISMedia’s 2017 CEO Exchange session “A Better Crystal Ball: How to Leverage Predictive Analytics.”
San Francisco-based HouseCanary is a real estate analytics company using data science to accurately value and forecast over 18,000 U.S. zip codes, 3 million blocks and 100 million properties.
Sicklick said one of the key opportunities predictive analytics provides in real estate is having the ability to know the property value of a home, and knowing where the value is going to go, to help consumers make better home-buying and -selling decisions. HouseCanary’s home value reports also allow users to add or remove properties or property details to instantly adjust a home’s comparable value, for example, or add a bathroom or remodel the kitchen and see how that affects the home’s value.
Arming the agent with that kind of …read more
From:: Real Estate News