It won’t take a crystal ball to predict that Proptech is the latest trailblazer in the real estate spectrum post-Covid. Ushering the largest wave of innovation in the midst of a crisis and uncertainty, property technology is both a succour and magic bullet for the property sector.
India’s real estate sector has not been completely foreign to technology. In fact, in the last decade or so, Proptech has grown from a mini backwater in the tech start-up world to one of the fastest-growing sectors in technology. Investments in Proptech companies rose from a paltry $20 million in 2008 to a whopping $30 billion in 2020. Proptech start-ups like Beike, created huge ripples in the property-scape as it got listed on the NYSE, taking its valuation to $80 billion. This made Beike the most valued property-related company in the world.
Back home in India, another real estate brokerage platform, Square Yards is charting a similar trajectory as Beike, building an ecosystem of real estate services and emerging as the number one player in Indian real estate. The proptech player made significant strides in FY21, registering six profitable quarters and zooming into the top 10 world’s most profitable platforms in 2021.
A Goldmine of Opportunities
Looking at how tech-enabled real estate aggregators have bucked the crisis and made handsome property sales during lockdown by milking Proptech opportunities, key real estate stakeholders rose to the occasion and steered the wheel towards tech to help navigate their ship out of the choppy waters. Collaboration with hi-tech Proptech startups that add value to their business, became one of the most potent strategies among real estate incumbents to move on the road to innovation, adapt to the new normal and gain a competitive advantage.
Proptech brought relevance to real estate business at a time when India could neither check out their dream home nor come to a deal over a face-to-face meeting. The ability to showcase their inventory portfolio to a huge audience within India and abroad, accelerated the pace of Proptech in Indian real estate.
Ushering an iron-clad reality for real estate
The coronavirus pandemic cleared the air on the fact that real estate transactions like buying a house or renting a flat can be concluded online. While the virus has virtually changed every industry worldwide, it is only the real estate sector that is being rearranged on a war-footing, thanks to Proptech.
Real estate developers, online rental platforms and other property service providers have started leveraging technologies like virtual tours, 3D walkthroughs, artificial intelligence, machine learning, digital booking tools, digital signatures and so on, to adjust to the new normal, draw customers, boost sales and maintain business continuity through the Covid-induced crisis.
People who see property as a safe, lifetime investment, and desire to have a close look at the property before inking a deal, are now more prepared and excited to take virtual reality tours, enjoy 360-degree videos, chat with realtors via conference technology like Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Whatsapp, and invest in a property without stepping out of their house.
Proptech is helping consumers see through the fog of project information asymmetry, giving them full freedom to interact with the project, enabling fairness and competitive edge and resulting in advancing the ecosystem.
Proptech companies to be the flagbearers of change
Proptech providers including start-ups, scale-ups and large tech companies will shine through the pandemic and bring more creative and innovative tech solutions including space planning and occupancy monitoring solutions, touchless asset and access control, tenant-facing solutions, operations-oriented technologies that enable realtors to work remotely, data and business intelligence solutions to help real estate leaders take firm decisions and also cloud-based technologies that improve communication and make processes efficient and effective.
Proptech offerings that were viewed as luxuries a couple of years ago, could become essentially components to a safe and seamless living. Solutions that ease covid-induced pain-points in various real estate sectors are being adopted at a healthy clip.
Since consumers have shown an increased interest in property technology and in decision-making processes that involve making themselves feel safe amidst this pandemic, real estate companies are seconding this trend and changing their posture towards the novelty.
Explosion of investments in Proptech
There will be an explosion of entrepreneurial activity in the Proptech space in the years to come. Industry tech leaders who have invested and continued to build game-changing innovative tech post-pandemic and beyond will reap the fruits of this change. These leaders will not only sustain but increase their investments during the next couple of years as they have already got the ROI from their rock-solid commitment towards tech.
The future of real estate technology lies not in how we manage a pandemic, but how we use technology to enhance communication, navigate changing consumer behaviour and market requirements and foster better adaptability, which at this juncture, Proptech companies have an upper hand at.
