BDB Pitmans at London PropTech Show 2023

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This year’s London Proptech Show took place at the Business Design Centre on 15 and 16 February 2023 and united leading international proptech industry experts, policy makers, investors and entrepreneurs to share industry insights and receive an introduction to innovative products and services.

London is home to over 500 proptech companies and in recent years the surge in disruptive technologies has transformed the real estate market, with developments in construction, logistics, payment technologies, rent and workspace asset management happening alongside improvements to the way in which milestones towards sustainability targets are tracked.

What is PropTech?

Put simply, PropTech is property technology software that connects people, technology and information to simplify how we own, sell, manage, operate, research, rent, market, buy and invest in residential and commercial property. PropTech solutions simplify daily operations and enable decision making.

Disruptive PropTech trends include uprooting traditional workflows, such as tracking rental payments in Excel, to create efficiency through cloud-based tools and portals. Typically PropTech solutions are either business to business or business to consumer. Examples would be virtual tenant leasing and asset management platforms or commercial real estate deal management software used by institutional investment management teams to streamline workflows and simplify reporting.

Trends at London Proptech

Broadly speaking, the most distinct theme to emerge from the conference was a drive towards the creation of solutions to support every stage of the real estate asset cycle. A summary of these follows below.

1. Marketing and sale – virtual tours, virtual or augmented reality visits, customer record management and analysis;
2. transaction facilitation -digital signatures, identity verification, data security, intelligent mortgages, blockchain and smart contracts;
3. after sale – contracting amenities and services in single digital portal, insurance, security systems and domotics and smart home;
4. fractional ownership – proptech solutions to improve access to the private landlord market or facilitate efficient ownership of foreign property and holiday homes;
5. listing and real estate marketplaces – connecting buyers and sellers, landlord and tenants to expedite transactions;
6. asset management, rent roll and survey reporting tools;
7. digital visualisation software enabling a 3D or even 4D model of a property from a 2D floorplan;
8. AI and chatbots software to attract more visitors on websites to book a viewing of a property or a meeting with the developer;
9. data analysis solutions – identifying real estate needs within public realm spaces or in densely populated urban areas;
10. Internet of Things (IoT) – data collection and management of a collective network of connected devices and technology facilitating communication between devices and the cloud as well as between the devices themselves. IoT also describes technology that enables a device to be added to an inert object such as plant or a roof to measure environmental parameters; and
11. property management and the tenant experience – using domotics to track foot flow, temperatures, optimum occupational levels, air quality and responding to and tracking maintenance requests in an organised and timely manner.

What’s on the horizon for 2023?

The key focuses for the PropTech industry are sustainability, ESG and the climate crisis. Real estate is the world’s largest asset class and the single largest contributor to climate change so a sector wide focus on issues of sustainability will make a significant difference globally. In this sense, PropTech has a unique opportunity to create innovative collaborative solutions and make a hugely significant impact to the world at large.

To hear more from our Real Estate team, visit our Residential Property webpage.

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