Over a 10-hour ride to the country side, an idea popped to my head about a new generation bot that could potentially help real estate professionals of the future, especially the ones operating in South East Asia.
For those not familiar, South East Asian real estate professionals operate within a decentralized system. We don’t have a solid MLS-like system that North Americans use. In the Philippines for example, the government does not have a strong grip of the real estate transactions. The market is riddled with a mix of legitimate and illegitimate listing portals that post inaccurate listings at best & bogus listings at worst.
It’s high time that someone create a platform that could centralize B2B transactions of real estate professionals. As I see it, TARS Chat Bots have the potential to solve this problem.
I was one of two people who tried to solve this exact problem in the Philippines. I co-founded LYST, a listing exchange platform that automated matching of listings & requirements and we experimented with our MVP for 12-months before pulling the plug (my co-founder had to concentrate back to his startup that’s why we turned it off). The experience I had with LYST makes me 110% sure that TARS Chat Bots or a new generation of it are the solution. (Here’s a look at LYST for those curious https://youtu.be/iVOt6Y_vM- )
Now, here’s the concept.
Imagine a bot that will store property listings in a data base. The data would just consist of basic details to lower down use of memory. Details will just include: Address, unit number, number of bedrooms, bathrooms, parking, floor size and sale or rental price.
We can call our first bot, GOD. The more users upload their listings, the bigger and better his repository of data would be. It’s crowdsourced. It’s free. In 2 or 3 years time, GOD can hypothetically be an all-knowing real estate entity.
Now that we have GOD bot, the next bot we need is a personal assistant. We can borrow Batman’s butler and make him our own Bot-ler. Appropriately named Alfred.
When users login to TARS 2.0 (Real Estate version), users will be prompted to do 2 activities; to either post a listing or search for a listing.
POSTING:
Now, if they want to post a listing, they’ll be asked to choose if it’s a for sale or for rent listing. Once they pick either one, they’ll be required to input the basic details that we discussed above.
At this specific moment, the users are directly interacting with GOD. Once they have satisfied the basic requirements, they’ll be sent back to Step 1. They can post and search unlimited listings as long as it’s not spam.
SEARCHING:
This is where Alfred will shine. When users need to look for a for sale or for rent listing, Alfred will do the heavy lifting. He will interact with GOD and search his database of listings. Just like those High-frequency trading AI’s, Alfred can search and serve all the matched listings to his master in seconds.
The user can then browse the list of matched listings and engage directly with the other user via chat or call or whatever mode of communication they want to use.
If in the unfortunate event Alfred doesn’t find a matched listing, he’ll create a “Willing To Buy” or “Want To Rent” post within GOD’s database. The moment a new user posts a listing that matches the Willing To Buy or Want To Lease requirement, both users will immediately be notified by their Alfred’s.
It’s a TARS 2.0 work of art. The automation and centralization will be a thing of beauty.
Instead of brokers and agents scouring the internet for listings or using Facebook groups, LinkedIn or Viber to post their listing requirements, they’ll have a pocket-sized Bot-ler to streamline their work.
This is the basic concept. There’s the issue of user security, privacy and listing duplication and maintenance. These are the minor factors that could easily be polished.
I think they can put this TARS 2.0 concept in the blue ocean strategy bracket. Something that no one have yet to make.
How about that? You read this far! Thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts. Will finish my coffee now. Cheers mate and Mabuhay from the Philippines!