What sounds like the plot line of a 60's era movie about life in the future, is coming soon to a home near you! Scratch that - it already is in a home near you... maybe even yours. In our convenience driven society, we are constantly looking and pushing for a means to make our lives easier and more efficient. This has led to an influx of products on the market that track the way we live, sensing our locations then tailoring the way they operate to suit our needs. Take the Nest for example - just a simple thermostat you say? Guess again. This thermostat, given a few days of manual interaction, will learn your preferences and can sense when you are home or away - so that your home will always be at the optimal temperature both for comfort and energy savings. There is also the Roomba, which at one point may not have seemed all that impressive as it bumped its way around the house as it vacuumed the floors; the modern iteration of it is much more advanced though. It now has the capacity to scan your living space to clean much more efficiently.

Products such as the Nest, the Roomba and others soon to be making their way into our lives all have one thing in common - they are collectors of data. There are businesses, think tanks, governments and industries that look to tailor their offerings, laws, and forecasts by tapping into what is collectively known as "Big Data". The real estate industry is no different, which may look to the data collected by the aforementioned products to influence the way homes are valuated, rents are calculated, etc...

Adam Ozimek of Forbes.com explains this phenomena and breaks down how exactly a thermostat can lead to more accurate economic models in the Real Estate industry in the article: "How Smart Houses And Big Data Will Change Real Estate Economics"