Using technology to speed up the research process

The initial phase of any research project is time-consuming. Identifying and then gathering the relevant authorities takes time, as does reading and digesting their contents. This is particularly true when the research topic has already been extensively covered.It is possible that some part of this initial phase can be done faster using technology. This does not require the most expensive and sophisticated software - there are some zero cost or low cost options available. In this paper, the author illustrates how natural language processing techniques and high-level programming languages can be combined with MS-Excel add ons and free online tools to greatly accelerate the real estate research process. The paper is easily accessible to those with no computer programming experience. It uses examples drawn from the real estate sector only.