PropList Blog
Every industry has its buzzwords. Most of them are jargon, many are too vague to define and some are completely made up. They move in cycles too – cutting edge thinking and deep dives were banded around in most meetings several years ago, now it’s all about corporate synergy and digital strategy, which in turn will fade out in favour of something with ‘able’ forced on to the end. In the property sector however, the leading buzzword doesn’t seem to be getting recycled any time soon. It falls into all the categories mentioned earlier; jargon, indefinable and made up – it’s proptech.
It’s jargon because you’ll only hear it in our industry, it’s not a pub conversation. It’s impossible to accurately define as it spans everything from shopping centre GPS integration to Alexa. And as it’s an amalgamation of property and technology, Microsoft Word still draws a red line underneath it.
It is easily avoided however. In the PropList office, it just isn’t said. Every property start up is using technology from outside the industry to shape its business model – all existing portals use software adapted from other sectors, and then suddenly, what once was used to monitor entries into a magazine’s competition is morphed into proptech. All you need to say is that it’s good tech.
Good tech is thriving currently, with countless apps, portals and landlord-tenant relation businesses making reputable names for themselves by dialling into specific problems within property, and addressing them with easy-to-use technology.
WeWork’s start-up days are long behind them, now operating worldwide. But the blueprint they laid out demonstrates how building a business around existing technology, which addresses an irritation in the market, can evolve you into a global market leader. The team were quick to predict the rise of the co-working phenomenon, and like many portals, made it really easy for the user to tap into their niche to find desks and offices capable of hosting most sizes. The search technology certainly isn’t “proptech” – it’s simply good tech that has existed for as long as the internet has, and fitted to WeWork’s functionality.
The same formula applies to Movebubble. A team of tech-savvy, frustrated renters in the nation’s capital made a portal to fix their troubles. With a large percentage of London residents staring down the barrel of lifetime leasing, Movebubble completely disregarded the purchasing market, as well as the desktop browsing option. Noticing that their market will be looking for properties whilst commuting and outside of typical working hours, a mobile app is all they needed. Apps aren’t revolutionary, nor are portals, but both of these elements fitted the purpose of the problem the founders had, and was implemented seamlessly.
One of the most common examples of doing things the opposite way around is 2018’s buzzword of buzzwords – Blockchain. As the world scrambled to mine Bitcoin, not fully understanding its worth, but safe in the knowledge that a Facebook friend has made thousands of real pounds in the previous month, property professionals were anticipating seamless internet transactions, crossing borders without calling into the bureau de change. A significant amount of smoothly run, successful enterprises thought it best to put the practices that have seen them prosper on to the backburner, in favour of strong-arming cryptocurrency payments into their immediate plans. A little over twelve months on, Bitcoin (other Cryptocurrencies are available) is worth less than a quarter of what it once was, and those who forced it into their business strategies have most likely cost themselves six months’ worth of work and probably some real life currency.
The last example we’ll highlight has the potential to be good tech, but is currently marred with the proptech tagline, and truthfully, is very far behind the anticipated schedule – virtual reality. Whilst Back to the Future had us all zipping around the city streets on hover boards by 2015, most consumers expected to be able to peruse every property on the planet via a headset, feel the virtual warm taps run in the kitchen, and even throw a pixelated stick for Spike to chase in the garden by now, at the latest. VR is making advances, and the aforementioned scenario does exist in its infancy (Spike not included), however it’s still potentially decades away from being available en-masse, and for those looking for property on the more affordable end of the scale, it will still be a road trip at the agent’s viewing availability.
So what is PropList doing about good tech? Our site shares the principals of the two portals mentioned at the start; simple property search in an area which it’s needed – commercial. All the residential noise is removed, and the end user dials in accurately to the location, sector or size or they require. The technology used isn’t ground breaking, but it fits the aims of the business and delivers them effectively.
And like everyone else in the industry, we are always looking to evolve and embrace new tools, providing they’re in-line with our thinking. Over the course of the coming months, the auctioning facilities offered at PropList will be increased significantly, as we work to implement a Know Your Customer application, allowing live bidding through the site. Think eBay, but for your next commercial property rather than a retro sofa. Alongside this, we’re exploring a brokerage system in the coming months, dedicated solely to brokers.
The other element we’re keen to explore is bridging the technology gap between the real world property viewers and the headset wearers. Several companies are progressing 3D floorplan software to a very high standard, leading to a Google-Street-View-esque experience for the prospective end user, navigating through each room with a click. Over the next twelve months, the site will be trialling a growing sample of 3D floorplans and collecting like-for-like data to see if this advancement delivers more quality leads than its flat counterpart. And if the tech is good, then that’s good enough for us.
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