How to (not) manage a house in the age of digital

The shower tap in my rental house broke a few weeks ago. After emailing my property manager (person who manages the house in name of the landlord), it took a week before a plumber came to fix it. When the plumber arrived at 7 o’clock in the morning, it took him less than a minute to analyse the situation and conclude that he simply had to replace the old tap. Unfortunately, he didn’t bring a new one with him, which meant he had to come back in the afternoon…

Now I wonder: Considering that the shower tap in my house had been leaking for days, shouldn’t it have been fixed earlier to prevent the waste of water? Moreover, couldn’t the plumber have known earlier that he just had to replace the tap and bring a new one on his first visit?

Here is my view on what is going wrong with the property management of my house. First of all, there is a lack of information sharing between me, the property manager and the plumber. If only the plumber had seen an image or video of the leaking tap, he could have analysed the problem beforehand and did not have to come back a second time. Moreover, we use traditional channels to communicate. As he didn’t pick up his phone, I had to email the property manager. I can imagine that my email gets lost among the dozen of emails that the property manager gets from annoyed tenants who have (small) problems that need to be fixed.

How is it possible that with the current technology and applications available this problem was solved in such an inefficient manner? In fact, technological and digital innovations (such as digital devices, internet and data) have been changing the way we interact, communicate and much more. The answer: innovation in the real estate industry is slow compared to other industries. In 2015, only 0,003% of income generated by the dutch real estate industry had been invested in R&D, compared to an average of 0,6% among all other Dutch industries. As such, real-estate companies invest much less in innovative technologies than companies in other industries do.

Don’t worry though, there is a new revolution that is taking off. It’s called Proptech (short for property technology), which is a real-estate focused technology that helps us apply data and information to the way we research, manage, buy and sell properties. It has the potential to create a whole new ecosystem with real-estate properties in the centre. Global investments in Proptech have increased from $200 million in 2011 to $18 billion in 2018. Moreover, research conducted by KPMG showed that 93% of real-estate organisations think that they need to engage with Proptech in order to adapt to the changing global environment. Yet, only 30% of traditional real-estate organisations say they currently invest or plan to invest in Proptech.

Considering the little innovation by traditional real-estate organisations and the rising interest in Proptech, I believe that there are opportunities for new players to enter the real-estate industry with new and exciting technologies. This will change the way we live in and manage a property. Think about platforms that will make the interaction around a property more transparent and efficient, and will digitise your housing contracts and other important documents.

In my case, I would like to see a platform that facilitates the interaction between me, my property manager (or landlord) and maintenance companies such as electricians and plumbers. What would you like to see and why?

Sources

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesrealestatecouncil/2019/06/12/the-proptech-revolution-how-todays-tools-help-cre-professionals-and-clients-accomplish-more/

https://home.kpmg/content/dam/kpmg/uk/pdf/2018/09/kpmg-global-proptech-survey.pdf

https://www.afr.com/property/20-billion-in-proptech-globally-by-2020-taronga-and-kpmg-20170523-gwb6h6

https://www.ing.nl/media/ING_EBZ_PropTech-Technologie_in_de_vastgoedsector-juni_2018_tcm162-148617.pdf