The housing industry really came into it’s own over the last hundred plus years. The United States of America, the land of individualism and abundant opportunities saw the first boom in this industry, where land-ownership was not decreed by royalties or barons but by the monetary value produced by human ingenuity and effort. The good news for this industry is that the nature of humans and the physical environment that we inhabit is such that, so long as there are human beings there will be a real estate marketplace.
Samantha Sharf of Forbes.com for example lists one of the prediction of the experts that the millennial demand for housing will keep climbing.
In recent times, the company Uber and it’s likes( Lyft and Grab,etc) have all but revolutionized the cab industry. Detractors and supporters alike are forced to admit that by bypassing archaic regulations and relying solely on customer demand and it’s own quality control, these companies have added immeasurably to the convenience of many passengers and inter-city travelers.
Uber’s modus operandi of linking the supplier and the customer directly and providing a platform for it has spread across many industries. One prominent example is the financing industry which has always been a foothold of the traditional banks. Today, companies such as Amazon, Alipay and others sit at the forefront of a whole new industry termed the fintech industry which eases payments between online suppliers and their buyers ala Uber by creating a trusted network to make and receive such payments.
Thus, it’s natural to expect so major an industry as the real estate marketplace to change in the face of such “Uberisation”. For starters, micropayment and microinvestment firms have started to offer deals to invest in properties just like in the stock market. And it’s not limited to properties – they are investing in housing-related services too, including roofing Colorado Springs. Arbor Investment and fundrise.com are amongst these companies which allow for anyone to invest a small sum in properties. Various websites provide a review of such investment providers. Thus potentially such investments can turn out to be fail-proof and a sure return on investment. This service parallels Uber’s system of publicly rating it’s drivers according to the customer’s preferences.
Another area of interest for home-owners is the problem of selling houses fast to clear financial arrears for some reason or other. In such a situation the need to find trusted home buyers is the paramount obstacle. Companies such as Done Deal Buyers have filled in this vacuum. Done Deal Buyers is an example of the marriage of the online or mobile application world and the physical environment so well exemplified by Uber and their counterparts in the fintech industry. When a home-owner needs to sell urgently but is unable to deal with hassles such as repairing vacant properties, who are undergoing divorce amongst other issues.
It should be noted that in the face of the current era of supplier-buyer seamlessness, the store of value I.e. money will remain substantially in the form of property ownership. While the gold currency economy has all but died of in favour of government-fiat currency, traditional banks have always taken property to be the major store of value of an individual. Thus, the process of “Uberisation” in the property industry is much to be welcomed and is very exciting for all the parties involved.