“If you are still using text messages, you are officially old school.”

 Catherine Clifford, a Senior Entrepreneurship Writer at CNBC.

Now, I would like you to recall when was the last time you’ve sent a text message to your friends or family? 2 weeks? 1 month? For me, it has been 2 months since I have sent a text message to anyone. Why? Because it costs money with each text messages and the new instant messaging app would be a much better option.

According to Wikipedia (2017), instant messaging app or also known as IM is an online chatting application that offers real-time communication, and in most cases you can send more than just messages such as images, recordings or even video. Now, take a step back 8 years ago, we were still getting excited sharing music file using the bluetooth feature which would usually take more than 1 hour to share a few songs.

With the technology advancement observed throughout the years, the spending habits of consumers have changed drastically as well. Buying products and booking for services (airline tickets) are becoming a norm for almost everyone. However, it seems that recently the IM app has taken a step up as chinese national consumers rushed in to buy houses in US and Australia through the famous IM app Wechat. Wechat originated from china with currently more than 600 million registered users globally. Unlike other messaging app such as Whatsapp and Line, Wechat offers a more all rounded services such as Wechat pay (another payment path similar to paypal) , moments feature (users can share their daily activities through posting images and videos) and even calling for cabs etc. In other words, Wechat is trying to transform into the one-stop platform for all daily activities of public. Now, think again how frequent do you “chat” with you friends using these applications? Almost everyday I would say.

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According to some of the property agents like Monika Tu, she is always on social media on the look out for potential buyers (Sier, 2017). However, she was able to close a $10 million deal using Wechat in just 3 days time. Floor plan, specifications, contract signing were all sent and communicated through Wechat. This has completely changed the traditional way of how property market has operated. Traditionally, property fairs or showroom would be set up abroad to attract foreign investments but with the introduction of these IM app and social media, consumers can assess to wide spread of information online in a more efficient manner.

Companies are able to save costs by optimising their operation to maintain websites and web based messaging app in answering queries rather than setting up property fairs abroad which usually costs a lot more resources and this option is only possible for bigger sized developers with strong financial backgrounds. Other than that, the introduction of IM app such as Wechat greatly levelled the platform for both small and big developers to compete equally regardless of size. This also means that globalisation are being encouraged and now, borders of countries will not stop the advancement of consumers purchasing products online.

My question for you today is that will you ever buy a property using an IM app without actually inspecting the site and physically inspecting the developers?

 

– Jack Oung (14/03/2017)

 

References

Wikipedia (2017).  Instant messaging. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant_messaging [Accessed 14 Mar. 2017].

Sier, J. (March 13, 2017). How Australia’s best houses are being sold on Chinese social media site WeChat. Financial Review Online. Retrieved from http://www.afr.com/technology/social-media/how-australias-best-houses-are-being-sold-on-chinese-social-media-site-wechat-20170309-guv0z9