How Does Technology Benefit Homebuyers and Sellers?

| Selling

We’ve been in the real estate biz a little longer than we’d like to admit, which means we’ve seen a lot of changes in the way we help our clients – and how our clients help themselves! Case in point: technology.
Since it can be hard to keep up with the latest tech innovations, we thought it might help to share six ways technology can benefit you in the real estate process and three ways to steer clear of – at least for now.

By the way, are you looking for more tips and advice for buying and selling a home? Check out our buyer’s guides here and seller’s guides right here.

Let’s dig in.

#1: Online House Hunting – Thumbs Up

Honestly, the whole online house hunting thing makes life easier. You can feel safe using sites like ours to get a pretty good idea of home prices in your preferred areas, find open houses, and make a list of homes you’d like to see from the comfort of your favourite comfy chair all while wearing your pyjamas. Nice.

It also helps us do quick searches based on your criteria so we can narrow down the overwhelming effect of seeing too many homes at once!

Get more home buying advice with these posts next:

#2: Easy Research for Sellers – Thumbs Up

Sellers can use online listing searches to get an idea about the latest home prices in their area. This helps people make tons of decisions about things like whether it’s a good time to sell or accessing home equity for something like renovations. It’s also great for doing a little snooping to check out a neighbour’s listing we might add!

#3: Selling is Often Faster – Thumbs Up

Online searches can really speed up the selling process with tons of buyers being able to search for homes they want to see. You reach a broader audience, so you can potentially sell faster, including out-of-towners who have no choice but to shop online.

#4: Your Agent is More Available – Thumbs Up

Cell phones offer real-time communication with your agent, whether it’s text, email, or calls. We’re always at your disposal, ready to answer your questions, reducing stress and making life easier. There’s less waiting and often close to instant answers via text – even it’s just us saying, “Sorry, with a client be done in 10!”

How does Toronto’s best real estate team use technology? Experience a day in the life of the best real estate team in Toronto right here.

#5: Easy Peasy Transactions with Digital Signing – Thumbs Up

With so much paperwork involved in real estate transactions, the introduction of digital signing certainly speeds things up. No need to schedule an appointment with your agent or lawyer to get the process moving. You can feel pretty confident, it’s also quite secure.

#6: Online Mortgage Applications – Thumbs Up

You can now get pre-approved for a mortgage online, so you know whether you pass the stress test without having to go into the bank. As long as you have all your paperwork ready you can enter your info and get an answer pretty quick. This is also a great tool to determine your budget.

#1: Online Seller Research – Thumbs Down

Wait, didn’t we already give this a thumbs up? We did. But, if you don’t know what to look for when it comes to pricing, online research can be quite misleading. You need to look for comparable listing details including the neighbourhood and all the basic details ranging from your square footage and number of rooms to things like how many people have purchased your home. Other contributing factors include the condition of your home AND your neighbour’s, your school district, transportation, amenities, etc.

To avoid getting your hopes up only to be let down, or thinking your home is worthless and miss out on an opportunity, an agent is still your best resource when it comes to assessing your home’s value.

Selling your home can be a stressful experience if you’re not fully-prepared! Check out these home-selling blogs next:

#2: Virtual Tours and Staging – Thumbs Down

As we said, virtual tours are a good place to start your house hunt, but just keep in mind this technology can be deceiving. First, 3D tours often have a kind of fisheye effect that makes room space seem larger.

Second, staging technology allows real estate agents to add furnishings and décor to fill empty rooms, which can be unintentionally misleading.

So, when you get excited about a home you view online, try not to get too invested as the in-person visit might disappoint. We’ll give you a heads up when we think a home you want to see feels a little distorted to help avoid heartbreak!

#3: Online Real Estate Transactions – Thumbs Down

There are emerging real estate/mortgage companies out there claiming to do it all online including selling/purchases along with financing. However, you’re best to rely on separate experts at this point until these types of businesses prove their worth and work out the bugs. They just aren’t at the point where they can deliver the same level of service as a traditional lender or real estate team yet.

So, there you have it. We humans admit technology is a great time saver and stress reliever when it comes to these six tech tools. However, the other three can be misleading and risky. Personally, we think online companies just can’t deliver the same personalized service we offer our clients. Just saying.

Looking for information about buying and selling real estate in Toronto? The Christine Cowern Team can help. Give us a call at 416.291.7372 or email us at hello@christinecowern.com. We’d love to work with you!