My father called me on my Ericson T10 and asked, “do you know how to use this computer thing with the numbers?” (a fair description of Excel by someone who refuses, even now, to have a mobile phone).
It was 1998, I had just started my army service, and my knowledge of computers was limited to some classes I had taken in high school in 1995 (programming in C).
My response was, “not really”.
“Learn fast”, he said.
“I met this young guy at the bank. He was pressing some buttons on his computer, and a bunch of numbers were coming out”.
I asked for guidance from a friend who had rewired his car’s sound system using equipment far more expensive than what he was driving (he has since upgraded to using a robotic arm to plant lettuce on his veranda).
“Buy a book and teach yourself”, he said.
Learning Excel by using a book whilst on guard duty resulted in a small problem when I went to university two years later: there was nothing in the book about turning on the computer.
This caused some frustration on the first day after buying my first laptop. Yeap. True story. Total doofus.
After that, things became easier.
I enrolled in computer programming classes offered by the university’s IT department and started playing around with some financial modelling programs that we could download for free.
Dial-up internet became available at our dorms, and by the end of my undergraduate, you could even listen to a song if you had the patience to download it from Napster.
It was me, Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs taking over the world.
Data collection
Fast-forward 20 years later, WiRE is now collecting granular real estate data across Europe, aiming to be the infrastructure upon which others build and transact financial products and services.
I am constantly amazed by the level of digitalisation and available knowledge: statistics from various government departments showing construction costs, unemployment, and car registrations.
Raw data from satellites mapping how fires are developing in real-time, analytics showing the concentration of people by mapping their phone activity.
Scary. Amazing. Definitely Star Trek-level stuff.
WiRE’s plan is based on a simple premise: products and services should be tailored to each property and shouldn’t be up to the client to do the tailoring on behalf of the seller or provider.
Think about how you buy clothes in the real world versus the internet.
In the real world, you go to the mall, visit your favourite two-three shops, try on some clothes that are your size and colour of choice, pick the one you like, and pay.
In the meantime, you need to find parking, walk around the shops, wait at the changing rooms, and (fake) smile at the bored (teenager) shop assistant.
On the internet, you sit on your couch (being a good parent by watching Cartoon Network with your kids), go to a clothes aggregator, type the garment you want, the size, and the colour, pick the one you like, pay, and wait for it to arrive.
You used some search parameters to narrow the products, and the selection was tailored to you.
In the same way, if the real estate product or service provider knows the property characteristics you are looking for, they can offer you appropriate products and services for that property, already priced for that location and level of risk.
Give us time. We are getting close. And then we can unlock a whole new world of real estate-related transactions.
By Pavlos Loizou, CEO, WIRE
