A Systematic Review of Smart Real Estate Technology: Drivers of, and Barriers to, the Use of Digital Disruptive Technologies and Online Platforms

Abstract

Real estate needs to improve its adoption of disruptive technologies to move from traditional to smart real estate (SRE). This study reviews the adoption of disruptive technologies in real estate. It covers the applications of nine such technologies, hereby referred to as the Big9. These are: drones, the internet of things (IoT), clouds, software as a service (SaaS), big data, 3D scanning, wearable technologies, virtual and augmented realities (VR and AR), and artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. The Big9 are examined in terms of their application to real estate and how they can furnish consumers with the kind of information that can avert regrets. The review is based on 213 published articles. The compiled results show the state of each technology’s practice and usage in real estate. This review also surveys dissemination mechanisms, including smartphone technology, websites and social media-based online platforms, as well as the core components of SRE: sustainability, innovative technology and user centredness. It identifies four key real estate stakeholders—consumers, agents and associations, government and regulatory authorities, and complementary industries—and their needs, such as buying or selling property, profits, taxes, business and/or other factors. Interactions between these stakeholders are highlighted, and the specific needs that various technologies address are tabulated in the form of a what, who and how analysis to highlight the impact that the technologies have on key stakeholders. Finally, stakeholder needs as identified in the previous steps are matched theoretically with six extensions of the traditionally accepted technology adoption model (TAM), paving the way for a smoother transition to technology-based benefits for consumers. The findings pertinent to the Big9 technologies in the form of opportunities, potential losses and exploitation levels (OPLEL) analyses highlight the potential utilisation of each technology for addressing consumers’ needs and minimizing their regrets. Additionally, the tabulated findings in the form of what, how and who links the Big9 technologies to core consumers’ needs and provides a list of resources needed to ensure proper information dissemination to the stakeholders. Such high-quality information can bridge the gap between real estate consumers and other stakeholders and raise the state of the industry to a level where its consumers have fewer or no regrets. The study, being the first to explore real estate technologies, is limited by the number of research publications on the SRE technologies that has been compensated through incorporation of online reports.