Not long ago, the real estate industry was regarded as a technological backwater. The industry was slow to embrace popularly adopted technological advancements (like social media, online messaging etc.) and outright obstinate when it came to cutting-edge tech innovations. A few practitioners bucked the trend – but overall, real estate remained stubbornly manual, old-fashioned, and secretive.
Then Nobul came along, a fresh face riding the proptech wave (short for property technology). The company capitalized on a new generation of real estate consumers eager to embrace digital change, and forced the industry to march into the 21st Century.
In this article, let’s explore how Nobul is leading the way for the future of real estate technology.
What Is Nobul?
To understand Nobul’s complex and varied offerings, let’s defer to the founder and CEO of the company, Regan McGee.
The innovator shared with SuperbCrew that, “The nucleus of the company is all about transparency and empowerment for homebuyers. Nobul is a digital marketplace that connects homebuyers and home sellers to the real estate agents that are right for them.”
Additionally, the company offers a suite of consumer-centric resources that help make buying or selling (whether a first home or a fifteenth) streamlined, convenient and confident. Below, let’s unpack these offerings to determine what makes the company so unique.
A Radical Change to the Conventional Agent-Consumer Dynamic
Recently, Deloitte placed Nobul at the top of their Fast 50 list of the fastest-growing tech companies in the country. Largely, the award was a recognition of the company’s bold mission to give the upper hand back to real estate consumers.
Before Nobul, the balance of power tipped considerably in an agent’s favor. Real estate agents could obfuscate their transaction histories, hide negative reviews and keep their commission rates under lock and key. And because consumers had little recourse for comparing their options, they were forced to choose agents based on – let’s say – who wore the smartest blazer in a Yellow Pages ad.
Nobul injected an “open marketplace” approach to the dynamic. On it, consumers can vet their options, access transparent information and force agents to compete to lower commission rates. In this way, Nobul leads the way for real estate technology to blow past the old ideas about “lead generation tools” that service agents, and speak directly to the consumer.
Resources and Tools Aimed at Empowering Real Estate Consumers
The company pitches itself as an “end-to-end platform,” meaning they aim to add value at every step of the real estate transaction process – not just in searching for an agent. True to its claims, the company offers several resources and tools:
- An affordability calculator
- Mortgage comparisons
- A payment calculator
- Market conditions indicators for various cities
- How-to guides for home viewing, homebuying, etc.
- And more.
But the company isn’t done. As the next section outlines, the company is still carving out a path for the future of real estate technology.
The Bleeding Edge of Innovation: Embracing Emerging Technologies
One of Nobul’s superpowers currently is its open-mindedness.
Having leveraged AI algorithms to create its proprietary agent-consumer matchmaking system, the company now looks toward other emerging technologies. Recently, Nobul announced they would offer a “permission-based enterprise blockchain platform on IBM’s Hyperledger” to help consumers manage agreements. And the company continues to leverage big data to provide transparent, up-to-date information on agents and local markets.
In an interview with Medium, McGee teased that Nobul is “preparing to file three more patents for exciting technology that we will reveal soon. Stay tuned.” Whatever the company has in store, it’s sure to continue its trend of paving a brave new path for real estate technology.
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