How Proptech-enabled innovations are changing the way we live and work

Proptech is transforming the way we live and work by integrating cutting-edge technology into the real estate industry. From virtual property tours to smart home systems, proptech is changing the game and offering new opportunities for both homeowners and renters. With the continued advancements in technology, proptech is set to revolutionize the way we think about our homes and offices.

In a recent roundtable with the Great British Entrepreneur Awards and haysmacintyre, we sat down with ten proptech entrepreneurs to discuss the impact of proptech-enabled innovations and how they are changing the way we live and work.

Proptech innovations affecting the market

Co-founder and CEO of Aprao, Daniel Norman kicked off the conversation discussing areas in proptech where significant changes have already taken place, with technology providing improvements in processes. He says  “I think that tenant management has probably moved the fastest. But in the commercial real estate space and the development space, technology has provided improvements in processes. The actual change has been a marginal improvement compared to the big shifts that we’re gonna see going forwards.”

Phil Melia,founder of centralised digital Proptech platform, Breeze Move, added, “In the residential sector, things are taking baby steps, but they are steps forward. The estate agents are quite archaic and so are solicitors, so it’s a big paradigm shift to get them to digitalise and streamline and align services. Once the industry’s got a standardised SharePoint to harness that data and make it collaborative between all sorts of user sets, that’s where the big source of shift will occur.”

“I think invariably there’s got to be a driver or a catalyst for change. Regulation in relation to conveyancing is going to be the step change to bring that aligned,” said co-founder and CEO for Digihome, Jon Chapman. “It’s not going to happen on its own, and it’s been the reason that it is in the position that it is, because there’s no alignment in terms of what that clear route forward is. I think the reality of it is, there has to be a reason why people are gonna start to implement technology and implement it across the board rather than specifically for certain things.”

Founder of GOGETMEIT, Akhlaq Choudhury discussed what he has been seeing in the private sector, “There are two markets – there’s the social housing landlords, the data and the technology is driven by legacy software providers. So the large organisations are driving change, where I’ve noticed the industry is very limited. You’ll still see legacy applications being rolled out, and I think the change is coming, but it seems to be a lot slower than what I’m seeing in the private sector. I think it’s more about getting those software providers and housing associations to understand the benefits rather than looking at the revenue.”

The Driving Forces Behind Proptech Innovation

The driving forces behind proptech innovation are a combination of technological advancements, changing consumer expectations, and a need for greater efficiency and cost savings in the real estate industry. As a result, proptech is increasingly becoming a catalyst for change and driving significant advancements in the way properties are bought, sold, and managed. For example, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is playing a significant role in proptech by automating processes, improving decision making, and providing valuable insights for the real estate industry.

Founder of Checkboard, James Owusu says, “The big opportunity comes is where AI fits in. There’s a lot of data in the industry and right now all that data’s fragmented and disjointed. Soon, we’ll be able to bring all the data together where you can quickly search for something and you can pull all the various different data sources. Everyone is moving in that direction of simplifying the data point requirements in the property sector. This will make it seamless to access and once AI has taken hold of the industry, things will change very quickly.”

Daniel added, “It comes back to marginal gains. If you’ve got a software solution which is there already and people are familiar with it, and there’s another solution that’s a bit better, it’s more effort to change to a different solution than it is just to keep rolling out that, and with AI and bigger advances, once you get the step changes and the 10 times improvements, that’s where it becomes a no-brainer to invest in the new solution when actually you can create a much more efficient business model.”

“I think with real estate, particularly with big landlords, it does take a while to progress and adapt. The technology might even be there, but it takes a while to look at cultural change within those organisations.” Luke Loveridge, founder and CEO of Propflo said. “I do feel like there is momentum building, particularly around the green agenda, and building greener homes.”

Agreeing with Luke, Charlotte Laing, CMO of Metrikus said, “I think ESG and the green agenda is going to drive PropTech forwards. There’s a lot of things in everything that we do that we can attach to some sort of ESG and that will be the entry point.”

Recognition and support for the Proptech industry

Despite the many benefits that proptech offers, there is still some hesitation and skepticism in the real estate industry about the level of investment in prop economic, as well as a general lack of appreciation for what proptech can bring to the table due to the industry’s reputation for being slow to adopt change.

Founder of Estate Agent Networking, Christopher Walkey said“I think the PropTech industry over the last 10 years, the groundwork has been done. The first layer of that pyramid is built, and that’s a hard thing to do, to get a tech concept into the estate agency industry, especially because they’re very slow. The industry’s done that. Every estate agent generally will be aligned to the fact that we need to adopt some element of PropTech into our process to to compete. I think it’s just now getting to the next level where you fine line things, you compact it as people have said here, you need to.”

“If you compare PropTech investment to FinTech or any other tech space, it doesn’t sit very high on those lists.” said Jon. There is a desire to invest in the space, but equally it still has work to do in terms of the PR of PropTech and the value and scalability of it as well.”

Sohrab Vazir, founder of StudyFlats added his thoughts on what could be a game changer for the PropTech space. “One thing that could change this trend is the integration of other technologies with PropTech. Things like IOT or blockchain being implemented with PropTech in the future could be a game changer.”

“In the commercial industry, there’s a lot of IOT being implemented in offices, but they all only speak to their own platforms,” said Charlotte. “They’re all single point solutions, which means that people can’t use the data, which is what we try and solve, but it’s tricky with all the different types of stakeholders and wanting those kinds of ROI games in different ways.”

Conclusion

Jake Pearlman, director at haysmacintyre, said “the excitement and buzz around proptech remains, with the entrepreneurs having a fascinating discussion around how proptech can continue to modernise the real estate industry. It’s clear that continued investment is needed, but with this, the industry can continue to thrive and create positive change.