About 21 years ago, the first real estate portals were born, although they were just a section within search engine websites. Two years later, real estate portals, as we know them, began to show up. Portals, at that moment, just had real estate ads. However, those portals owners began to collect data on the portals use. They only used that data internally to improve the user experience and their positioning on the internet.

The next big step took place, when approximately in 2005, portals started to use the data to make the first real estate price reports. These reports were based on real estate portal prices, potential price drops, time to sell, properties characteristics and geographical areas.

A few years later, real estate portals began to take advantage of the internet data full potential. They started to add all kinds of socio-economic, demographic and geographic information. And, to continue improving those reports, they started to include mathematical algorithms that improved the results of the reports.

Real estate agents started to use those reports to inform landlords about the property sale price.

Reports algorithms began to add objective data, from public organisms sources and data attached by the real estate agents. With all this information, professionals were able to guess the final sales prices.

As a consequence of the data increase on the internet, from public and private sources (free and paid), valuation companies started to showing up offering complete and complex valuation software that included artificial intelligence and Machine Learning. These tools improved the initial reports that real estate agents were using.

This also happened thanks to the fact that public bodies improved data collection and standardized it.

With this info, valuation proptech companies offer real estate agents an incredible improvement in the reports they offer today to property owners, achieving the sale price quickly and simply, reducing the time to sell a property.

It remains to be seen where the real estate companies will go, towards super-specialized services or towards offering different types of complex services but at the same time with results that are simpler and easier to control.

Gustavo Lopez

Operations director

Catalan Real Estate Agents Association