By Romi Mahajan
The technology world gets animated every few years with a new concept- today it is Artificial Intelligence (AI). There is no doubt about both the promise and peril of AI but the fact that the concept is so powerful does not justify most of the claims made by companies scrambling to be seen as innovative. Indeed, most claims about AI are in the realm of hyperbole and even more of these claims are theoretical- they have no practical purpose that can be discerned– at least at this time.
Certainly, the so-deemed “The Big Nine”- companies with seemingly infinite coffers and people- should be willing to spend billions on theoretical AI since we know that R&D matters in the long term. But what about the smaller organizations that simply use tricky word-play to suggest that they are in fact cutting-edge when, in fact, they have little commercial purpose? Shame on them. Even as a Marketer, I balk at such chicanery.
Every now and then, however, there is a small company whose claims are actualized in fact. One such company, Quantarium, is applying world-class AI to the vexing problems of residential real estate. Full disclosure- I work at Quantarium- so read the rest only if you believe that I might have something more to offer than being a mere shill for propaganda.
Residential Real Estate(RRE) is a category that defies all others in terms of sheer size; RRE is the largest asset class in the world- valued at just under $200 Trillion. In the US alone, the market is $30 Trillion. Still- world round- RRE valuations, transactions, and analytics are shrouded in mystery. Why is “House A” worth a certain amount while “House B” is worth a different amount? And how does a company- say one that works with thousands of mortgages and mortgage owners- determine the value of the entire portfolio at speed and scale?
The questions continue. What extrinsic factors impinge on the value of Real Estate? What people are likely to buy property, list property for sale, borrow against property, or create any monetizable event in this vast market? What geographies will witness a boom and which will go bust?
Practitioners of the “dismal science”- Economics- will provide answers that serve only to occlude and confuse.
Enter AI. Artificial Intelligence- when applied to Real Estate- offers the ability to test huge numbers of hypotheses and then discern patterns; AI engines can even generate suo moto “their” own hypotheses to test. Models that offer transparency and clear vision into the rich interplay of thousands of variables can be run in record time. This is critical because businesses and consumers must make decisions in a timely fashion.
This is the reason Quantarium exists. The incredible coincidence of working with the world’s largest asset class which also happens to constitute for many families the single largest and most important economic decision of their lives.