3 Ways to Uncover Investment Opportunities in the 21st Century

To say that the financial scene of the 21st century moves fast is, at this point, probably something of an understatement.

First came the earliest versions of the Internet. Then email. Then smartphones. Then social media. All of this has led to a massive acceleration in the way things are done across the financial sector, and things are only going to get faster as time marches on.

Today, investors need to adopt any and all innovative strategies as they reveal themselves. This is especially true if they’re to uncover the types of often hidden opportunities necessary to make a career for themselves. Thankfully, technology has evolved to the point where it can easily enhance the research and analysis these financial professionals need to do. This can help them identify lucrative investments, which will go a long way toward helping them accomplish their goals (and the goals of their clients) moving forward.

• Use Skip Tracing to Uncover Real Estate Deals

One of the major ways that professionals uncover investment opportunities in the 21st century is by skip tracing. Every day, people use it to locate unclaimed assets or connect with potential partners in real estate ventures.

For example, say you were a real estate professional who had done a significant amount of research to uncover the next great “up and coming” neighborhood in your area. You know that in the next ten years, this specific location will be huge – and you’re the only one who seems aware of that right now. You want to get in on the ground floor, but there aren’t enough houses on the market to your liking.

You could use skip tracing to identify the owners of properties that meet your needs, at which point you can reach out to them and make an offer. Skip tracing brings together information from public records, credit histories, court records, social media, and more – all to paint a complete picture of the history surrounding a property. Even if someone doesn’t have their house on the market right now, that doesn’t mean you can’t convince them to do so.

You might even run into a situation where you have no idea who the true owner of a property actually is. Skip tracing can be beneficial in this scenario, too, as it can allow you to trace the property’s history back over the years. Even if you can’t find the person who owns the property directly, you’ll probably be able to find someone who might know them.

• Leverage Big Data and Artificial Intelligence

Another one of the ways in which professionals uncover the investment opportunities of the 21st century has to do with leveraging big data and artificial intelligence to streamline decision-making as much as possible.

Whether you’re talking about real estate or the financial markets, it’s safe to say that things move pretty quickly. The longer it takes you to analyze data, the less time you can spend acting on what that data is trying to tell you. Likewise, it’s no secret that the amount of data you have to sift through to gain that insight is seemingly endless.

Thanks to machine learning, natural language processing, and more, it’s now easier than ever to extract value from big data at a near real-time rate. Not only does this mean they can make accurate decisions faster, but they can also make more of them – significantly accelerating the rate at which they’re able to advance their own careers and goals.

• Use Social Media to Your Advantage

On the subject of artificial intelligence and natural language processing, advancements also make it possible to use social media for real-time insights into market sentiment, which has been largely unavailable until now.

So much of social media isn’t necessarily to be taken literally. There are a lot of conversations going on, especially when it comes to investment. Having said that, there is also a lot of nuance present in those conversations.

With natural language processing, however, AI tools and algorithms can now understand that nuance and context better than ever. So, not only are they able to accurately report on the conversations taking place on social media, but they can also draw meaningful conclusions because of them. Thanks to the fact that social media is essentially a real-time source of information, this again makes it possible to gain insight into investment opportunities faster than ever.

Stay Ahead of the Investing Curve

These are just a few of the ways that investors and other financial professionals are using technology to uncover the investment opportunities that the 21st century is made of. Modern challenges require modern solutions, and there is certainly no shortage of techniques that fit into that category as far as IT is concerned.

By employing these modern methods, investors go a long way toward staying ahead of the curve in the short term. It doesn’t matter how increasingly complicated the market becomes at that point – they’re still able to capitalize on emerging trends as they develop, as opposed to being forced to watch them pass by.

Will this only further accelerate the break-neck pace at which the investment industry moves? In all likelihood, yes. But that was going to happen anyway. When technology is working for you – when it frees up as much of your valuable time as possible so that you can focus on that which truly matters – you’re able to devote your attention in all sorts of new directions.

What you find will create more opportunities for technology to improve your life. For seasoned investment professionals, it was never about getting to the point where technology could fully automate their lives in a way that required them to do little (or even no) work. It was about using technology to support and empower what they loved to do.

That’s the way they accomplish great things in their own careers, and that’s how they can continue to meet the needs and exceed the expectations of clients everywhere. It truly is a win-win scenario in every sense of the term, and it’s one that couldn’t have come along at a better moment.