How does technology help the property industry? One of my clients threw this into a conversation recently; for context the conversation was more about us having a good old grumble about why it seems harder than ever to get property deals done despite all the digital wizardry at our disposal.
This got me thinking so I decided to look at some of the daily tasks of a humble surveyor today vs when I was on my year out in 1994 / 5… some 30 years ago!
Has technology helped?
| TASK | 30 Years Ago | Vs Today |
| Measuring up | 100 foot tape measures and measuring sticks | vs Point & shoot lasers |
| Photographs | Photos were on taken on analogue cameras with film cartridges which you had to get developed. Copies invariably went through a photocopier (in black and white) which made them effectively useless – see any pre 2000 schedule of condition totalling 300 pages | vs Hi-resolution digital images from your phone. We also have Matterport which can walk you through the building in 3D |
| Aerial Photographs | Booking a light aircraft or a camera on a ‘tall poll’ | vs Hi-resolution 4K drone images |
| Phones | You had one on your desk and reception diverted calls to you. You didn’t have a direct number and mobile phones were ‘bricks with sticks’ which you had to book out – if you were lucky to work in an office that embraced mobile phones. They were super expensive to run (50p / min call rates) On my year out in 1994 the office had 3 to share around a 100 strong office. Emails didn’t arrive in your phone until Blackberrys were invented and even then, ordinary office staff didn’t get these until the early / mid 2000’s | vs Smart modern phone with an app for everything |
| Correspondence | I didn’t have an email address in 1994..I don’t think I got a work one until nearer 2000. Everything was done via letter through the post | vs Email |
| Signing document | You either went to see your lawyer or posted back the wet inked documents | vs DocuSign |
| Appointments | You simply ‘trusted’ the other person to turn up on time | vs Ringing / texting / emailing or sending WhatsApp reminders to them |
| Negotiations | Everyone just got round the table or picked up the phone and thrashed it out. They were called conference calls | vs Teams / Zoom calls or emails with a huge number of ‘cc’ recipients. |
| Marketing | We used to mail out hundreds and hundreds of brochures to businesses | vs HTML mailers, websites etc. Launches haven’t changed much though…. |
| Planning searches | I used to have to go to the planning office and wait for the duty planning officer to ‘serve me’ to answer any queries. The local plan was often laid out in paper form and you had to find the planning allocation that way | vs Online / planning portal search |
| Rating | To find out the Rateable value of a property you rang the council or the valuation office | vs Online search |
| Information (data) | Offices had property files, some of which took up huge amounts of space (by this I mean hundreds of sq.ft. File storage was often a significant part of the office fit out) | vs Google / Microsoft / Cloud storage |
If you extend this to other modern working practices such as;
- Working from home, this wasn’t a thing, it was considered ‘nicking off work!’
- Hot desking wasn’t a thing.
- I can’t really remember people talking about job sharing 30 years ago.
So how is it even conceivable that it’s now harder than ever to get property ‘stuff’ done?
With all this amazing technology and a world that is now ‘instant’ what is the problem?
The problem is that people don’t speak to each other like they used to. Speaking to people has been replaced by process, typically emails, form filling and ‘is there an app for this?’ Something really critical has been lost here.
The younger generation don’t like to pick up the phone and sort things out, they don’t like being put on the spot. They don’t like the confrontation which is an integral part of business. They think chasing someone is sending an email, not sitting on hold and telling the receptionist ‘I’m not putting the phone down until I’ve spoken to them.’ When was the last time you did that? Today we just leave ‘another voicemail’ I think modern interviews should involve a ‘phone call test’ because so many ‘kids’ simply don’t make them!
So, my client has a point. How does technology help the property industry? – Technology has placed much less emphasis on meeting and talking to people directly and shifted it towards app based platforms. It might be great for making everyday tasks easier but it also allows people to hide and duck the more difficult things that need doing.
