PropTech: The Future of Real Estate

Currently everyone’s talking about PropTech and so is Tapkey. For this reason we recently visited two events on this topic the Future Lab in Munich and the Future PropTech in Vienna. 45 speakers, 350 success stories and 20 pitches—a  great success for Julia Arlt, initiator of APTI, the Austrian Prop Tech Initiative. We would like to share our insights with you.

PropTech—More Than Just a Buzzword

PropTech is the short term for property technology and refers to all technological and especially digital developments in the real estate industry. It can be defined as an umbrella term for the companies fuelling the evolution of real estate towards digitisation and automation. While the advertising, finance or health care industries have been focusing on digitisation for some years now, the real estate industry just started focusing on the digital part. The goal is to optimise services and processes around real estate and make transactions more efficient. Classic business processes such as brokerage or property management are being relocated to the digital world, making them more user-friendly.

Digitalization on the Rise

PropTech solutions are taking on real estate to push it to the next level and rebuild the entire industry. From creating 3D floor plans using apps such as Roomle totenant matchmaking platforms like immonow.at:¹ These young startups can be found in almost all areas, such as property management (for easier management of real estate objects), facility management (to verify sustainability of real estate) or home services (for the tenants).

Smart Building Technology as a Basic Requirement

Of course, smart building technology plays an enormous role here. More comfort, more security and more energy efficiency: These are intelligent and networked buildings that are more sustainable than conventional ones thanks to their technical equipment. And this is where Tapkey steps in. We offer a simple way of equipping standard buildings with the latest technology. Property managers can thereby simplify their access management and save costs. Thus, access rights can be granted to third parties at short notice, for example, for craftsmen or care services. In addition, Tapkey offers the possibility to integrate the access management into existing tools—so that everything can be controlled from a single source.