Who and what decides the growth of India’s Real Estate industry in 2018 and beyond? The answer can’t be anything less than mainstreaming the spirit of innovation and adopting advanced technologies. As other competitive industries have already experiencing a paradigm shift in this direction, embracing this disruption is inevitable.

1. India’s Largest Employer After Agriculture, Real Estate Rises To
Innovate And Adopt Emerging Technologies
Who and what decides the growth of India’s Real Estate industry in 2018 and beyond?
The answer can’t be anything less than mainstreaming the spirit of innovation and adopting
advanced technologies. As other competitive industries have already experiencing a paradigm
shift in this direction, embracing this disruption is inevitable.
Commerce married Internet back in 1979, when ​Michael Aldrich​ invented and pioneered the
first ever online shopping system​. Long adopting that tech, today India tops as the country
with the ​fastest growing eCommerce industry​ at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR)
of ​31.2 percent​, for 2016-2021!
Indian aggregation startups like Ola (for cabs), Oyo (for hotel rooms), redBus (for buses), and
others are striving their best to tap the full potential of technology. FinTech, EduTech, and
HealthTech are becoming the early adopters of emerging trends, strongly rooted in the spirit of
innovation.
Thus: For almost any sector, in order to take a potentially profitable risk or make an innovative
business move, it became inevitable to seek the help of emerging technologies like Artificial
Intelligence (AI), Data Analytics, Blockchain, Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR),
Cybersecurity, and Internet of Things (IoT).

2. Though India’s largest employer after agriculture, Real Estate industry has long been a slow
adopter of new tech. However, it's now raising its bar to innovate and adopt emerging
technologies. Housing sector alone growing at a ​CAGR of 11.2 percent​, RE is estimated ​to be
valued at $180 billion by 2020​. However, innovation and the deep inclusion of advanced
technologies could multifold this potential growth.
Here, we present ​5 ​most promising ways the Indian Real Estate industry could adopt emerging
technologies directed towards an innovation-driven future:
#1 Real Estate Has Gone Online
Before the arrival of Internet, potential property buyers read newspaper ads to find a property
they were looking for. Moreover, plenty of them used friends, neighbors and relatives as a
source of information. Now, with Internet, they’re going online first.

3. Online property search gives a buyer the power to make intelligent decisions by precise
comparisons of properties in different parts of a town or city—with every crucial information
required regarding the features and prices.
Overall, the real estate websites streamline the listing, viewing, buying and selling
properties—providing secure e-transactions and mobile apps with different​ ​accessibility
features.
A potential buyer, educated to the best through online portals, can now consult a real estate
agent and close the deal with the best value.
India’s top real estate websites like ​99Acres​, ​MagicBricks​, ​CommonFloor​, ​Housing.com​, and
IndiaProperty​ have been empowering the end customers with greater convenience through
innovative listings and all the online tools possible.
With an online presence, a real estate business can be sure to gain big time on the
ever-growing opportunities.

4. #2 Virtual House Hunting Becomes The Norm
‘Housing’ itself contributing 5-6% to GDP and growing at 11.2% CAGR (FY 2008-2020), Real
Estate in India is set to make big strides. And one of the lucrative differentiators for realtors is to
upgrade their listings with virtual tour capabilities.
Virtual Reality in India is fast becoming popular, and soon potential buyers will demand virtual
tours of the properties on sale or rent—a compulsory for under-construction homes.
VR solutions​ and ​web-based walkthroughs​ will take a customer into the property (future
home) at hand, help him/her ​interact with the environment ​and give them the ​choice to
change the interiors​. The maturation of virtual touring tech has the potential to revolutionize
India’s property brokerage industry.
Such simple and robust solutions would not only allow buyers best experience the property
before buying but also accelerate the growth of the industry on a whole. Buyers aren’t needed to
set foot in all the properties they try, and realtors can close the deals faster.
At ​ArchPhillic​, we’re dedicated to empowering both the buyers and sellers through providing a
unique platform to visualize a property in the best way ever. We not only bring our clients with
immersive experiences of under construction properties but also provide web support and a
series of dedicated desktop and mobile apps.
#3 Environmental-friendly Smart Homes And Cities Will Show Up

5. Government of India’s​ Smart Cities Mission ​is set out to upgrade 98 cities, and so physical
and social infrastructure is going to play a central role in defining how smart the city is. Besides
to grab this golden opportunity, real estate industry has its biggest challenge: to innovate and be
the forerunner in synthesizing solutions through emerging technologies.
(Pic Credits: https://www.flickr.com)
Developing master-planned communities, Clean-Green-Sustainable designs and specialized
work and leisure spaces have become the need of the hour. Personifying mini-cities, every
smart community is to be enabled with smart sports, fitness, and yoga centres, swimming pools,
and many others.
On the other hand, developers have started offering smart homes with advanced features:
smarter security systems like automated lock facility, and many other internal infrastructures
aimed at maximizing the wellbeing of the buyers.
#4 Data-Driven Insights Will Play The Master
In business, nothing can speak more accurately than data and numbers. And so the
dependency on Data Mining and Analytics in real estate is growing rapidly. Because we’re
already in the midst of the information age, these technologies are here to analyse the big,
complex data and provide us with small, smart data.

6. The output of Big Data Analytics (predictive) then enable real estate professionals to help
potential buyers in searching and identifying properties much better and then to accurately
assess all transactions to the last useful detail.
Also, Analytics can help property developers to understand the customer expectations
accurately and design the future projects according to that. For example, it may tell the
developer that a 2BHK house is much prefered in a particular area than others.
Adopting the trend, Indian real estate portals like ​Housing.com ​and Quikr are already involved in
adding and strengthening analytics muscle.
#5 Geofencing and Social Media
Geofencing is actually a ‘fence’ of digital triggers that push notifications to prospective property
buyers when they are near a particular property. To simply understand, it’s like Google pushing
a notification to our mobile whenever we’re near a listed hotel or restaurant.

7. Based on beacons, GPS and social media check-in tracking, Geofencing allows the real estate
brokers/agents to take the right message to the right prospective customer at the right time. The
targeting mechanism of geofencing may use a smartphone’s Bluetooth and Wifi to show the ad.
And beacons are hyperlocal transmitters placed all around a place that can communicate with a
prospect’s location-based app and push planned alerts, highlights and other info.
This gets very practical if we see some of the ways Geofencing is used in real estate:
Consumers are targeted
1. At open houses ready for sale/rent,
2. At property events/parties happening nearby,
3. To follow up the consumer regarding price hikes/discounts
4. Via other local businesses such as restaurants pushing notifications about a nearby
open house,
And just so many ways. Innovation has no end for largely benefiting real estate if it just looks out
and embraces the emerging technologies.
Either to strive for the survival or to gain momentum in the fast-pacing tech world—it’s the
choice of every real estate professional to make. Risks are imminent, and at the same time, the
opportunities are limitless. This is the right moment to make the decision to break the stagnated
norms and move forward with the spirit of innovation!
Empowering real estate professionals to lead the frontiers of this big shift, ArchPhillic is bringing
next-gen virtual reality solutions. Drop a mail at ​_________@archphillic.com​ to get started!