PropTech in the Philippines.

New ideas that aim to reinvent the real estate industry are born every five minutes. PropTech is beneficial to the real estate brokers, property seekers, and even developers.

Any idea what PropTech is?
It is a result of combining ‘property’ and ‘technology’ in one word. The news lately says that PropTech is about to disrupt the real estate industry. But, would it affect you? Does it go beyond finding yourself a house or property with the use of technology?

PropTech = property + technology.

What is PropTech 
According to James Dearsley, PropTech is “one small part of the wider digital transformation of the property industry. It describes a movement driving a mentality change with the real estate industry and its consumers regarding technology-driven innovation in the data assembly, transaction, and design of buildings and cities.”

In the real estate industry’s commercial and construction side, PropTech helps envision future buildings and cities. Interesting, right? That’s why journalists, investors, and entrepreneurs are attracted to the trend. Simplifying the many definitions for PropTech, it is a term for startups that offer technological business models and innovative products for the real estate markets.

It involves all the companies working on the betterment of the real estate industry. They strive to do this through the constantly changing digital landscape and consumption patterns. PropTech is a new trend and its scale, surely, will change over time.

Some examples
To give you a deeper understanding of PropTech, one example is how the co-working trend affects the office space sector. Suddenly, company owners do not necessarily need a whole office building to house employees and conduct business. Another is the new alternative in residential real estate that is co-living. More and more young people today are choosing to move to high-priced urban areas.

Meanwhile, crowdfunding touches on new construction and real estate investing, as home swapping is becoming more and more popular for rentals that are seasonal. The last example for PropTech would be the new professions that appear together with jobs in the traditional real estate industry. You’ll be surprised there is now a need for drone pilots, data aggregators, and virtual home staging specialists.

Lee Joon Gi, just because.

Digital property viewing
PropTech is what enables buyers to choose the best property investment online. No need to travel to property sites or visit showrooms. As proof, the online property portal Lamudi shares its record of 15 million user visits to its site in 2017. It was even noted 60% of their site traffic is organic, which means people go to their site without being prompted by a paid advertisement. Repeat searches show just how serious these people are to buy a property.

It is not a surprise that according to the analytics, most of the people who search for a property investment online are millennials. After all, they are the ones who like window shopping the most and know how to do it smartly and conveniently. They prefer to do it themselves online in spite of having relatives or friends who are real estate agents or brokers. As a result, these professionals use the power of the Internet to sell.

Reshaping the real estate market.

Interesting findings
PropTech also allows property sellers to get important information about their market through analytics. Quezon City, based on Lamudi’s data, has the most number of property listings and the highest number of property searches. The city of Makati comes second in the same criteria. Established cities such as Cebu and Davao also show a growing number of searches, as well as emerging cities such as Bacolod, General Santos, Iloilo, and Cagayan De Oro.

In terms of property type, the top choice for majority of property hunters is still houses (59%), followed by condominiums (14%). Out of the overall searches, house and lot properties amounting to 5 million pesos and below make up 49% of the overall searches.

New ideas that aim to reinvent the real estate industry – either all or part of it – are born every five minutes. Filipinos depend on the Internet for almost everything, including finding the best property available in the market. Everyone knows how to maximize the use of technology in making thorough comparisons, which makes PropTech beneficial to real estate brokers, property seekers, and even developers.