The
way people search for and purchase the homes they look to live in has changed
due to the advance of modern technology.
You used to have to walk into a real estate office and work with a real
estate agent to get information on the homes available in the market you are
trying to purchase in. Now, there are
sites available such as Zillow and Trulia that attract consumers to visiting
the internet in their pursuit of a home.
These types of companies utilize cloud technology to better their
service and further their success in providing readily available information for
those looking to purchase a home.
People
are doing a lot more of their own, independent research on the housing market
and the statistics prove it. “According
to 2014 data from the National Association of Realtors, 43 percent of
homebuyers start their search online, and 92 percent of buyers turn to the
Internet at some point during the process” [1].
This change is because of sites like Zillow and Trulia’s abilities to
provide consumers with online listings, photos, prices, and neighborhood
comparisons. Yet, the information they
provide takes up massive amounts of data for real estate markets all over the
country. So how do they store all of this
data?
To
store such vast amounts of data on traditional hardware, it would cost upwards of
millions of dollars. That is why a
company like Zillow “moved all of its
Zestimates to the cloud in order to accommodate the increased computing demands
of recalculating 15 years’ worth of home-value data for the entire country”
[1]. Additionally, they later decided to
move their inventory of home-photos to the cloud as well. The savings in costs are very significant and
the cloud allows for high amounts of storage for data at a much cheaper cost
than using traditional hardware.
Cloud technology not only cuts
costs of storage for companies, but benefits consumers as well. Viewing photos of homes, for example, becomes
faster and easier for people viewing these sites whether they are on their
desktop or their mobile device. There is
a noticeable difference in lag time. Zillow’s
latest move this year was “even [purchasing] cloud-based startup dotloop to
enable homebuyers to view, revise, sign and send real estate documents online”
[1]. So, cloud technology is becoming a
benefit on multiple fronts. It makes
storage cheaper, data availability faster and easier, and has increased the
success of online real estate market activity for both buyers and sellers. I believe utilizing the cloud will only
become more and more popular in this industry.
It's interesting to think about this aspect of the real estate industry. Real estate is a field that actually requires a lot of data processing and storage, so I'm not surprised Zillow made this upgrade to cloud technology. Furthermore, with the unpredictability of the housing market in the twenty-first century, it makes sense as far as service costs to use only what you pay for. With cloud computing, Zillow does not have to hire employees, security, or buy technology for a server warehouse. Both Zillow and its conversion to cloud technology show how the progression of technology is making previously tedious and expensive tasks, faster and cheaper. Broader access to real estate data is helping everyday consumers make a choice will more information and analytics than ever before. As an article from Mashable.com explains, the vast data bank involved with real estate has allowed analysts to understand the behavior and circumstances of the community a home is in. Furthermore, the data helps banks make highly informed decision on whether or not they should foreclose or initiate a short sale.
ReplyDeleteMore from Mashable here:http://mashable.com/2014/07/09/big-data-real-estate/#7yIONOL6P8qI