Real estate on technology’s cutting edge | Homes | London Free Press

Real estate on technology’s cutting edge | Homes | London Free Press

Internet technology is once again pushing the home-buying and selling process to new heights.

If you have a smartphone, you can now get all the information you want about a property - including photos, price and listing agent's contact information - right off the For Sale sign.

At least you can if it's a home listed by Sage Real Estate, a Toronto firm that might be the first in the country to use quick-response (QR) codes on their lawn signs.

"Now, for the person driving by who wants to know more about the property, they don't have to wait and call someone, leave a message, then wait again to hear back. They can scan the QR code with their phone and get all the information they need just standing there," says Evan Sage, the company's vice-president.

Some large retailers, such as IKEA and Walmart, enable their customers to scan individual products' bar codes to get product information and pricing.

QR codes work in much the same way. The QR code is composed of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white background. It's encoded with text or other data and can be read by mobile devices equipped with a QR scanner (several free scanner apps are available to download).

Any kind of information can be embedded in a QR code. In the case of Sage Realty, the QR codes on their For Sale signs will take potential buyers to a dedicated website created for that property.