How could technology help your investing?

I’m looking for some creative thinking I hope the brains trust out there can assist with. I work in the software industry and have been thinking more and more about using technology in the property investment space (a potential marriage of two passions!). Obviously we all use technology pretty extensively for IPs (researching, buying, managing) and in the past I’ve also tended to write my own tools for activities like managing my portfolio (admittedly this is as much about playing with new technology as it has about filling an investment need).

Anyway, I’ve been looking for some new projects and also have some other parties interested in building software for the enjoyment of it (professionals, not hobbysists), so I thought I’d put a question out there; what sort of technology solution would you find really valuable in property investing that doesn’t exist already? This is a total “blue sky” question so go nuts on the answers. It could be a website, an iPhone app, a Twitter appliance, a hardware solution, whatever. I don’t have a commercial venture in mind at this stage, I’m just interested in possible uses for technology to make what we’re all passionate about a more productive experience.

Thanks!
 
SOoo! troy wants abrain storm ,so he can get his mates to build a site and make millions of dollers , and retire whilst building his gazillion doller property portfolio, :D
 
SOoo! troy wants abrain storm ,so he can get his mates to build a site and make millions of dollers , and retire whilst building his gazillion doller property portfolio, :D

That would be a very nice result (obviously!) but I'd be happy just fill a void that made the process more productive for everyone. I'm not setting out to do anything commercial, I just enjoy technology and property :)
 
Funny you should ask......I was thinking recently that it would be great if there was a website/iphone app that would enable you to get auction results real time or immediately after a sale/auction has occured. I'm sick of having having to wait until late on a Saturday/Sunday night to get on to the REIV auction results web site to find out the details.

I want information and I want it now :)
 
Funny you should ask......I was thinking recently that it would be great if there was a website/iphone app that would enable you to get auction results real time or immediately after a sale/auction has occured. I'm sick of having having to wait until late on a Saturday/Sunday night to get on to the REIV auction results web site to find out the details.

I want information and I want it now :)

I think the problem with that is the agents themselves (or their 25 year old assistants) don't update the online information until the end of the day - that is, they probably tramp around the town all afternoon going from one auction to the other, and then go back to the office at the end of the day to update all the information.

So if you want the auction info immedaitely, then you have to have a direct link to the actual agent so that they can tell you straight away.

I too have tried to think of s'ware/communication solutions for the Real Estate industry. My background is very large scale networks (ie country wide) and real time data feeds and haivng worked on large scale networks and data centres in both Asia and Australia and seeing how data, integrity and security works on such networks, then i would love to either design or work on a communications and data network for real estate agents and their customers.



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Funny you should ask......I was thinking recently that it would be great if there was a website/iphone app that would enable you to get auction results real time or immediately after a sale/auction has occured. I'm sick of having having to wait until late on a Saturday/Sunday night to get on to the REIV auction results web site to find out the details.

I want information and I want it now :)

I think that one or two agents are using twitter for this sort of thing, as well as promoting new listings. I don't know that it will become a standard industry practice, though.
 
Funny you should ask......I was thinking recently that it would be great if there was a website/iphone app that would enable you to get auction results real time or immediately after a sale/auction has occured. I'm sick of having having to wait until late on a Saturday/Sunday night to get on to the REIV auction results web site to find out the details.

I want information and I want it now :)

Interesting idea, obviously the dependency there is on the agent sharing that information as soon as it comes to hand. It would be easy enough to do by web / email / SMS / Twitter, the question is whether there is a good enough reason for them to want to do it. Can you think of a driver for the agent?
 
...It would be easy enough to do by web / email / SMS / Twitter, the question is whether there is a good enough reason for them to want to do it. Can you think of a driver for the agent?

Only reason I can think of is to raise the profile of the Agent involved. They get talked about and are seen as active in the marketplace.
 
Agree. Everyone's on Twitter and trying to think a money making angle. So pay them per tweet, feed your twitter through a portal that is supported by advertising or subscription and go from there. Though consider that possibly 10% of buyers are supposedly investors meaning perhaps 60-80 buyers per week and they'd be less than eager to spend money on something that could be solved by a phone call oir a 12 hour wait.

Personally I think that a more focussed version or RE.com.au that covered buyers with lots of parameters (as per their search/post emails). So a buyer could get a financial position summary on yield, potential growth, capital improvements etc would be good.

Something where I could log a property, do the inspection, fill in my own parameters (needs painting for example) and have the software provide me with links to hourly rates for painters, painters in the area, let me input these figures and figure potential cost of painting added to purchase price, adding stamp duty transfer costs, giving a gross figure for purchase and indicating potential rental return and sales return based on growth. A sort of property consultant expert online so I could iphone data to it from on site and review and print later at home.
 
The Dot Com Boom Crash Opera keeps playing

A little. It's not as horrific as it was 10 years ago, but you still see the odd website sell for far too much money.

Twitter and Facebook may struggle to crack the advertising market but you can be sure the demographic and trend data they on-sell to marketing/advertising companies is worth good coin. Enough to keep the servers running and the staff employed.

Cheers
Greg
 
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