PropTech: What is it and how it’s making waves in real estate

The PropTech sector is constantly evolving to reflect new consumer trends and make life easier for consumers and suppliers within the real estate and construction industries.

Sjanna Sandalova

The digital landscape and consumer patterns are forever changing, and the only way to keep moving forward is by adapting.

When it comes to today’s real estate environment, everyone is just trying to get ahead of the pack and not miss out on a slice of the Western Australian property market.

The PropTech sector is constantly evolving to reflect these new consumer trends and make life easier for those consumers and suppliers within the real estate and construction industries.

What is PropTech?

PropTech is the collective term to describe startups offering innovative technology and business ideas for the real estate and property industry.

The main goal of these startups is to streamline the process between the supplier and the consumer by applying real estate technology to reduce paperwork as well as making transactions quicker, more efficient and more secure.

According to PropTech Hub WA General Manager, Cullum Ashton, PropTech is an enormous disruption waiting to happen.

“PropTech is still very young, with just over 600 PropTech organisations in Australia all still trying to find their niche within the marketplace,” Mr Ashton said.

“There is tremendous opportunity to impact real estate efficiency, buying and leasing processes and consumer habits.”

2021 PropTech trends

The pandemic has undeniably been a major force in shifting consumer trends, with the real estate industry moving towards remote based transactions.

Mr Ashton said this has caused traditional processes and systems to be updated or completely changed.

“In cases of changing the way business has been done in the past, the integration of PropTech has been prevalent,” he said.

“Other PropTech trends emerging this year are in new construction and building technology - easing settlement processes, virtual reality showing off properties but also simulating off the plan builds and new worlds.

“Something to keep an eye on is the growing appetite for new world assets and reaching customers via virtual reality.