Caveat: I can’t read the article. I’m just riffing based on my knowledge of RE and personal experiences with tech.<p>As someone who’s researched real estate, I have a hard time seeing how tech can help the RE industry. For starters, RE bubbles have led to the worst economic downturns. If people can buy homes so easily that they can profit on making superficial changes, then prices will go up far above efficient. That pushes actual “householders” out of the market. Also, look at the dumpster fire that is Silicon Valley RE.<p>If I’m thinking of ways tech may help RE:<p>-Actually providing previously unavailable or unobservable information to buyers. Knowing a home will require expensive repairs soon would, in aggregate, help correct valuations. Alerting people of a home being in a flood plain, hurricane path, etc would help.<p>-Helping potential buyers with otherwise good credit but lacking some of the traditional requirements could help. But again that would probably also make flipping so easy and profitable to really screw up the market.<p>-Disrupting the contractor/developer industry could flush some seriously awful bad actors out.<p>-Making rent and RE cheaper would boost the long term wealth of the country - by diminishing the portion of household income devoted to RE. Particularly, rent. Rent shouldn’t be anywhere near comparable to mortgages. You never get to see rent money again. (Here’s an idea: make a “shitty apartment” insurance. People pay an upfront insurance cost on moving into a new apartment. In return, if at any time during the residence they want to break the lease for a “qualified reason” the insurance helps them negotiate the process and ponies exit costs. Eventually a complex’s insurance premium would be enough to signal to potential renters about a place.)