REIT ASIAPAC
Outlook
HOW WILL PROPTECH ADVANCE IN SALES, TRANSACTION, ASSET MANAGEMENT?
Proptech funding reached a new peak of US $ 8.86 billion in 2019. Post pandemic will see more sophisticated tools as competition intensifies and funding increases.
By Patrick Ma Director of Listed Securities and Research, Admiral Investment Limited
Proptech started after the 2000s, following the dawn of the Internet era, as customers went online to search for real estate information and became more adapted to online transactions.
As the demand for digital news and real estate e-commerce starts to rise, the early-stage portals were similar to online activities and transactions in other areas of e-commerce. And so, it is no surprise that the mainstay proptech businesses that emerged at the time were online portals and aggregators for real estate markets, such as Zillow and Trulia in the US and Propertyguru. com and Lianjia. com in Asia.
From mid-2010 onwards, the emergence of high technology, such as big data, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing started another wave of developments. These technologies have propelled proptech from the“ low hanging fruit” of aggregators / marketplaces with a consumer focus to more sophisticated applications that focus on the demand of not only consumers but also businesses. One example is the adoption of virtual reality( VR) and augmented reality( AR) in real estate marketing, which allowed marketers to bring the“ experience” of a real estate product to prospective customers without being limited by distance.
As the potential of proptech application expands, investments in proptech have risen in tandem. According to CB Insights, proptech funding reached a new peak of US $ 8.86 billion in 2019. For the first eight months of 2020, amid the coronavirus pandemic, the new fundings for proptech were at US $ 5.22 billion.
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