Hey Alexa ... help me buy a home in the Triangle
Beginning on Monday, you’ll be able to start your search for a new home in the Triangle by consulting Alexa for advice.
Coldwell Banker Advantage, a real estate firm with a significant presence in the Triangle, says it will be the first real estate firm in the state to offer “substantial real estate search” through Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home. It’s part of the company’s ongoing efforts to remain current with how home buyers look for houses.
Alexa, help me a find a home
Coldwell Banker Advantage, like many companies these days, imagines a not-so-distant future when the use of voice assistants like Alexa and Google Home becomes one of the main ways people shop for everything from paper towels to homes.
Some researchers, such as ComScore, forecast that 50 percent of all searches will be done through voice assistants by 2020. And nearly half of American consumers could have a voice assistant device by the end of the upcoming holiday season, according to Adobe.
“Consumers have continued to evolve and change the way they shop and look for information,” Rick Gregory, chief operating officer at Coldwell Banker Advantage, said in a phone interview. Starting last decade “for anything you bought, it was starting off online and learning online from a desktop perspective, and then it moved quickly to a mobile perspective. Today, what is really interesting ... is people embracing voice technologies. Voice search is growing at a rapid pace.”
Gregory thinks the service will be especially popular in the Triangle, because of how tech-focused the region’s economy has become in recent years.
Through Coldwell, your voice assistant app should now be able to help you search for available homes or find the value of your current home. The command for the function is “Alexa, open Triangle Real Estate” or “Hey Google, talk to Triangle Real Estate,” though you can substitute specific cities in for “Triangle.”
To conduct the search, Coldwell will have the voice assistant ask what area you’re interested in, what your budget is and what features you want in a new home. The voice assistant will then list some available options or email them to you. It will also ask if you would like a realtor to contact you.
Coldwell Banker Advantage has more than 300 agents working in the region, from as far north as Lake Gaston to Johnston County.
The service comes as many real estate markets around the country begin to slow because of rising prices and mortgage rates, though the Triangle has largely been shielded by that so far because of its population growth.
However, home sales did begin to plateau a bit this fall as The News & Observer has previously reported.
Gregory said he expects the local real estate market to keep chugging along next year.
“When you look at many different (real estate markets) those communities usually have one to two employees,” he said. “But here in the Triangle area we have a lot of employers ... and a steady stream of new people coming in as well.”
This story was originally published December 10, 2018 at 9:00 AM.
