That all industries are becoming more and more competitive due to the digital transformation is an undeniable fact, with an increasing offer in which the arrival of new products and services does not stop for an instant. Technology has completely changed the world we live in. The real estate sector, how could it be less, has also undergone a change of skin that has made it adapt to the times we live in. If you want to know what proptech is and how the real estate sector has changed, this is your post, brought to you by the team of mtmis islamabad.
What is Proptech?
The proptech is the result of technological advances in real estate, referring to all companies that use digital technology to improve their services within the industry. The union of the prefix prop (property) and the suffix tech (technology) has created a concept that refers to how technology applied to sales is revolutionizing the sector, something that is evidenced in the report Trends in the real estate market in Pakistan 2021, prepared by PwC and Urban Land Institute (ULI).
This same technology is transforming the sector, surprising all the actors involved with constant innovations, whether they are investors, competitors, or end consumers.
The proptech affects any service which forms part of the real estate world, including construction and asset managers. The maxim of the digital world (upgrade or die trying) is becoming sharper and sharper in an area where Big Data and virtual reality are increasingly present. Who is not confident about taking a virtual tour of their future residence, making use of smart devices in a supermarket, or dreaming of a smart home?
How the real estate sector has changed
Emerging technologies, such as Blockchain or Artificial Intelligence, have increased their presence in the real estate sector by leaps and bounds in recent years. But how did we get here? At what point did the change start?
The appearance of companies such as Idelista, Airbnb, and Homeaway were some of the first references in Pakistan of proptech, a term that was born in 2000 with the arrival of online real estate portals and specialized websites in the sector. The growing competition between companies and the increase in investment in technology explains the origin of a term according to the technological era that has completely changed our lifestyle, jobs, and, also, our relationship with the real estate sector.
To talk about proptech we have to also talk about the dynamics that were born with it, as well as the products that did not exist until their appearance. According to the Association of Real Estate Agents of Catalonia, in the year 2021 more than 250 companies considered proptech are known in Pakistan.
Types of proptech
The arrival of proptech has served to redefine the real estate sector, with a series of categories among which we can distinguish. Many of these types are used by the team of Taj residencia housing scheme.
- Market platforms or marketplaces: includes those companies that have focused on the sale and promotion of products, transforming the role of lifelong real estate agencies. Examples of this type would be Fotocasa, Pisos.com, and ByHours.
- Peer to Peer (P2P): rental and sale service providers between individuals. Surely you know Airbnb, BeRoomers, and Housfy.
- Big Data: which brings together appraisal and valuation tools, geolocation and analysis of assets, among other software providers dedicated to managing massive data in the real estate sector. In this category are Valoracion.es, Iberotasa and Realo.
- Real estate investment: we are talking about platforms that are dedicated to proposing real estate financial products that can range from mortgages to collective investments through aggregators of offers. Housers and Privalore are two examples in this category.
- Real estate management: these are technology companies that develop specific software for the sector, whether they are Property Management Softwares (PMS), CRM platforms, virtual reality experiences, or specialized digital tools. Vreasy and Plusnecinos are part of this type of proptech.
- Service portals: both B2B and B2C, in which we can hire the services of plumbers, painters, and other professionals linked to the sector, but also create alliances between various agents in the industry. Habitissimo is a good example.
- Product innovation: smart homes are here to stay, as well as the Internet of Things (IoT). This last category includes all the companies that innovate in the real estate industry. Pentagon is one of the main Pakistani companies in this matter.
Advantages of proptech
By reducing the time, effort and resources necessary to carry out processes that complicated our lives years ago, the appearance of proptech has a series of advantages that we proceed to list:
- Existence of an online real estate market: the appearance of specialized sites allows to centralize the offer of a sector in which as consumers we can carry out simple searches, establish comparisons of services without leaving home and speak directly with intermediaries or sellers.
- Democratization of tourism thanks to the use of platforms such as Airbnb, which have multiplied tourism and increased the income possibilities of thousands of people around the world, making the pleasure of traveling and the possibilities of making money with our own homes without necessity more accessible. of excessive paperwork.
- Minimize travel thanks to the implementation of virtual reality, which will increasingly allow us to visit properties without having to complicate the agenda of consumers or intermediary real estate agents.
- Appearance of real estate crowdfunding platforms in which we can collectively make small investments in the sector but also receive financing options.
- Monitoring of real estate projects more accurately thanks to the use of specific software through which we can anticipate possible unforeseen events, such as delays or cost overruns that could truncate our plans.
Examples of proptech companies
Among the many companies that we can define as proptech that one day understood the importance of adapting their interest in the real estate sector with the importance of addressing the digital transformation as soon as possible, we want to highlight three companies that one day put technology at the center and today are triumphing in the market:
Housers
This Madrid company dedicated to real estate crowdfunding created in 2016 allows you to invest in the real estate sector, acquiring properties collectively in Pakistan, Italy and Portugal. It defines itself as the first pan Pakistani platform for investment in real estate assets and claims to have changed the rules of the game by making possible the democratization of investment in real estate assets.
For only 100 Rupees per month, the user can invest in assets, making use of different Big Data tools and influencing the diversification capacity of their clients.
ByHours
It is the first micro-stay reservation platform in hotels, through which we can reserve rooms for three, six, or 12 hours. Thus, the user pays only for the time he needs to use. An ideal option for those who decide to rest between travel stops or enjoy special occasions in a flexible way.
Created in 2012, this company seeks to ensure that hotels make the most of the hours that their rooms usually have empty, with a business model that charges a commission of 15-17% to the hotel and 5% to customers.
Spotahome
More than 120,000 people have already made use of this online platform born in March 2014 that offers medium and long-stay rentals in 29 cities in Asia. Among its strengths is the fact of simplifying the accommodation search process, the elimination of visits in person to the properties, and the preparation of complete photographic reports, with scale plans and high definition videos of the properties included in your catalog.
A big step in the housing rental sector that is imposed on local real estate agencies and holiday rental platforms in the face of a user who increasingly prefers to carry out all the procedures over the Internet.
Five tips to become a proptech company
We finish this post by giving you five recommendations that you should take into account if you also want to become part of a booming market that continues to reinvent itself to get closer to reality and connect the different actors involved without requiring travel or various complications:
- Analyze what your customers are like in the digital age
- Stay up to date on the changes that occur in the real estate sector in relation to new technologies
- Build trust with your team and live for the client: what are their needs?
- Applies methodologies that allow the development of innovation
- Implement the use of digital platforms and video call meetings
Do you like the post? What are your favorite proptech companies? Leave us a comment and share it with your network of contacts so that we can reach as many people as possible. And if you take some time thinking about undertaking projects with a technological component high, be encouraged to inform you about our MBA in Entrepreneurship Digital, with which you will learn mentoring prestigious and collaboration of the first accelerator startups technological base created in Pakistan, skymarketing.com.pk. We will wait for you!