…What Is a Smart Home? It’s 2016: You Should Know by Now.

by | Jan 6, 2016 | Technology, Uncategorized

  The Future is Coming Sooner than Expected.   It’s 2016.  The new year means a lot of different things for real estate professionals:  it’s a time to send out all your “happy new year” emails, brush up on market trends and stats, and check predictions for the new year.  One thing we didn’t expect:  It’s a time to brush up on real estate tech. Imagine waking up in bed and hitting the alarm.  After peaking out your window, it’s looking a little gloomy outside.  You yell out loud “Amy, is it going to rain today?” A voice replies “Yes, rain is expected in your city today; average temperature in your area will be 61 degrees.”  Pretty informative:  but “Amy” isn’t the name of your wife or daughter; it’s the name (which you can change) you’ve given your smart house, a Siri-like technology built into your ceilings and walls, created to streamline how we live at home. Coldwell Banker Real Estate polled 4,000+ Americans last year, revealing that just about half of Americans plan to purchase some form of smart home technology in 2016, or own smart home tech already.  The survey also showed that if they were planning on selling their homes, more than 50% of Americans would purchase and install smart home tech in their home if they thought it would help them sell faster.     What Do Smart Homes Do?   The term “smart home” covers a variety of technologies.  Smart home entertainment systems, like speakers and televisions, are usually voice activated throughout your home.  By simply saying aloud “Amy, play christmas music”, your home would...
How to Take Listing Photos The Right Way

How to Take Listing Photos The Right Way

by | Dec 2, 2015 | Real Estate Terminology, Technology

Putting time and money into taking proper real estate listing photos may seem like a waste- after all, technology has reached a point where most current cell phone cameras are far superior to any camera you would buy from the store 5 years ago.  Snapping a few quick pictures on a  stroll across the property may seem sufficient- after all, the house should speak for itself right?  Wrong.  Even the nicest of properties can turn away potential buyers if the listing photos don’t properly highlight it’s features.  As real estate appraisers, we sort through hundreds of listing photos every day.  Having seen some of the best- and plenty of the worst- we can honestly say that the quality of the listing photos is definitely reflected in the days on market of a home.  Better photos attract more buyers, get more offers, and sell faster- but what do I need to do to really take a good listing photo?   1. Include a shot from the curb.  Everyone’s heard the term “curb appeal” before, and if your home has any, this one should be a no brainer.  Be careful to always take photos parallel with the roof line– or else, you can create “landslide” effect, making it look like the property is on a tilt or needs some landscaping when in reality it’s perfectly flat.    2. Keep people and pets out of the photos (including the photographer in mirrors) Mirrors may help light a room, but buyers don’t want to picture anyone in this house other than themselves- that’s why their thinking about buying it.  Also, not everyone is a dog or...
How Technology is Changing Real Estate: Don’t Be Left Behind

How Technology is Changing Real Estate: Don’t Be Left Behind

by | Sep 23, 2015 | Technology, Uncategorized

Technology changes everything, and real estate is no exception.   Since the dawn of the 21st century, the real estate world has been making huge strides in embracing the potential convenience that modern-day electronics have to offer.  What previously took a calculator and a half-hour’s worth of work can now be taken care of with a single click, along with so much more.  Things like reading the newspaper for real estate listings or searching a neighborhood for “for sale” sign are almost entirely a thing of the past (although you still might find that one great deal that wasn’t listed online). Here are a few of the biggest technological game-changers in the real estate world:     It’s a bird!  It’s a plane!  No, it’s neither.  Since late 2014, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been becoming more and more lenient on commercial-use of remote controlled unmanned aircraft, or aerial drones.  While it’s not yet outright legal to use drones for commercial use,  differnet states have been granting permissions to different businesses all over the country to take to the skies. Amazon has been working on delivering packages, Dominos has been working on delivering pizzas, and the real estate world has been working on taking high-quality aerial photographs and videos of properties headed for the market.  For rural or farmland properties with lots of acreage, the ability to tour a 4-acre property at your finger tips is a huge gamechanger.   Soon enough, this will become the industry standard for showing off larger properties with ease. Higher-end models of these drones able to fly stable enough for video at the proper distance...
Can You Really Shop For Real Estate In 3D Now?

Can You Really Shop For Real Estate In 3D Now?

by | Jan 28, 2015 | Technology, Uncategorized

Most appraisals today will include a sketch of the property in the report. There are tons of options when it comes to choosing sketching software that can be used to create them. Imagine if appraisers began including 3-D sketches in their reports? How cool would that be? There is software that allows someone to create 3-D sketches. Google Sketch-up and Floor Planner are two popular software products. The only problem with those programs is that they are not very efficient nor accurate.  They can be incredibly time consuming, and really requires an expert’s touch and even special camera equipment and site-visits to create anything you’d want to show a potential buyer. Zillow is looking to change that. Recently Zillow’s StreetEasy unveiled its newest toy,  interactive 3-D floorplans.  For now, they are testing it in New York City. They will now be giving potential homebuyers a three-dimensional view of select listings.     “Adding 3-D floor plans to some of our most-viewed listings makes them even more valuable for shoppers. It’s empowering buyers with a better way to envision their new home.” said General Manager of StreetEasy Susan Daimler. It’s important to know the proportions of bedrooms, where the kitchen is located and imagine how you can flow from one room to the next. Only a floor plan can give you this vantage point.”     According to Floored founder and CEO David Eisenberg, “The Floored software that now powers StreetEasy’s 3-D floor plans reimagined how this process should work and now converts 2-D to 3-D models in a fraction of the time. We were excited to bring this technology to StreetEasy first.”  Using Floored’s...