PropTech Ecosystem - Tech moves slower in RE?

Question

The US RE housing marketplace alone is a massive pool of money, some few trillion dollars! We can all google it. Which means someone is trying to build the next unicorn tech companies that focus on this market. Solving the problems, creating efficiencies, break things and move quickly, you know.. Silicon Valley sh*t.

Curiously though the PropTech industry seems to have only been half-eaten by software with only a few giants like zillow, airbnb, loopnet, and still relatively silo'd tech solutions. I wanted to start a discussion, rather than make a particular statement, so I left this a little ambiguous.

What tech do you use?

Why do you think tech has been slow to make its way into RE?

Account Closed · Answer

I think part of it is there are just so many ways to be "in" real estate, everything from heavy repositioning syndications to some guy running around D neighborhoods looking for 5k wholesale deals.... big commercial brokerages managing millions of A-class commercial and mom and pop and their duplex. They all have problems to solve, but almost none of them have much in common except their deals have addresses.  That makes it really hard to build something that will really "take over" universally.   Even the ones you listed, zillow, airbnb, loopnet, all really do different things.

Also, its all about data. That's where the real value is. Honestly you could use a calendar and an excel spreadsheet and manage just about anything, so software itself isn't that valuable, but knowing values, comps, trends, etc is extremely valuable.

I think that's why costar bought cozy, they just want all those rental comps, the free services are just the carrot to get us landlords to keep our rent rolls up to date.  For example, I don't pay for cozy but I have paid for rentrange reports to figure out if my pricing is off.

Walter Holmes · Answer

I thing intelligent automation is the most promising. I've been working/consulting on automating the due diligence process for sometime, its tricky because data integrity is everything and some counties are better than others handling and storing their data so we had to adjust and keep adjusting to ALL THE MANY different variables but i believe we were able to build a "foundation" to where at least the platform cuts the time it takes to do due diligence to about 30 min, some I was able to discard in under 5 min (Hoa foreclosure) .

I like the idea of starting with "small" processes, fully automating them (or making them as efficient as possible) then putting them together to address a niche market need i.e due diligence for properties sold at auction, prospecting short sales, lien search workflows,  etc.

Trevor Ewen · Answer

@Nate Astrup

The strongest area I see is the analysis and operations side for prop tech. Sales and transactions are trickier, because the vast majority of purchases involve a large sum of money for both the seller and the buyer.

Some of the best consumer surplus from technology comes from much smaller purchases. As an example, if you give me the option of buying concert tickets online or standing in line to buy a concert ticket, I'm likely willing to pay 2x the price to buy it online (I get my time back, that is super valuable).

When buying a home, or bigger yet, a commercial asset, I get much less surplus from doing that transaction online. The transaction is so big and requires so much effort and consideration, that I am happy to spend my time out and about doing the heavy lifting. Combine this with the intensely emotional aspect of home purchases for 98% of consumers, and you can see why people are reluctant to hand this over to an online process, even if it would be more efficient.

I envision a future where realtors are more hands off and manage more and more listings via online portals. They would put together professional listing packages complete with videos and one-time tour that everyone can view. They would send an hourly worker as 'security' to let buyers into the home. The transaction would more or less take care of itself. In this world, the commissions go down, but the realtors are doing much greater volume.

Don Konipol · Answer

@Nate Astrup

I can speak from experience on 2 areas of the intersection between real estate and technology.

When I started syndicating real estate deals in 2001 it was a labor intensive process.  Appraisals delivered in hard copy, physical trips to the property with potential investors, mailing PPMs, Operating Agreements and Subscription Agreements, placing ads for investors in the Wall Street Journal and local Business Journals, faxing due diligence documents, going into the bank for a cashier check or to wire funds, hour long phone conversations, face to face meetings, etc.

Pdf appraisals, email attachments, Dropbox, website, online ads, all made my business more streamlined and efficient.  In 2015 we went all in with a fully interactive crowdfunding platform.  This year we outgrew the platform, and made a switch to a more robust, and proprietary platform.  Investors (accredited) can see potential deals on our platform, have access to everything from pictures of the property, financial statements, tax returns, appraisals, title reports, surveys, environmental evaluations, etc.  they can also follow each investment, as to pay outs, income, rents, debt payments, etc, as we enter the data daily.  For our debt syndications, borrowers can submit applications online, upload documents, and follow the progress of their loan throughout until closing.  Hard to believe it was ever different!

The other area is the brokerage industry.  My own opinion is that the industry has not changed nearly as much as I would have predicted.  The old MLS in residential, Loopnet in commercial, and the associated brokers still control a huge share of the market.  I would have thought the listing side of the equation would have come down from 3% to near 0....looks like I was very wrong.

Nate Astrup · Answer

Account Closed I agree, the move has been to retain data and transaction capture. That makes it hard to do new things, not much incentivization to change.

It seems there's a lot of movement towards higher liquidity in certain areas with whole buildings being built - natiivo in Austin & Miami with the purpose of putting them on Airbnb. And investing modalities like Fundrise.

Nate Astrup · Answer

@Don Konipol You hit the nail on the head. I was toying with the idea of a similar syndication platform for Opportunity Zone investing. The secret sauce is deciding what kind of transactional bandwidth an org must surpass to need a platform, rather than a google docs, dropbox, etc. Accreditation services are pretty awesome now too.

PropTech Ecosystem - Tech moves slower in RE?

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