How is Bayut using technology?
I firmly believe that technology is an enabler; it makes everything easier and accessible to more people while addressing evolving challenges in a scalable fashion. At Bayut, we have used technology to create innovative solutions that address the industry’s needs at every stage of the property search experience.
A typical property search journey goes through multiple steps; Discovery, Selection, Negotiation and Closing. While prospective tenants and buyers are turning to digital assets during the Discovery and Selection phase, we believe that it is equally important to provide the industry with technology-backed solutions that can bring more coherence to the final two steps of the journey as well.
We have used a robust combination of machine learning and AI amongst other proptech solutions to cater to the needs of both potential home seekers and the agent community.
Today Bayut is the fastest property portal in the world, with the largest inventory of property listings in the UAE. While our core product is supporting the virtual property search experience for prospective buyers and tenants, we have also built niche solutions to streamline the process even further. One of our recent launches is the Map View feature, where property seekers can interact with an immersive map to discover potential homes that fit in with their location-based requirements.
Similarly, we also have the region’s first and only fully integrated authentication solution to advertise the availability of properties with TruCheckTM. When buyers or tenants see property listings with the TruCheckTM badge, they can be sure that particular property is an active listing and is available in the market at that point in time.
To help home-searchers further in their virtual house hunting journey, we are also the first and only company to come up with standardised 2D and 3D floor plans of over 45,000 properties in the country, enabling potential buyers and tenants to get a bird’s eye view of the property. This feature will be further enhanced with 3D live visualization in the near future as well.
These aspects have significantly digitised the journey for our users, but there is also ample support extended to the agent community through our industry-facing products. With our SmartLeadsTM feature, available on BayutPro, our exclusive app for property brokers, agents get a deeper understanding of their customer’s requirements, helping them to hold more educated discussions during the negotiation process. BayutPro also simplifies lead management for agents helping them to close deals more efficiently.
How is this different from everyone else?
The Bayut experience is extremely unique. We not only create tailor-made experiences for potential tenants and buyers, but we also offer superior products and features to help our partners elevate their level of performance. Most of the solutions and technology assets I have mentioned above are exclusive to Bayut including BayutPro, SmartLeadsTM, TruCheckTM and Floor Plans.
We are also days away from launching another unique product on our website that will extend further support to our brokers in the current conditions where social distancing is required to support the global fight against COVID-19. We are very excited about this launch so stay tuned for our next announcement.
We also take an integrated, 360-degree approach to help our users with their property search experience. Our dynamic content resources such as the MyBayut Blog, Area Guides, Building Guides and School Guides support the research needs of our users; while our regular training sessions through Bayut Academy facilitate the learning requirements of our industry partners. By attempting to understand the pain points of our users through all these segments and enabling solutions through the use of technology, we have created a seamless journey for all stakeholders in the property industry.
Why use technology?
Like I mentioned earlier, technology is the best means to enable creative, scalable problem-solving.
If you compare looking for a property now with how we used to do it earlier, the process is much simpler and accessible. Gone are the days when one had to leaf through newspaper supplements full of endless pages of classified adverts and struggle to find something that suited their needs. Now, we can not only use digital resources to fine-tune property search on the go but we are also able to innovate and come up with further enhancements based on user-needs and requirements in a more controlled and measurable fashion.
With the recent coronavirus outbreak, the conversations around virtual business solutions have increased, but this digital transformation has been on the cards for a long time. People have been increasingly turning to technology to find answers to challenging situations.
Technology and data have been a part of Bayut’s DNA from the very early stages. By deriving the right data and powering solutions using the relevant technology long before this crisis hit us, we have a unique head start, which we are capitalising on to help the community at large with their simplified virtual home-search experience.
While the pandemic has forced people to rethink the way they navigate through life, the existence of technology and innovation has significantly reduced the impact this could have on our lives. Imagine the situation if we were left without the support of technology?
What have the results been?
As a data-driven company, we constantly measure our growth and evaluate the success of our new launches and solutions to understand the pulse of the audience. This not only helps us to stay on track with future releases, but it also helps us gain a very real perspective on the evolving needs of property seekers and the agent community.
Since the announcement of many of our revolutionary products, we have grown to become the market leaders with the highest traffic in the property classifieds vertical, working with over 1,200 agencies in the UAE.
In October we saw our traffic grow to over 3 Million sessions, and in November we were recognised with the ‘Best Property Portal Award’ from Forbes Middle East for transforming the region’s real estate market. So there has been a lot of validation from the industry and the community at large for all our efforts.
Bayut is known for pushing the boundaries using technology and innovation no matter what we do, and the reception has been overwhelmingly positive so far.
As a company too, we have grown tremendously in the last few years. We have amassed cumulative funding of over 160 Million USD, acquired the Middle East assets of Lamudi, expanded to other GCC markets and welcomed over 200 members to the growing Bayut family!
How do you see the future of the industry in terms of tech advances?
While the use of technology is still at a nascent stage in the region’s property market, the scope is truly transformative. We are already starting to see a wave of technology-driven PropTech solutions changing the way we interact with customers in the industry. Chatbots powered by artificial intelligence (AI) are starting to answer customer queries. AI is starting to help agents with property valuations by processing historical data and analysing images of certain aspects of a property. AI is also able to compare current and previous user behaviour and make recommendations based on different findings.
The real estate industry across the globe is also looking closely at Blockchain technology. Smart contracts and tokenisation could enable real estate to become a liquid asset that could be traded through digital channels.
Many of these advances haven’t made an impact in our region yet, but I believe positive change is coming. It’s important to understand that as our industry embraces technology, we should not fear it. Tech helps us to match a customer’s need with valuable solutions that address their challenges.