After 26 episodes, 17 very special guests, spanning industry influencers, academics, journalists, company founders and all-round know-their-PropTech-stuff experts that have joined me, along with almost 100,000 downloads from you lovely people…we are here, at the beginning of the end…
Today, we draw some conclusions, wrap-up the PropTech series and we have just enough room for a couple of freebies and special bonuses if you can stick with me until the end…
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Resources mentioned
Our top PropTech Apps – email us for the link
Richard’s PropTech book – email us with PropTech Book Early Bird Offer in the title to be the first to hear of its release
Free Dom Tokens…might be worth something one day: Dominium referral link
Link to the Podcast feedback survey
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Transcription of the show
Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Property Voice podcast. My name is Richard Brown and as always, it’s a pleasure to have you join me on the show again today.
We started this series back on 17th January and one or two of my guests joined me late last year, so it has been a longer than planned series!
After 26 episodes, 17 very special guests, spanning industry influencers, academics, journalists, company founders and all-round know-their-PropTech-stuff experts that have joined me, along with almost 100,000 downloads from you lovely people…we are here, at the beginning of the end…
Today, we draw some conclusions, wrap-up the PropTech series and we have just enough room for a couple of freebies and special bonuses if you can stick with me until the end…
Property Chatter
Setting the Scene
Way back at the start, Andrew Baum from Said Business School and Oxford University joined me. He suggested that those with the deepest pockets are likely to make the biggest splash, that change in property is hampered by the slower and lower transaction volumes and so many short-term changes will come from related sectors such as valuations, lettings and finance.
Andrew also saw some longer-term game-changers potentially through big data and AI, and the emergence of the ‘crossover’…no, not a new mountain bike, car or even a bra, but instead the likes of Google and Amazon stepping into device manufacture and Rightmove selling houses direct! Dan Hughes built on this theme when he mentioned L&G, the insurance company and Facebook the social network building homes in one way or another. Andrew had a couple of thoughts on Blockchain rollout and Smart Home devices helping with the energy agenda too.
Next up was Dan Hughes from RICS, who advised us that technology is not be feared and can help us. Greater connectivity…between humans and devices, as well as advances in building design and manufacture are likely to lead the way.
In my own opening, I recalled how the book, The Second Machine Age, described information technology as the new industrial revolution. Two main trends are driving this:
Geometric or exponential technological development resulting from the theory of ‘the second half of the chess board’. From a start in the 1960s, technological development only reached half-way across the chess board in around 2013. This, combined with Moores Law, where the cost of production of technology is halving every 18 months, means…we ain’t seen nothing yet in terms of the speed and scale of technological development!
PropTech consists of three core elements: Information, Transactions & Management / Control. It is the combination and interaction of these three elements that brings property and technology together under the PropTech banner.
There are some key enablers that are pushing this technology drive:
- Hardware & software development – such as PC’s, servers & data-centres, along with the associated software development, including mobile apps
- Mobile communications, such as smartphone applications, smart-connected devices 3G, 4G and Near-Field Technology,
- The Internet, including social media & web services such as the property portals.
The convergence of these enablers is what is fuelling the growth of the PropTech industry.
PropTech Sub-Topics & Guests
Over the course of the series we covered these topics and themes, with a little help from our friends…
- ConTech of Construction Technology, where Richard & Malcom from Greenheart and Matt from Mace, helped to get us into our stride.
- Smart Homes, with Andy from ThroughMyTV.com did a massive and very interesting brain download for us
- Systems & Apps, with the company founders, including Marc from Arthur and James from UPad, who opened up our thoughts to how we can use tech right now to improve our property businesses.
- Artificial Intelligence & Big Data, was helped along by the cats analogy by Tom from Ask Porter
- Augmented & Virtual Reality, assisted to a great extent in the two-parter by Dawn from iCreate
- The Sharing Economy had Will from HomeRenter who had done his homework before sharing with us.
