Q&A: How can you come out on top after the digital consolidation storm?

James Dearsley, partner at Proptech Consult Proptech has created new opportunities for the property industry. It has made previously impossible capabilities of speed, efficiency and scope an accessible reality. For traditional real estate firms, it has been a sometimes tricky journey, having being bombarded from left and right, first with accusations of inefficient, wasteful and outdated practices, and then by a flurry of innovative tech solutions, some of which claim to help the industry, some of which claim to negate key personnel within it. Now, just as traditional real estate and proptech are starting to feel more comfortable in each other’s company, 2018 is predicted to be the year in which technology brings yet more complication for the property industry. This is the year that proptech will undergo a period of consolidation. I believe the reasons for this are twofold. The best thing real estate firms can do is ensure that the right companies survive. Open your door to the innovations you like, adopt them, advise them and help them become your tools for future success First, proptech has grown so quickly and so freely that the market is now saturated with loads of companies offering similar solutions for the same problems. This creates a muddy ecosystem and is damaging to the proptech industry. The choice of too many brands and platforms means that those looking for solutions are left baffled by conflicting facts offered about their market position and their capabilities. Consolidation is a vital process required to bring clarity to the proptech market, making it easier for real estate firms to understand and navigate. The second driver of proptech’s consolidation is the important realisation among proptech influencers that, to fully deliver on technology’s potential to help real estate agents, companies need to be sharing and combining their ideas to create something altogether better. For the best chance of thriving during this period of digital consolidation, my recommendation is that property firms start scanning the proptech landscape to find those companies that believe strongly in the philosophy of co-creation. The very best of proptech simply enables the sector to perform better on a daily basis. To do that, proptech firms need an intelligent understanding of internal workings of real estate. To gain this insight, many are relying on co-creation; that is, they encourage property professionals to interact with the current iterations of their products then feedback their likes, dislikes, wants and needs to better inform future updates. Real estate firms hold great power in this period of consolidation. It’s make-or-break for proptech companies, some will survive, but many will die. The only way of ensuring that the survivors are working to help the agent and not replace the agent is by agents themselves identifying and supporting the solutions that work for them. The very best thing that real estate firms can do right now is ensure that the right companies survive. Open your door to the innovations you like, adopt them, advise them and help them become your tools for future success. If agents don’t do this, they forgo their right to vote. Now is the time that proptech’s best-in-class are chosen to move the industry forward. If agents don’t take part in this conversation, they risk a future property industry which fails to account for the needs and requirements of the agent’s role. So, if 2018 is the year that proptech companies survive or die, it is the agents who have the power decide the fate of each. Don’t pass-up the opportunity, presented by this period of digital consolidation, to shape the future. Engage with technologists, play with their platforms and give voice to those who you truly believe are going to make your life as an agent better, easier, and more profitable.