Digital interventions like Blockchain and AI transforming realty sector in India: Report

Delhi: The real estate sector has been on the path of recovery since last year. Traditionally, the industry has been a laggard in terms of the adoption of digital technologies. However, the pandemic and growing proptech space have accelerated the adoption of new and emerging technologies. This edition of Grant Thornton Bharat’s ‘Realty Bytes’ focuses on how digital interventions are driving a positive impact for the realty sector in India.

According to Sumeet Abrol, Partner, Lead Advisory, Grant Thornton Bharat, “The Union Budget 2022 has provided INR 7.5 lakh crore outlay for capital expenditure to drive growth across industrial, commercial and residential real estate. With high investor confidence, being carried forward from 2021, this year is also likely to witness high deal activity. A major reason for this being owed to the various digital interventions transforming this space”.

According to Pranav K, Client Advisor, Digital Transformation-dGTl Grant Thornton Bharat, “This pandemic has really forced industries to rethink their business and operating models. Real estate is one such sector where customer focused digital interventions such as 3D virtual tours and chatbots are gaining a lot of traction. Technologies such as Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence are becoming board room discussion topics”.

AI use cases in real estate

• Virtual Tours: By strategically placing 360-degree cameras in homes, the buyer can now get an interactive virtual tour experience from entry to exit of any property.
• Improving home search: Machine learning has made the home searching process, online, simpler by analysing a person’s search patterns and creating tailored listings.
• Predicting accurate property value: By combining customer relationship management (CRM) and marketplace data, AI technology can also help agents and brokers predict the future rent and value of a home in a specific market.
• Lead generation for real estate agents: Machine Learning analyses CRM that has thousands of attributes to distinguish customers with real intentions to buy a property from those who are browsing out of curiosity.

Blockchain use cases in real estate

• Tokenising properties: A property can be tokenised by a seller just like an equity stock and can be traded online.
• Elimination of intermediaries: Platforms are getting evolved with the help of Blockchain where legal documentation, payments and listing of the property can be done on Blockchain network.
• Automating the transactions: In Blockchain, we can use smart contracts to manage the legal formalities and automate the financial transactions. The transactions that are carried over smart contracts cannot be reversed and are completely traceable.

There are many more such digital technological use cases like smart home automation, touchless visitor management system, AI- based mortgage lender, smart office savings and space utilisation etc. These digital interventions are coming together to change the face of the Indian realty sector as we know it, and it will be interesting to see how it makes the home buying journey easy for all its stakeholders.