Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa April/May 2019 | Page 22

COVER STORY
bandwagon, is straight out replication of their archaic paper-
based systems.
‘We’re taking it a step further - Airbnb for long-term
student rentals. Our experience so far has proven to us that
more and more landlords actually want control of their own
property management, but just need to tools to make that safe
and easy to do.’
A key trend for Digsconnect.com is growth in student numbers.
‘The Department of Higher Education and Training wants to greatly
increase the number of students at higher education institutes, and for
us this means more students that will need student accommodation.’
As retail agents, property developers and the legal and
services industry eye digitalization, many of readers and
delegates at our events seem bewildered by the very first step
of this process: budgeting.
The future looks rosy, if you’re wearing the right VR
headset…
According to the people REIMag spoke to the future of
property buying looks much like it does now – but with a few
tweaks.
‘The experience of buying a house will definitely evolve,’
says Sperling. ‘Things like VR will come into play and allow
‘I think the industry should be investing in tools that help
them better connect and create a relationship with their clients
through tech. It creates scalability, stickiness and predictability
for their business. It has most the impact,’ says Gil Sperling,
co-founder of Flow, a rewards app for tenants.
‘I think that the best technology will surface and prevail
really quickly, and I think it’s because housing is such a
basic human need that people will quickly discard tech that
is not adding value. As with any sector, in the early days of
technology, companies pop up like mushrooms and ultimately
consolidation happens and a couple of really valuable
platforms prevail. With Proptech I believe that will happen
relatively quickly,’ he says.
‘Where we live, and how we pay to live there, is one of
you to experience the property more in-depth, which will
our most basic needs, yet we seem to still be relying on an
allow you to view more properties quickly. I also think that
outdated system that only reward a few parties, and certainly
data and social information will allow us to make far more
doesn’t reward the tenants. We want to be an enabler in this
informed decisions when buying a house. Agents are always
new era that we call Generation
going to have some role as with
Rent, by creating a transparent
a large transaction like that you’ll
ecosystem where we empower
always want a person to advise on
Housing is such a basic human subjective and intangible factors.
and reward tenants to take care of
the landlord’s asset. This benefits
But agents will need to adopt
need that people will quickly
both parties and allows for a
technology to help them do their
symbiotic relationship to last
job better - a win-win for all.’
discard tech that is not adding
in perpetuity, says Daniel Levy,
value
Sperling’s co-founder of Flow.
‘I think that, with the
exception of the properties priced
‘The current market we are
above R7.5m, property search
after are millennial or Generation
will still be dominated by the
Rent. These are generally first or second time jobbers between
internet. There will be many process improvements like better
23-35, who are technologically savvy and rent. We’ve focused
ways to view properties (real-time bookings at a time that suits
the services and rewards partners for Generation Rent but will
you), online negotiation tools, real-time granting of a bond, a
open this up as the market adopts Flow. From the landlord/
shorter transfer process, and transparency into each step of the
agent side, it is small landlords, to big agencies and property
journey, but the fundamentals will remain: the vast majority of
managers, says Sperling.
people will still want to physically visit a property to inspect
it and deal with a human to close a deal,’ says Leadhome’s
Flow is a good example of how a millennial user base is
Du Toit.
willingly connecting with landlords who may be from a
different generation and prefer faxing over whatsapping.
Internationally, Redfin and Purplebricks have been
leading the way in utilising technology and combining it
On easing the latter into this system, Sperling says that the
with great people to deliver superior products at a lower cost
trust is built thanks to the tenant adopting the technology
to the consumer, according to Du Toit. ‘Zillow’s strategy is
first. ‘Tenants can use the app without their landlord or agent, also inspiring and I really look up to Rocket Mortgages for
and the landlord will start receiving basic communications
how they have taken market share from the US mortgage
with rental payments and basic insights to help ease them into
providers,’ he says.
using the full journey.
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APRIL/MAY 2019 SA Real Estate Investor Magazine
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