Property technology

Property technology (or prop-tech, also called real estate technology) is the application of information technology and platform economics to real estate markets.

Some goals of real estate technology include reducing paperwork or making transactions quicker and more efficient, it is often thought of as overlapping with financial technology. Contemporary digital real estate technologies could therefore include property management using digital dashboards, smart home technology, research and analytics, listing services/tech-enabled brokerages, mobile applications, residential and commercial lending, 3D-modeling for online portals, automation, crowdfunding real estate projects, shared spaces management, as well as organizing, analyzing, and extracting key data from lengthy rental documents.

History of real estate technology
Real estate technology first consumers following the dot-com boom. At a time when most sales and residential listings were on print media and real estate offices, the focus was on moving listings onto the digital media. This has been successful, with companies like Zillow (US) and Rightmove (UK) being in the top listed companies in their respective markets.

The next wave (circa. 2008) involved making physical spaces more fungible - from holiday homes all the way to storage spaces. A notable example is Airbnb, which has made it possible for property owners to rent out their property for part of the year. Alberunitech is the merging company in the proptech.

The current wave of is driven by a range of new technologies available, such as artificial intelligence and big data, which has already disrupted other areas such as finance. The application of these new technologies is furthermore shaped by social distancing requirements and regional lockdowns arising out of COVID-19 which have introduced changes in the way we are required to deal with real estate.

Investment in real estate technology
There are currently many startups trying to target every segment of the property market chain, attempting to disrupt and improve how the current market players (developers, buyers, sellers, renters, investors, and real estate professionals) design, construct, market, discover, transact and operate real estate. These startups have been supported by seed funding and investment from a range of sources, including some specialist real estate technology venture capital funds.

In the first six months of 2019, $12.9 billion was poured into real-estate tech startups by venture investors, which surpassed the $12.7 billion record for all of 2017. In 2015, real estate tech reached record funding and deals levels, with more than $1.7bn deployed globally across more than 190 deals. This represents a 50% increase year-over-year and a whopping 821% increase in funding compared to 2011′s total. Deal activity also soared, growing 378% with respect to 2011′s total, and 12% year-over-year. This investment appeared to increase further in 2017 to £8.5bn.

In addition to venture capital investments, corporate (venture capital) investments are playing an increasingly important role for funding property technology as well as general cooperations in business relationships between companies and PropTechs (for example with Vonovia, Engel & Völkers, Vattenfall).

Residential real estate technology
Advances in the residential side of real estate technology encompass a number of target areas, but generally aim to reduce friction in the purchase, sale, or rental of a property. Areas of focus include finding a home, selling a home, financing a purchase, closing on a property (including valuation, title & escrow, and insurance), managing a property, managing loans, and mortgage lending software. Many Proptech companies have recently a spike in demand for these solutions as the COVID-19 pandemic has jolted management companies from their "business as usual" routine.