EG proptech conference: building towards techno know-how

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EG’s inaugural proptech summit revealed an industry in a state of flux but moving firmly in the right direction, writes Rebecca Kent. Photographs by Ed Telling

Click here to watch or listen to the event in full.

As proptech climbs further up the property agenda, Estates Gazette created an opportunity for experts in property and technology to meet and discuss their aspirations, fears, the challenges surrounding technology and how it can create business opportunities.

The result was a candid appraisal from both camps that the property industry is raring to innovate, but struggling to cut through the noise; and the technology sector could be better at demonstrating the outcomes of its innovations.

It is not that the property sector has been slow to adopt technology, which has been the perceived wisdom. At least not according to Brandon Weber, chief product office of VTS following its merger with Hightower at the end of last year, who gave a show-stealing presentation at the event, held at U+I’s London headquarters in December.

sponsorsFresh from negotiating the game-changing merger, he said that until recently, the property industry has been “deeply underserved by technology”.

It is widely believed that the Hightower/VTS deal, which has resulted in a leasing and asset management platform that now manages more than 5bn sq ft globally, has signalled a vote of confidence in the proptech sector.

“Institutional owners from all over the world are now saying: ‘Talk to us. You’ve got Blackstone and Invesco and Brookfield on these platforms and those are pretty smart, sophisticated institutional owners. I want to understand what you’re trying to do and what the business outcomes are here’,” he told the 200-strong audience.

So has property finally shaken off its image of being stuck in the Dark Ages? Yes, according to Jon Taylor, head of technology for The Collective. And it is all the better for it.

“The rhetoric about the dinosaur industry, as someone who is trying to attract world-class engineers to join our team, who are not motivated by money, makes my life very hard, but it is changing.”

Also full of optimism was Juliette Morgan, international partner in Cushman & Wakefield’s global tech group in London, who spoke on a later panel with property industry representatives.

“I think we’ve all been on a journey over the past few years, and the people who don’t get it and think they never will are getting on the train really quite fast, and so what might have been dinosaur thoughts and behaviours two years ago are no longer anywhere in the market now,” she said.

That journey has been bumpy, however, and Morgan urged some sensitivity towards a sector that has “had its fingers burnt a few times”, deploying technology in buildings only for it to become obsolete.

To overcome this, both sides have a responsibility to understand the business outcomes of any single piece of technology, said William Newtown, EMEA director at WiredScore.

He said: “I think the onus is really on proptech companies to prove they are bringing a valuable product to property. And if you are bringing a valuable product, people will listen. The onus then from the property companies is to be open to new ideas, and it might take a couple of conversations, a couple of exploratory moments to really get to the point of realising why something is valuable.”

A generation shift at senior levels in property is assisting progress, said panellist James Morris-Manuel, EMEA sales director of Matterport, who sold his business Virtual Walkthrough to the US tech giant in July. But he urged the old guard to pay the millennials greater attention.

“As 30-somethings in your businesses are starting to become more credible and move to higher profile positions, listen to them. They grew up in an environment where everything is faster, everything is online, everything is on their phone. They have got a better understanding of the technical side of how their day-to-day job could be done more efficiently.

“But what I’ve seen is sometimes you bring in a technology officer and the company is like, ‘Great, we’ve got a new CTO, he’s amazing, he’s excellent’, and then they suggest a couple of changes and the directors go, ‘No, no, we’ve done business like this for 50 years’.”

It’s a fast-moving world, and technology is moving ever faster. The possibilities of data, for example, are near infinite.

Chlump Chatkupt, a mathematician and co-founder of PlaceMake.io, said it was “irrational” that property companies mostly negotiated major deals using gut feeling rather than hard data.

So how does a property company back the right technology? According to Ben Dimson, head of retail business development at British Land, it is a fine balance between understanding, “the things we can do now versus a year ago, versus what we’ll be able to do in a year from now, then weighing that up with the challenges of being a big business with a significant number of stakeholders and assets”.

And Brexit should provide some urgency, said Adrian Leavey, partner at Trowers and Hamlins. “Post-referendum, we are in a situation where the skills crisis could be even greater than it is today. This is an opportunity to produce tech and improve efficiency.”

Charles Farr
Charles Farr

RooBox delivers on tech opportunities

Deliveroo property acquisitions manager Charlie Farr told the audience the company’s RooBox concept was offering landlords new income streams for underused spaces.

Restaurant partner Tommi’s Burgers, limited by London’s high rents and long leases, will set up operations in seven RooBox kitchens in locations identified by Deliveroo demand data.

The first RooBox was built on a former car park in Battersea.

Farr said: “We don’t need prime restaurant space, we are offering landlords income they may never have factored in before.”

This is what the future of property looks like

Three areas of property will be unrecognisable a decade from now, Brandon Weber, founder of Hightower, told the crowd. In his words…

Management, operation and transactions

Operating systems will change the way it looks to be either an agent or an owner. Every workflow, including marketing, renewing tenants, tracking the acquisition and leasing pipelines, and managing operational expenditure, will move from spreadsheets to being digitised, reducing risks and creating advantage.

Tenant experience

Appear Here and WeWork are changing the connectivity between landlord and tenant and improving a broken tenant experience. Do you ask your tenants: “Are you happy in this space?” No-one does and that is insane. There is going to be so much innovation happening in this space and how landlords respond.

Property construction and operation

Entire markets can fundamentally change out from under you by the time a building is permitted and built. Modular construction, 3D printing and compressed construction with timelines of three to four weeks is what we are excited about.

The speakers

Keynote

  • Charlie Farr, Deliveroo

The tech panel

  • Savannah De Savary, IndustryHub
  • Chlump Chatkupt, PlaceMake.io
  • William Newton,  WiredScore
  • Jon Taylor, The Collective
  • Ross Bailey, Appear Here
  • James Morris-Manuel, Matterport

Guest speaker

  • Brandon Weber, VTS

The property panel

  • David Rosen, Pilcher Hershman
  • Jacob Loftus, General Projects
  • Juliette Morgan, Cushman & Wakefield
  • Ben Dimson, British Land
  • Adrian Leavey, Trowers & Hamlins

Chaired by EG’s Damian Wild and Emily Wright