How artificial intelligence is transforming the UAE’s real estate market

How is technology a game changer in the real-estate sector? How has Realiste contributed to this sector?
The first and foremost point about the real estate market is that due to a large number of participants, it is not entirely transparent. The most non-transparent aspect of it is price formation, which leads to miss-selling and mispricing of the properties. This makes the process more complicated and time-consuming. Usually, more than 50 per cent of the standard property ads are fake and are used to attract attention. These manipulations cause the market’s instability of rises and falls. Compared to the taxi services, it was obvious that once the navigation technologies were implemented, the market became more transparent.

Realiste is building such a navigator for real estate, showing which area is the best for client’s request and which price is fair. Such transparency allows users to considerably speed up the process of decision making regarding the property they liked. Usually, it will take at least two more months to complete all the paperwork, including up to a week to check the property for ‘legal purity’, before the deal can be closed. Compared to other markets like online retail (30 per cent) and taxi services (4 per cent), less than 1 per cent of the real estate market today is digitalised. Not surprisingly, both markets saw a surge in growth once convenient online solutions appeared coupled with transparent and fair pricing.

With this trend in mind, we wanted to address the real estate market’s problems. After two years of research and development, we came up with a solution – a personal artificial intelligence (AI) search engine for the residential real estate market:
● selecting a pool of approved properties for sale.
● appraising any property in just ten seconds with a high percentage of accuracy.
● calculating projected profits if investing in a property for resale or rental purposes.
● reducing the search and selection process of a property from a few weeks and months to just a few minutes.

Realiste’s AI makes the experience of buying or selling property as quick and easy as using a stock trading app. You can see a forecast for each property and get tips for timely purchases and sales for free; the liquidity of these assets grows; the market as a whole accelerates. We are convinced that due to AI digitalisation, the real estate search engines will change dramatically. New possibilities for clients and investors will emerge, allowing them to find the best option on the market in different cities around the world whether they know the place or not.

How is artificial intelligence technology transforming the real estate market?
Here’s a quick run-down on how we are dealing with it:
Personal AI:
● Simplifies and streamlines the user experience for all aspects of the market.
● Monitors the market 24/7 and gives real-time updates on which areas of a given location are growing and which are getting cheaper.
● Highlights on the map only the most profitable options within parameters specified by the user to help find a good investment.
● Predicts the movement of a property’s value for up to a year and gives tips to investors on the optimal time to purchase or sell.
● Speeds up transaction times, making not only the process of closing deals and getting loans faster but the market, in general, more accessible to users, thereby increasing size in three to five times.
● Prevents overpaying or underselling by allowing users to check property values in as little as ten seconds.

AI accelerates the market: appraisals within seconds, not days; selecting options at the client’s request within minutes, not weeks.

Proptech is a buzzword currently – what advice would you give entrepreneurs entering this space?

First — try to find an idea that can serve the market and improve the quality of people’s lives for the better. It should be something that will significantly impact your clients’ lives, reach business goals, and have clear monetisation schemes so it will be easier to find partners and investors.

Second — enlist support! Don’t burn with enthusiasm over your idea. Instead, infect others with it, especially those who have already established themselves in the market niche you are planning to enter. Also, seek out influential advisors and communicate with other founders — introductions and networking are the most necessary and long-term investments in developing any proptech startup.

Read: Here’s how proptech is changing the real estate industry