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Any search for a home, purchase or rental, now begins on the Internet

Published on 10 August 2017
Update on 26 September 2022
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Summary

France Stratégie has devoted a report to the digital transformation of the housing market.

"New uses of housing are appearing, new players are emerging and are upsetting both the competitive game and the methods of intervention by the State. Partial or temporary rental formulas that used to be based on word of mouth or bartering are taking on a whole new dimension thanks to the intervention of exchange and rental platforms (...) At the same time, the functioning of the housing market and the working methods of its main actors are continuously evolving. Any search for a home, whether to buy or rent, now begins on the Internet and it is thanks to the Internet that professionals can improve their service offers. Ad portals facilitate the meeting between supply and demand and provide a lot of information immediately, software for estimating prices and rents based on the systematic observation of transactions on a regular basis, as well as the "virtual" presentation of housing".

Internet, the first tool for real estate research

According to France Stratégie, "the most visible, but already long-standing, transformation concerns the primacy of Internet tools for advertising real estate ads, whether for sale or rent.

The consultation of advertisement portals on the Internet is now the first reflex of both buyers and sellers of real estate.

According to Médiamétrie, in 2015, seven out of ten French people consulted real estate ads online and 90% of the real estate projects that were completed started on the internet.

Of the 14.3 million Internet users of a real estate ad site in 2015, 11 million logged on from a computer, 2.9 million from a mobile and 2.2 million from a tablet, including 1.8 million who logged on on multiple digital screens.

According to Médiamétrie, the French are distinguished from their neighbors by the frequency with which they consult these real estate ad sites: more than 13 million unique visitors per month in France, compared to less than 7 million in Germany and 5 million in the United Kingdom.

According to a survey conducted by Opinion Way in 2014, 55% of respondents placed real estate websites as the top preferred source of information for a real estate project, ahead of real estate agents (52%), word-of-mouth (39%), notaries (32%), and the print media (12%).

The ad portals now facilitate the meeting between supply and demand.

These portals offer software for estimating prices and rents based on the systematic observation of transactions and are making steady progress.

According to a survey carried out by IPSOS in 2015 for the Orpi network, practices such as the geolocation by Internet of available real estate (42%), the virtual visit by Internet of the residences (36%), the consultation of the opinions of the customers on an agency or a real estate network (35%) tended already to be commonplace.

The platforms thus establish a market where a small number of operations take the form of bartering, or even exchanges within small communities. " While these new practices can improve the occupancy of the stock in the most densely populated areas , they are not without perverse effects: a reduction in the number of dwellings allocated to traditional housing; disturbance of use in apartment buildings; tax evasion; unfair competition with the hotel industry," observes France Stratégie.

New actors

France Stratégie also points to the emergence of new players in real estate transactions and management: "they are not necessarily distinguished by a particular technological advance, but by a different insertion in the value chain, by the proposal of new services or by the offer of traditional services but priced differently.

These new players can be classified into several categories, depending on whether they clearly aim to replace the traditional players or whether they offer their services to the traditional players, while taking part of the added value produced by them.

To ensure control of the data and capture the maximum audience, the sites set up by the professional organizations, the ad portals or the virtual showcases proposed by the real estate agencies are continually enriching the information on the housing: history of the price of successive sales, consistency of the property, information on taxation, insurance, loans granted, information on the neighborhood, demographic characteristics of the inhabitants, quality of schools, crime, etc.

In France, notes France Stratégie, " no site offers information as rich as that found on sites in the United States or Quebec. This is partly due to the fact that some data is more easily accessible to notaries than to real estate agents.

The other striking fact pointed out by France Stratégie is the change in attitude towards property. "The concern for use is gaining ground over the desire for ownership. The attraction of citizens for the ownership of their home is not really questioned, but on the other hand the private space it represents would be more willingly opened and strangers would be more easily welcomed there". According to the survey conducted in 2015 by IPSOS, half of the respondents are not hostile to the idea of " renting out a room in their home to supplement their income".