- FinTech or Financial Technology saw us joined by Ray from UnMortgage, Ishaan from Trussle and Ian from LendInvest, the latter also straddling the EdTech theme for us, as we explored a mixed bag of low-hanging productivity gains through tech and new ways of accessing money for our businesses.
- EdTech or Learning & Development, was ably kicked-off by Ian but very much lead to a passionate share on the topic from yours truly
- PropTech Investment & Funding gave us some perhaps rare insights from a venture capitalist, as Dominic from Pi Labs joined us all the way from LA
- Blockchain Technology came in towards the end with the assistance of Jakob from BlickBlock in Berlin
- The Big Picture: Smart Cities, Mega Trends helped us to dream a little further down the track as Greg Lindsay, all the way from New York joined us to open up our imagination to what the future might look like.
So, let’s just remind ourselves of some of the headline ideas from each theme or topic now then.
ConTech
The ConTech scene was characterised by alternative building methods, such as pre-fab or off-site build, 3D printing and robotic aids. Equally, new building materials are starting to be developed, but have a way to go before becoming fully mainstream, so perhaps it’s a progression of existing materials, such as self-healing concrete, rather than a giant leap towards graphene…for now at least.
Expect to hear more about Build-to-Rent and Self-Build, energy-efficiency and the use of more sustainable methods, such as Passiv Haus.
Smart Homes
The key takeaways from these episodes for me were that Home Automation, Access Control & Property Monitoring technology is not only improving but connecting and converging all the time. Big solutions will be addressed through property management and security apps, energy and building management systems and the Internet of Things will make it all joined up and pretty useful too.
Systems & Apps
The development of big data, AI and social media is also helping to shape new ways both to engage with our stakeholders and to track our property assets. Be it hybrid or DIY agencies such as Upad or Homerenter, property management tools like Arthur or an intelligent robot such as Ask Porter, we can utilise new tech right now.
And what is driving these apps? Big data, AI, the Internet, especially the Mobile Internet, and social everything that’s what.
We also shared some of our own top apps – don’t forget to drop us an email if you want a copy of them: our top apps list at the last count spanned 8-pages and covered over 30 separate categories, including; Property Management, Mapping, Valuations, Works Costing, Viewing Services, Alternative to Tenant Deposits, Interior Design, Electronic Signatures and Banking to name just some.
Augmented & Virtual Reality
Virtual Reality is not new, but it is more mainstream with cheaper hardware and a more defined business case now.
It’s all in the mind…and also the heart – you may recall how Dawn illustrated so well how virtual reality can trick our subconscious mind into believing we are immersed in this unreal world.
VR & AR can help with a number of applications – planning and design, inspections and viewings, marketing and sales, and when we add in drones, maintenance and testing too.
The Sharing Economy
We covered a lot of ground here, but I guess in conclusion, the Sharing Economy is also evolving itself. It is not just peer-to-peer now, as digital disruption is coming everywhere. Peer-to-peer, micro-service providers, or ‘disintermediated marketplaces’ all add to the expansion of the digital economy generally. As I said previously, the boundaries are blurring and will continue to do so. This means, the future is unpredictable and likely to change quite a bit too!
FinTech
So, here are some of the key issues and themes that we covered.
The rise of the Internet over the past 18 years and the Mobile Internet, in particular over the past 5 years, is allowing more financial services offerings to be made available to more people, more efficiently. This means reaching more customers faster, cheaper, whilst always available and without physical or geographical limits. People just expect digital service delivery now. People and machines are working together – machines can simplify processes, leaving well-trained and experienced people to focus on what they are good at doing.
EdTech
Property training has been a fast-growing segment within the even faster-growing EdTech sector too. There are lots of learning resources available, including many that genuinely fall within the EdTech definition. Self-directed learning is growing and spreading across new media at the same time.
PropTech Investment Scene
As Dominic said, PropTech can help to make one of the more traditional and slower changing industries improve productivity and efficiency. But, it’s probably evolution, not revolution...a phrase we heard that a lot throughout the series.
