The Hot Property That’s Next on Tech’s Agenda: Real Estate • Hacker News Board

Re: The Hot Property That’s Next on Tech’s Agenda: Real Estate

#11

Post by r_smart » Fri, Sep 28, 2018, 11:38 AM UTC

ianai wrote: post #4

Caveat: I can’t read the article. I’m just riffing based on my knowledge of RE and personal experiences with tech. As someone who’s researched real estate, I have a hard time seeing how tech can help the RE industry. For starters, RE bubbles have led to the worst economic downturns. If people can buy homes so easily that they can profit on making superficial changes, then prices will go up far above efficient. That p…

>Rent shouldn’t be anywhere near comparable to mortgages.

How am I supposed to rent you a house if the rent you pay is less than the mortgage I have on the house? How do I build a pool of money to use for repairing the things that inevitably break?

Re: The Hot Property That’s Next on Tech’s Agenda: Real Estate

#12

Post by crispyambulance » Fri, Sep 28, 2018, 11:40 AM UTC

brightball wrote: post #3

It will be interesting to see if any of this goes anywhere. Real Estate is one of the tougher markets to really disrupt because of the amount of licensing, regulation and the fact that the local MLS is usually controlled by the local real estate group. You have to pay a fee to join each one. I've heard a lot of tech people clamoring for a central MLS service but the local groups are well aware that controlling the li…

    > It's not going to be an easy nut to crack, but it should be fun to watch all this money try.

Yeah, I can imagine the pitches... "we're going to be the UBER of real estate..."

Or maybe they'll use "UBER" as a verb: "Let's 'UBER' the real estate market!"

Re: The Hot Property That’s Next on Tech’s Agenda: Real Estate

#13

Post by lr4444lr » Fri, Sep 28, 2018, 11:40 AM UTC

ianai wrote: post #4

Caveat: I can’t read the article. I’m just riffing based on my knowledge of RE and personal experiences with tech. As someone who’s researched real estate, I have a hard time seeing how tech can help the RE industry. For starters, RE bubbles have led to the worst economic downturns. If people can buy homes so easily that they can profit on making superficial changes, then prices will go up far above efficient. That p…

I agree with your last point, but what is tech supposed to help about it? That's a systemic problem of jobs continually concentrating in dense urban cores where land is simply more scarce.

Re: The Hot Property That’s Next on Tech’s Agenda: Real Estate

#14

Post by tim333 » Fri, Sep 28, 2018, 11:40 AM UTC

baybal2 wrote: post #5

ianai wrote: post #4

Caveat: I can’t read the article. I’m just riffing based on my knowledge of RE and personal experiences with tech. As someone who’s researched real estate, I have a hard time seeing how tech can help the RE industry. For starters, RE bubbles have led to the worst economic downturns. If people can buy homes so easily that they can profit on making superficial changes, then prices will go up far above efficient. That p…

>I have a hard time seeing how tech can help the RE industry. For starters, RE bubbles have led to the worst economic downturns If that can amount to help, maybe burning it to the ground will do it? Google Ziroom and what it did to rental market in China. Were something similar to appear and get hold USA, expect American RE companies in big cities to burn down within a year. But I doubt this prospect, I bet rich RE b…

I googled Ziroom and see they long lease apartments and then sublet, and their doing so has raised the cost of long leases in places. How is this burning anything to the ground? I'm confused.

Re: The Hot Property That’s Next on Tech’s Agenda: Real Estate

#15

Post by lr4444lr » Fri, Sep 28, 2018, 11:43 AM UTC

qubax wrote: post #8

Hard to tell whether this is a news article or an ad for the featured company. Also, tech has been in real estate for a very long time. Zillow, Trulia, Redfin, etc were supposedly "disrupting and revolutionizing" real estate before smartphones got popular. I remember reading about this more than a decade ago. My god time flies. From 2007. Redfin On 60 Minutes Tonight – Real Estate Market Disruption. https://techcrunc…

Don't sell short what those companies did for buyers: they freed them from the gatekeeper of a broker. No disrespect to brokers - they're great for sellers and I happily used one - but the analytics and search and sheer awareness of what was on the market they offered to the home buyer was revolutionary IMHO.

