At the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., Fannie Mae exhibited “Making Room: Housing for A Changing America” as it highlighted many of the issues that face today’s shortage of quality affordable housing. In a blog by Maria Evans, VP for Sustainable Communities at Fannie Mae, she notes that “When affordable housing is part of a mixed-income community with good schools, health and wellness opportunities, and good-paying jobs, it is much easier for those communities to address longstanding disparities in educational or health outcomes of low-income residents.”
It was noted at the exhibit that the housing industry has failed to keep up with the ever changing demographics. The demographics show that 11.63 percent of the total housing stock was for single adults who preferred one bedroom homes. Three and four bedroom homes made up 39.82 and 16.66 percent of the housing stock with two bedrooms composing 26.54 percent.
This thought provoking idea is now one of the many projects that Fannie Mae has launched under the Sustainable Communities Innovative Challenge. Under this challenge, Fannie Mae makes a $10 million commitment to generate affordable housing solutions to sustainable communities that provide residents integrated opportunities for employment, health and wellness, and education. Anyone inside or outside the housing industry can submit their ideas and innovations. One example that has come out of this challenge is the West Denver Renaissance Collaborative that came up with the idea of an accessory dwelling unit(ADU) program where a detached residence approximately 450-870 square feet is placed in the backyard of primary homes and can serve as a rental unit, creating a new source of income for the homeowner. This ADU not only raises the property value but also adds to the affordable housing supply that is very much needed.
Or does this sound like these companies are trying to offer a solution that is looking for a problem? If someone had a problem at a closing it could have either been a bad real estate agent or an escrow agent. Typically it is the buyers that pick the escrow, but in today’s market it seems to be this responsibility has fallen on the listing agent, whose primary job is first and foremost a marketing one. The listing agent does not directly sell your house, but they should be the reason your house sells. Thus being knowledgeable in escrow is not a primary responsibility for them.
comes to payoffs on the seller’s mortgage and getting new loan documents on the buyer’s loan. When it comes to real estate transactions, electronic signatures are enforceable, however certain documents (e.g. mortgages and deeds) will require original signatures for recordation. Borrowers and lenders continue to require originally executed notes to maximize their comfort level that there is only one negotiable instrument.
Artificial intelligence isn’t just the foundation of new startups, it’s being implemented into pre-existing real-estate tools that have been transforming the market for years. ATTOM data’s AVM is a tool which analyzes previous property purchases. The system breaks down property characteristics, compiles them and assigns values, and uses them to set a market value scale. This same process can be applied to a buyer. Artificial intelligence makes it possible to scrutinize personal data and, consequently, base property value on the desired home qualities, income, and personality traits of buyers, not just the characteristics of properties. Even services, like Zillow, will need to adapt greater AI capability. The consumer today shapes their life according to recommendations. Video streaming and food services use AI to suggest future choices to people based on prior activity. It’s a fundamental tenant of psychology that most people desire to be instructed and managed. This same concept applies to how AI is incorporated. Real estate web services, with the help of AI, will be presenting recommendations, to the consumers, based on extrapolated data trails. Has this individual posted about having children? Add a spare bedroom qualifier to their home criteria. Do they like barbeque? Advertise a property in close proximity to something finger-lickin’ good. Do they like reading? Propose a property with abundant natural light.
person, according to a Nielsen Company audience report, spends 10 hours a day consuming media online. That amounts to 3,650 hours, and 41.6% of the average person’s year spent online. This activity produces an incomprehensible mass of data trail to be scrutinized and expressed in your next home purchase. How AI will ultimately transform the real estate business is unknown. Who knows, perhaps one-day artificial intelligence will purchase property for itself. All one can be utterly sure of is that the phrase, “I’ll be back,” will not be vocalized because AI isn’t terminating anytime soon.
