The property sector is latching on to the power of big data.
The 21st-century coupling of algorithms and large pools of information, made possible by powerful computing, is already entrenched in sectors such as finance.
Now the methodology is making inroads into real estate. Some players are ambitious, others ignorant, and many are hopeful.
Among them is EY's Selina Short, a real estate segment leader, who has seen the shift in mindset within the sector change rapidly just in the past year.
"Everyone is talking about it now," she told The Australian Financial Review.
"We are at the very tip of the iceberg, The retailers and some other areas are a bit further along the curve."
The tech giants are already there, Facebook, Amazon, Google.
Plenty of opportunities
Data is the lifeblood for retailers such as Amazon, whose imminent arrival in Australia is already sending shudders through the retail industry.
"That is why they are so terrifying. Because they know what you're going to buy before you know what you want to buy," Ms Short said.
Even so, there are plenty of opportunities remaining within the property sector, outlined in a recent EY paper.
The occupation of real estate – offices, malls, factories and houses – generates fresh amounts of information, data which is not yet swallowed up by the tech giants.
"As an asset owner you have this incredible access to people, they are in your space," Ms Short said.
"It is what you do around understanding the broader needs that creates additional opportunities for you as a business."
Mall owners such as GPT have begun employing data analytics to understand and influence shoppers. Childcare centre landlord Arena REIT is also looking to use the predictive power of big data to forecast supply and demand.
Canadian-listed real estate software player Altus, in a recent visit to Sydney, flagged the potential for big data to be used in managing residential development.
Even office landlords, according to Ms Short, are looking at how big data – tracking and analysing user movements through their buildings – will address the eternal question: how to attract and retain tenants.
Different approach
For Ms Short and EY partner Blair Delzoppo, embracing big data involves a willingness to take a different approach to problem-solving than typically taken in the sector.
"It's about crunching vast amounts of data to see what are the patterns that we may not see otherwise and what are the anomalies," Ms Short said.
With big data, though, comes great responsibility. The information pools are both very abstract and becoming very personal.
That may be less of an issue among the millennial generation, already accustomed to sharing personal details, but is nonetheless a privacy issue.
"There will be a scenario down the track that there is enough information available and it is rich enough that some of these types of personalisations will become very precise," Mr Delzoppo said, referring to retailers' interactions with consumers.
"They will start to know you very well, about how you will respond to certain things, about your own individual likes.
"That's the point that joins up with privacy and making sure we're doing things in an appropriate way."
