THE IMPACTS OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ON SELLING OF PROPERTIES - A BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

Information Technology (IT) has become an indispensable aspect for many industries within the economy. The real estate industry is also seeing a wide application of IT, especially in the area of online marketing. This study, however, attempts to study IT from the perspective of real estate agencies. A study on the current agency practices in real estate agencies reveals that the use of IT takes on an ancillary function to that of selling properties. The degree of use of IT and its perceived impacts on the competency of the real estate agencies, however, is seldom being discussed. In examining the impacts of IT on selling of properties, three aspects were focused on, namely, customer relations, employees' efficiency as well as business profits and performance. It has been found that IT has visible impacts on all the three aspects. The problems associating with the use of IT in real estate agencies was examined and evaluated to determine their impacts and recommendations were made.