How Has the Tech World Impacted the Property Industry?

For many years we’ve seen tech entrepreneurs slowly dip their toe into the property market pool. But innovators are now set to make waves, rather than just a meagre ripple, with an influx of online property tools.

Investment in Property Tech to Date

Despite big investment in property technology, the industry has been rather cautious when it comes to change.

In the past, modernisation was based around consumers and their needs, by moving the power to them from the landlords and estate agents. This could be seen with the release of online property portals like Rightmove and Zoopla which made property listings available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

In 2014, the London residential market was worth a humungous £1.5trillion and just under £1billion was invested into property tech start-ups worldwide according to start-up tracker Crunchbase. The US fuelled most of this with £630million and the UK equated for nearly three quarters of Europe’s share.

Much of this was sourced through crowdfunding services which gave opportunities to small and emerging companies to get involved in property finance. LendInvest is a prime example of this. Whereas other companies like SpareRoom act as a middleman between property hunters and those who own the houses.

The Future of the Industry

But despite this industry being hard to break, there are plenty of people looking to get in on the game and shape the future. And how are they going to do it? With progressive up-to-date technology, of course.

This new way of doing things is set to disrupt the traditional manner in which property companies deal with one another. For example, one emerging talent, LandInsight, could revolutionise the way we research property locations. LandInsight offers a new way of finding available plots of land, their value and who owns them.

So why do this? Well, individuals are quickly becoming frustrated with the slow process that comes with working with some property companies. And companies like Pi Labs are acting on this to help modernise the market. Pi Laps is funded by Spire Ventures’ founder, Faisal Butt, who says:

“It is very difficult for tech companies to go out and meet the blue-chip property companies, so we thought we’d bring the blue chips here.

“Pi Labs is turning into an externalised R&D initiative for the property industry. They want to know what offensive and defensive strategies they should adopt to cope with the changes in the industry.”

Other services like Level39, Europe’s largest technology accelerator, are helping technology companies get started their own way. But considerably more money is needed in order to make a remarkable impact.

How Can Pure Commercial Finance Help?

Here at Pure Commercial Finance we match start-ups with angel finance where professional experience or capital is invested during the growth stage. We help companies with great ideas, but little funding, see their plans through to fruition.