can bring. An example of South African company currently pushing the boundaries of VR technology is Fieldspace Property Group. Their aim is to transform the way property brokers introduce clients to properties, and fundamentally alter the way property portfolios are viewed.
Property Fox allows property owners to submit their property details online, via the Property Fox website, for a‘ free’, one-week trial of the Property Fox services. During this time sellers are assisted with a free property evaluation, and the building up of a reserve of professional photos for their property marketing activities.
The team at Property Fox then promote the property on their website and across social media channels. Clients who sign up for a full-service package from Property Fox can expect to pay a much cheaper rate than the traditional 5 %‒ 7 % commission fee. One potential drawback for homeowners who then choose to delist their property with Property Fox is the R5000.00 marketing fee that they then need to settle. HomeFair is another online estate agent that offers their services at a fraction of traditional commision rates.
Another recent arrival to the tech disruption scene is HouseMe, an online rental platform that aims to establish direct connections between prospective tenants and landlords in the residential rental sector.
According to HouseMe’ s CEO, Benjamin Shaw, their consolidated platform offers almost every management service a landlord might want, but for a fraction of agency fees. Verified landlords can connect to creditworthy tenants via HouseMe’ s unique dashboard, auction mechanism and tenant app.
“ For too long residential rental has been a fundamentally broken system with inferior options for both tenants and landlords – and HouseMe is
built to address exactly that,” said Shaw.“ Looking at the international case studies like Lemonade, Kodak and Uber, oftentimes the consumers themselves don’ t quite know what they’ re missing until it’ s available.”
Shaw added that the reception to HouseMe’ s offerings has been mixed, from pleasant welcomes to resistance from some of the more established agencies.“ They are doing their best to ignore what changes we’ ve brought to market, choosing to resist wherever possible.”
The future of real estate tech“ Technology is only going to become more synonymous with the replacement or enhancement of every core human function in property rental,” said Kyle Bradley, Chief Technology Officer at HouseMe. He and Shaw believe that we are on the cusp of a real revolution in real estate.
“ Tech does a great job of optimizing processes and creates cost efficiencies in procedures that have existed for many years. The most exciting change coming to the industry will be the behavioural move of agencies towards consultancies rather than retained management personnel.”
SAPOA’ s Annual Convention and Property Exhibition, to be held in June this year, will be centred on the theme of tech disruption in the real estate sector. This should give chance for the future of real estate in South Africa to be sufficiently teased apart and explored.
RESOURCES
RICS, The World Economic Forum, Internet World Stats, Internet Live Stats, MoneyWeb, Leverton, The MIT Centre For Real Estate, Explaining The Future. Com, Tech Target,
Small Biz Trends, Silicon Valley Innovation Centre, Law360, Bizcommunity, Realty Africa, Bloomberg, GrowthPoint
www. reimag. co. za MARCH 2017 SA Real Estate Investor 13