How Technology and Mental Health Affect Real Estate

Chances are, if you’re interested in running the entrepreneurial race, you’ve looked into the possibility of buying and selling real estate. It’s a good market to consider for a variety of reasons. For starters, you don’t need an entire squad of engineers to set up a machine learning network to buy and sell bungalows.

However, it’s a market rife with hidden issues that can hit both newcomers and long-term veterans alike.

Emotions Run Deep

Selling a property, especially one that has been in a family for some time, is an emotional experience that not every seller reacts to well. You’ve likely heard stories of stubborn sellers asking for hundreds of thousands of dollars more than a property is worth. That’s bad enough on its own, but you also have to consider how one emotional landholder can lock down a development plan for years over an illogical connection to a plot of land.

Instances like these can make real estate suddenly transform into a game of psychological cat and mouse where you have to tiptoe the line between acting in your own financial interests without stepping on the concerns of others. Not everyone is prepared to take on that burden either financially or emotionally, so make sure you can handle the rigors of delicate social interactions.

Stress is a Real Concern

Every job has its risks and common stresses, yet handling real estate seems to get to many more than they’d like to admit. Death by suicide is higher than average among agents and pretending stress isn’t a driving factor in the field would be doing a disservice to those interested.

If you both handle real estate and have investments of your own, you’ll likely find yourself worrying over the performance of your own portfolio while still trying to keep others’ properties moving consistently. Marketplace dips can hit you twice on both your own financial side as well as on the business side and recovery can be daunting.

Technology Adoption Rates Are Underwhelming

When compared to other fields, most aspects relating to real estate have been painfully behind the curve in buying into rising technologies to take advantage of unseen opportunities. It’s something of a holdout between old and new, considering the business of real estate has roots hundreds of years before the idea of a computer had entered anyone’s minds. Between software that evaluates data and using digital service listings to aid in expanding horizons, there’s plenty of spaces where technology could make real estate easier. If you’re already tech-savvy, this lack of adoption might be irritating at best.

This lack of adoption is a shame in many ways. Even the simplest of data aggregation technology could make the business of predicting local market changes easier. Tapping into the rising idea of interconnected technologies to study environmental data and traffic patterns makes mapping out popular districts and unseen hot spots a reality. Even the simple act of comparing real estate agents and taking advantage of more digital advertisement has the potential to make sales more visible and appealing.

Thankfully, industry experts are starting to notice how the gap between old and new is hurting business and could point to shifting attitudes towards technological literacy rates. It’s an upside if you can capitalise early, but a headache if you’re just as behind as everyone else.

While there are plenty of other hidden pitfalls that require feeling out local markets and simply getting your feet wet, the mental aspects of real estate are worth repeating to those who are interested in the industry or have been entrenched so long that they’ve started losing sight of their health over the years. Maybe you can relieve some of those headaches by buying into rising technological trends, but make sure you’re taking care of yourself along the way.