Dominic then gave us some pointers to look for…
- Some sectors to watch over the coming years: ConTech (construction technology), InsureTech (insurance technology) & care homes or assisted living.
- Some tech to watch over the coming years: Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Blockchain.
- Longer-term thoughts: rise of sharing economy / fractional ownership of property assets & rising trend of treating consumers as customers
Blockchain Technology
Where could Blockchain technology be used?
- Payments, especially micro and cross-border
- Property exchanges or auctions
- Property trading and fund-raising – for example, look at a company called Dominium with Mark Lloyd, a former guest on this podcast, as their MD. If you want some free Dom Tokens for signing up to this platform then check out the Dominium referral link in the show notes, where you get some free Dom tokens and so would I in return for referring you, which would be nice 😊
- Rental listing & management
- Land registry
- Others potentially areas ripe for deployment of Blockchain tech: insurance, legal, finance, regulation, compliance and data verification
Now then, imagine for a minute the Blockchain combined with AI and The Internet of Things…that could be powerful couldn’t it?
The Big Picture
Greg helped us to see the bigger picture
How some of the Megatrends will direct us – especially urbanisation, energy shortage and mobility changes
Smart Cities growth and development – for example fewer cars and more shared transport hubs, more dense living in cities, local energy hubs and so on.
Gregg’s predictions…
- Community Living making a come back
- Housing as a service and a brand, not simply an asset
My Top PropTech Areas to Look Out For
Finally, here are some of my big tips…probably stolen from most of the great guests along the way, or picked up through the vast amount of reading and research I have done throughout these last six months…
- Big data can only get bigger, if 90% of all the data created was done so over the past 2 years, then how much will be created over the next 2 years?
- AI and machines are coming to a business near you…soon! Robots and machines will compliment humans to improve efficiency but can also be taught to replace us in some cases too; so watch out, retrian, upskill, etc.
- The Internet of Things will create a step-change in speed of data transfer and connectivity of devices, making everything talk to everything else and so improving our lives and speeding up our learning and management activities.
- Blockchain could well be the next Internet…even if not Cryptocurrency, the decentralised ledger or database just has to take off.
- New materials, building methods and design will bring innovation and productivity gain to construction…just the other day, I invested in a start-up company that makes translucent / transparent solar panels that can replace all the glass in a building, turning it into an energy source and then a family in France moved into a 3D printed house.
- Fractional ownership and other ownership models like pay as you use, along with a shift towards property as a service to occupants as a customer, will create new models of property utilisation, where home meets work meets play, among other variants and hybrids.
- If you do want a glimpse into the future of PropTech, then I would highly recommend getting involved with some of the equity crowdfunding sites that are out there. If nothing else, it’s just fascinating to see what ideas people are coming up with, so sign up and just be a voyeur if you like…you don’t have to fritter away your money in everything you see out there…but maybe you will happen across the next big thing, who knows?
Closing Remarks
Thank you very much to you for and my guests for joining me throughout this series, which has been a lot of fun for me and also for you I hope. In fact, its been so much fun, with so much information shared that I have decided to write a book about the subject of PropTech! So, watch this space as I aim to complete it over the next month or so and it would be great if you would grab yourself a copy of it once it is released.
In fact, just for sticking it out this far into the final episode of the series, if you drop me an email with the subject PropTech Book Early Bird Offer in the title, I shall make sure you are the first to hear of its impending release, along with a very special offer and thank you from me just for being a lovely person and dropping me an email to ask about the book 😊
Ok, so we are done with the series and that’s now official! The show notes can be found over at www.thepropertyvoice.net or if you want to talk about anything from today’s show, receive an intro into one of my guests or just talk property investing, email me at podcast@thepropertyvoice.net, I would be happy to hear from you!
Once again, all I want to say is thank you very much for listening once again this week and until next time on The Property Voice Podcast…it’s ciao-ciao.