Post-Pandemic PropTech – It’s Here to Stay
We are in an era of digital revolution in the property industry.
The possibilities of what can be accomplished if the industry fully embraced technology have often been touted but we are now seeing some of that potential being realised.
As Aryaman Vir notes in an article for the Financial Express: “To say the last two years have changed the way the real estate market operates is an understatement.”
This has undoubtedly been accelerated by the COVID-19pandemic but change has been on the cards for some time – there is only so long inefficiencies can be ignored when solutions are on the table.
Luckily, when lockdown forced constructors, developers and estate agents into a corner, that table was within reach.
Thus, estate agents turned to video tours, constructors turned to the cloud and Robotic Process Automation (RPA), and developers turned to portals, such as our own award-winning Spaciable.
Vir claims that:
“PropTech is booming and it is here to disrupt the real estate space by changing the way we look at property investments. New-age tech-enabled platforms are helping buyers/investors to view multiple properties without moving out of their homes. These platforms are adding value by taking on the real estate industry to make it better, spurred by an ever-changing digital landscape and new consumption pattern.”
He supports this by referring to a report published by EY that notes how real estate firms are now aware of a need to embrace the "changing technology landscape to stay relevant and gain an edge on their competitiveness.” There is therefore not only an onus on settling for basic technologies but actually being seen to pioneer new technologies to one-up their competitors. This should spell great news for PropTech companies, who will benefit from an industry looking to stand out above the competition by getting increasingly ambitious with their outlook on technology.
Vir highlights a number of technologies that are set to “witness significant momentum in 2021,” especially those using Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning and RPA.
AI is already having an impact on the property industry, through its use of algorithms and machine learning “to process big-data sets to identify correlations, patterns, and relationships across a broad spectrum of parameters and variables.” This provides a vital tool in planning and decision-making, while saving time and money, as data can be used to justify options.
Similarly, cloud-based technology is becoming widely used in the industry, with approximately 80% of PropTech companies using some form of it, according to Rapid Scale. Through the ability to store large data sets on a remote server, stakeholders can access the information anywhere, ensuring quick resolutions to any queries that may arise. This minimises costs and time associated with manual clerical work. Our portal, Spaciable, offers a similar benefit through the interactive document library, which enables admins to upload documents at development, division, phase and plot level, allowing admins and home users to view documents 24/7, wherever they are.
Another form of PropTech that Vir alludes to as having a big role to play in 2021 happens to be another that Spaciable can assist with. Virtual property tours became a go-to when lockdown had the industry in a stranglehold by allowing potential buyers to view a property from the comfort of their sofa. An additional benefit that this provides is it opens up more international possibilities for investors, who can view properties without leaving their country. This is another example of PropTech that, while it is easy to see how it was accelerated by the pandemic, beggars belief that it wasn’t more widely embraced beforehand, and looks like something that is here to stay, even as social distancing restrictions are relaxed. Our video production arm produces walk-through videos, home demonstrations and fly-throughs, and utilises VR technology for an immersive experience. The resulting videos can be integrated into Spaciable, providing a valuable sales tool at the start of the buyer’s journey.
The final element of PropTech that Vir places the spotlight on is RPA, which uses software or bots to carry out clerical jobs that do not require high-level approval, such as data gathering on buyers, data maintenance, compliance reporting and regulating contracts. The major benefit of this is a reduction of operational costs (by 10-40%, according to Vir), and the increase in human resources to concentrate on sales, thereby improving cash flow, while also reducing the risk of human error in clerical tasks.
The takeaway is clear: PropTech is well on its way to overcoming the major obstacle it faced in an industry resistant to change, albeit with some assistance from the pandemic. Nevertheless, now the door is open, PropTech is set to have an increasingly influential impact on real estate, as developers compete to fly their flag in the new era.
Spaciable is the ideal way of offering multiple PropTech solutions in a single turnkey package, from VR home tours and a document library, to a digital handholding tool from sales to completion, and beyond, and a conveyancing tool, Spaciable Legal, that digitalises some of the most cumbersome aspects of the buying process, speeding it up by an average of 28%and reducing fall-throughs by 75%.
To find out how our PropTech solution, Spaciable, can help you stand out above the competition, while improving internal processes and creating an elite customer experience, book a call-back, here.