Re: The Hot Property That’s Next on Tech’s Agenda: Real Estate

#16

Post by leetcrew » Fri, Sep 28, 2018, 11:45 AM UTC

ianai wrote: post #4

Caveat: I can’t read the article. I’m just riffing based on my knowledge of RE and personal experiences with tech. As someone who’s researched real estate, I have a hard time seeing how tech can help the RE industry. For starters, RE bubbles have led to the worst economic downturns. If people can buy homes so easily that they can profit on making superficial changes, then prices will go up far above efficient. That p…

> Rent shouldn’t be anywhere near comparable to mortgages?

why not? rent probably should not be egregiously larger than the mortgage payment, but rent needs to at least price in the risks related to owning a property long term.

Re: The Hot Property That’s Next on Tech’s Agenda: Real Estate

#17

Post by newacctjhro » Fri, Sep 28, 2018, 11:49 AM UTC

r_smart wrote: post #11

ianai wrote: post #4

Caveat: I can’t read the article. I’m just riffing based on my knowledge of RE and personal experiences with tech. As someone who’s researched real estate, I have a hard time seeing how tech can help the RE industry. For starters, RE bubbles have led to the worst economic downturns. If people can buy homes so easily that they can profit on making superficial changes, then prices will go up far above efficient. That p…

>Rent shouldn’t be anywhere near comparable to mortgages. How am I supposed to rent you a house if the rent you pay is less than the mortgage I have on the house? How do I build a pool of money to use for repairing the things that inevitably break?

You're building equity with the difference between rent (plus repairs etc) and the mortgage. The renter isn't.

Re: The Hot Property That’s Next on Tech’s Agenda: Real Estate

#18

Post by baybal2 » Fri, Sep 28, 2018, 11:52 AM UTC

tim333 wrote: post #14

baybal2 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I have a hard time seeing how tech can help the RE industry. For starters, RE bubbles have led to the worst economic downturns If that can amount to help, maybe burning it to the ground will do it? Google Ziroom and what it did to rental market in China. Were something similar to appear and get hold USA, expect American RE companies in big cities to burn down within a year. But I doubt this prospect, I bet rich RE b…

I googled Ziroom and see they long lease apartments and then sublet, and their doing so has raised the cost of long leases in places. How is this burning anything to the ground? I'm confused.

Just take a look on a very impressive list of RE companies they took over.

Besides of them doing all kinds of leasing models, they put a very thick slab of butter on top with add on services, something nobody else can match.

With a single click you can: get a handyman to fix anything, order renovations, moving, breakfast delivery, daycare, cleaning, maids, buy furniture, order a restyling, get new appliances, remote lock it, pay for every service, or even Airbnb it on your behalf if you leave for extended amount of time, or do that in reverse while you are on a trip to another city.

Effectively they sell life in high end serviced apartments for just a bit more than price of regular rental.

They mainly aim at a rich millennial demographics, bit with few tweaks, you can imagine them making up something for US market

Re: The Hot Property That’s Next on Tech’s Agenda: Real Estate

#19

Post by humanrebar » Fri, Sep 28, 2018, 11:54 AM UTC

lr4444lr wrote: post #13

ianai wrote: post #4

Caveat: I can’t read the article. I’m just riffing based on my knowledge of RE and personal experiences with tech. As someone who’s researched real estate, I have a hard time seeing how tech can help the RE industry. For starters, RE bubbles have led to the worst economic downturns. If people can buy homes so easily that they can profit on making superficial changes, then prices will go up far above efficient. That p…

I agree with your last point, but what is tech supposed to help about it? That's a systemic problem of jobs continually concentrating in dense urban cores where land is simply more scarce.

Tech could absolutely help jobs and services decentralize. But we wouldn't call it "real estate tech".

If Google really wanted to make a dent here, getting serious about remote first employment at Google would be a game changer even if the enabling tech never made it into the Google suite.

Re: The Hot Property That’s Next on Tech’s Agenda: Real Estate

#20

Post by tootie » Fri, Sep 28, 2018, 11:57 AM UTC

brightball wrote: post #3

It will be interesting to see if any of this goes anywhere. Real Estate is one of the tougher markets to really disrupt because of the amount of licensing, regulation and the fact that the local MLS is usually controlled by the local real estate group. You have to pay a fee to join each one. I've heard a lot of tech people clamoring for a central MLS service but the local groups are well aware that controlling the li…

There will be a lot of pushback but it's also really valuable. Just based on my experience in NYC, brokers are taking 6% fees on million dollar homes while most are just pushy and dishonest. The buying process is complicated and heavily regulated, but if I can do my taxes online then buying a house should be easy.