Références :

Sources

Any search for a home, purchase or rental, now begins on the Internet

France Stratégie has devoted a report to the digital transformation of the housing market.

"New uses of housing are appearing, new players are emerging and are upsetting both the competitive game and the methods of intervention by the State. Partial or temporary rental formulas that used to be based on word of mouth or bartering are taking on a whole new dimension thanks to the intervention of exchange and rental platforms (...) At the same time, the functioning of the housing market and the working methods of its main actors are continuously evolving. Any search for a home, whether to buy or rent, now begins on the Internet and it is thanks to the Internet that professionals can improve their service offers. Ad portals facilitate the meeting between supply and demand and provide a lot of information immediately, software for estimating prices and rents based on the systematic observation of transactions on a regular basis, as well as the "virtual" presentation of housing".

Internet, the first tool for real estate research

According to France Stratégie, "the most visible, but already long-standing, transformation concerns the primacy of Internet tools for advertising real estate ads, whether for sale or rent.

The consultation of advertisement portals on the Internet is now the first reflex of both buyers and sellers of real estate.

According to Médiamétrie, in 2015, seven out of ten French people consulted real estate ads online and 90% of the real estate projects that were completed started on the internet.

Of the 14.3 million Internet users of a real estate ad site in 2015, 11 million logged on from a computer, 2.9 million from a mobile and 2.2 million from a tablet, including 1.8 million who logged on on multiple digital screens.

According to Médiamétrie, the French are distinguished from their neighbors by the frequency with which they consult these real estate ad sites: more than 13 million unique visitors per month in France, compared to less than 7 million in Germany and 5 million in the United Kingdom.

According to a survey conducted by Opinion Way in 2014, 55% of respondents placed real estate websites as the top preferred source of information for a real estate project, ahead of real estate agents (52%), word-of-mouth (39%), notaries (32%), and the print media (12%).

The ad portals now facilitate the meeting between supply and demand.

These portals offer software for estimating prices and rents based on the systematic observation of transactions and are making steady progress.

According to a survey carried out by IPSOS in 2015 for the Orpi network, practices such as the geolocation by Internet of available real estate (42%), the virtual visit by Internet of the residences (36%), the consultation of the opinions of the customers on an agency or a real estate network (35%) tended already to be commonplace.

The platforms thus establish a market where a small number of operations take the form of bartering, or even exchanges within small communities. " While these new practices can improve the occupancy of the stock in the most densely populated areas , they are not without perverse effects: a reduction in the number of dwellings allocated to traditional housing; disturbance of use in apartment buildings; tax evasion; unfair competition with the hotel industry," observes France Stratégie.

New actors

France Stratégie also points to the emergence of new players in real estate transactions and management: "they are not necessarily distinguished by a particular technological advance, but by a different insertion in the value chain, by the proposal of new services or by the offer of traditional services but priced differently.

These new players can be classified into several categories, depending on whether they clearly aim to replace the traditional players or whether they offer their services to the traditional players, while taking part of the added value produced by them.

To ensure control of the data and capture the maximum audience, the sites set up by the professional organizations, the ad portals or the virtual showcases proposed by the real estate agencies are continually enriching the information on the housing: history of the price of successive sales, consistency of the property, information on taxation, insurance, loans granted, information on the neighborhood, demographic characteristics of the inhabitants, quality of schools, crime, etc.

In France, notes France Stratégie, " no site offers information as rich as that found on sites in the United States or Quebec. This is partly due to the fact that some data is more easily accessible to notaries than to real estate agents.

The other striking fact pointed out by France Stratégie is the change in attitude towards property. "The concern for use is gaining ground over the desire for ownership. The attraction of citizens for the ownership of their home is not really questioned, but on the other hand the private space it represents would be more willingly opened and strangers would be more easily welcomed there". According to the survey conducted in 2015 by IPSOS, half of the respondents are not hostile to the idea of " renting out a room in their home to supplement their income".

Références :

Sources

Labo Société Numérique

Labo République Française Agence nationale de cohésion des territoires
Any search for a home, purchase or rental, now begins on the Internet