An apartment is a major acquisition. The project aims at finding out whether artificial intelligence can assist the buyer.

What kind of problem is the project trying to solve? 

In Finland, about 150,000 apartments are on sale every year. In about 80 per cent of the cases, the seller hires a real estate agent to assist in the process. The number of people who sell their apartments independently is on the rise, and various kinds of services are available to them. The buyers, on the other hand, have been forgotten completely. An apartment is a major acquisition and we believe that buyers need both impartial support and expertise to support them in making a decision. 

Objective: Finding out the apartment buyers’ needs 

The main objective of the project is to find out what services and information buyers need to support them in making the decision and how important it is that it is easily available. The project aims at finding out whether different users have similar needs, which would allow the assessment of the possibilities of using artificial intelligence in the service. A major question is whether a virtual assistant that uses artificial intelligence and big data can provide “the second, impartial opinion” or other relevant information on a matter that the buyer is interested in.

What is done in this project?

The information needs of buyers and the homogeneity of the needs is studied in the project. In addition, a preliminary service model to be tested in real-life apartment presentations will be produced as a part of the experiment.

The experiment aims at finding out whether a virtual assistant that uses artificial intelligence and big data can be a lucrative solution for the buyer. The result is a description of the service prototype and assessments for external services and external data.

Who benefits?

The entire housing transaction sector. We assume that an increase in the effectiveness of the buyers’ decision-making gives a boost to the whole sector.