Last edited 28 May 2020

PropTech

Start-up technology companies are seeking to challenge the construction, real estate, and property management sectors, and the proliferation of mobile technology has drastically changed consumer behaviour, creating a culture of ‘always online’ users.

In conjunction with this move towards technology, the term PropTech was introduced in the 1990s during the tech bubble. It is derived from the words ‘property’ and ‘technology’ and is used to describe emerging start-up technology companies that are influencing and disrupting the property market.

PropTech is relatively well established in the real estate lexicon and is generally considered the umbrella concept for the terms associated with tech and other aspects of property management and construction. Initially, PropTech referred to buying, renting, selling, managing, designing and constructing residential and commercial properties. Now it is primarily associated with pre-construction activities (such as property sales and leasing issues) along with post-construction tasks (such as operations and maintenance).

PropTech is often used in conjunction with ConTech, a term that broadly describes the intersection of construction and technology. ConTech identifies advanced construction technology.

For more information, see ConTech.

Online services and apps have widened the scope of what users expect to be able to access, and these emerging technologies are often mentioned along with other well established concept such as: