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+--- Thread: The technology that's disrupting real estate & construction (for the better?) (/thread-7153.html)
The technology that's disrupting real estate & construction (for the better?) - C C - May 31, 2019
https://www.diamandis.com/blog/future-of-real-estate-and-construction
EXCERPT: In the wake of the housing market collapse of 2008, one entrepreneur decided to dive right into the failing real estate industry. But this time, he didn’t buy any real estate to begin with. Instead, Glenn Sanford decided to launch the first-ever cloud-based real estate brokerage, eXp Realty.
Contracting virtual platform VirBELA to build out the company’s mega-campus in VR, eXp Realty demonstrates the power of a dematerialized workspace, throwing out hefty overhead costs and fundamentally redefining what ‘real estate’ really means. Ten years later, eXp Realty has an army of 14,000 agents across all 50 US states, 3 Canadian provinces, and 400 MLS market areas… all without a single physical office.
But VR is just one of many exponential technologies converging to revolutionize real estate and construction. As floating cities and driverless cars spread out your living options, AI and VR are together cutting out the middleman. Already, the global construction industry is projected to surpass $12.9 trillion in 2022, and the total value of the US housing market alone grew to $33.3 trillion last year. Both vital for our daily lives, these industries will continue to explode in value, posing countless possibilities for disruption. [...] Let’s dive in!
Location Location Location.Until today, location has been the name of the game when it comes to hunting down the best real estate. But constraints on land often drive up costs while limiting options, and urbanization is only exacerbating the problem. Beyond the world of virtual real estate, two primary mechanisms are driving the creation of new locations. (1) Floating cities ... (2) Autonomous Electric Vehicles and Flying Cars [...]
Disintermediation: Say Bye to Your Broker. In a future of continuous and personalized preference-tracking, why hire a human agent who knows less about your needs and desires than a personal AI? Just as disintermediation is cutting out bankers and insurance agents, so too is it closing in on real estate brokers. Over the next decade, as AI becomes your agent, VR will serve as your medium. [...]
New Methods and Materials for Construction. For thousands of years, we’ve been constrained by the construction materials of nature. We built bricks from naturally abundant clay and shale, used tree limbs as our rooftops and beams, and mastered incredible structures in ancient Rome with the use of cement. But construction is now on the cusp of a materials science revolution. Today, I’d like to focus on three key materials: 1. Upcycled Materials ... 2. Nanomataerils ... 3. Self-Healing Infrastructure ...
Final Thoughts. [...] real estate and construction are two of the biggest playgrounds for technological convergence, each on the verge of revolutionary disruption. As underlying shifts in transportation, land reclamation, and the definition of “space” (real vs. virtual) take hold, the real estate market is about to explode in value [...] Meanwhile, converging advancements in AI and VR are fundamentally disrupting the way we design, build, and explore new residences. Just as mirror worlds create immersive, virtual real estate economies, VR tours and AI agents are absorbing both sides of the coin to entirely obliterate the middleman. And as materials science breakthroughs meet new modes of construction, the only limits to tomorrow’s structures are those of our own imagination. (MORE - details)