COVID-19 pandemic accelerates the perception of digital transformation on real estate websites

In early March, the newspapers reported the arrival of the Coronavirus in Brazil. The period of confinement directly affected our routines and transformed our consumption habits. Amidst the fear of contagion and uncertainty, people isolated themselves and postponed changes. Previous studies indicate that digital practices were accelerated after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, facilitating communication and improving the performance of various sectors of the economy. Thus, to better understand the behavior of Brazilian real estate market professionals in this period, the objective of this research was to verify whether the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the process of perception of digitalization in real estate websites. To this end, five experts in the digital real estate market were interviewed, asked what are the main items that a quality real estate website should have to improve user experience. Based on the items selected by the experts, a questionnaire was developed and a question was constructed for each item. The questionnaire was sent online to 2144 realtors, asking about the importance of these items before and after the pandemic started. Using a 5-point Likert scale, and strict criteria for analysis, our survey yielded 423 valid responses. The results indicate that regardless of the groups analyzed, the hypotheses confirm that after the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the perception of the importance of digital technology in Brazilian real estate websites was enhanced, increased. Managers took advantage of the pandemic and the availability of digital technology to offer specialized service to customers, thus creating a new competitive scenario. The tools associated with the visualization of the property and information such as ‘360°/Video Tour’, ‘Video Visit Broadcast’, ‘Chatbots’ and ‘FAQ List’ had the greatest increase in perception.