Property Technology (Proptech) is a name given to describe the new developments taking place in the areas of information and communication technology in the real estate sector. This also includes the integration of private individuals and end users in business relationships also known as business-to-consumer (B2C). Actual fields of application today are in the area of investment, distribution or administration. The benefit is an increase in efficiency, coupled with the reduction of costs and higher profitability. As an umbrella organization, we support and initiate innovative approaches to optimize and revolutionize practise and processes. To this end, we promote the exchange of experience in the application of new communication technologies and offer the professional, students and the general public a platform for the presentation and discussion of creative ideas.

Expert statements

Jens-Uwe Sauer, CEO Seedmatch and MEZZANY, Founding member

Jens-Uwe Sauer, Founder / CEO Seedmatch and MEZZANY

“Banking is necessary, banks are not”: This statement by Microsoft founder Bill Gates has been raised in recent years to the mantra of the Fintech scene. Fintech means the symbiosis of the financial world and modern technologies. In 1994 Gates had already found words to describe what is nowadays increasingly a normal part of our everyday life: namely that traditional ways of thinking are being progressively challenged and a whole industry is undergoing a radical change. In short, the financial world cannot escape the ongoing flow of digitalization. In times of online banking and investing, this effects the branch banks most.

The direction is clear: processes and participants, which for decades and even centuries were regarded as unavoidable or irreplaceable, are today being questioned in their meaningfulness and are being revolutionized according to the rules of digitization. However, a financial world entirely without banks is not imaginable or necessary as Fintech companies and banks can often complement each other and by cooperation they can create a “best-of” modern and tradition for the financial world.

One thing is certain: today everyone can with great ease have his money online and invest it quickly as he or she wishes. Online platforms and marketplaces for digital investment products, such as crowdfunding, democratize investment in start-up companies and property projects. It is no surprise that real estate investments have always been one of the most popular investments by private and professional Investors.

Even in the real estate sector, the signs are changing. From project planning, to the (crowd-) financing of construction projects to the brokerage process – young proptech companies want to bring fresh air into the industry and are offering new products and services. For them, the contact with each other, as well as with the established players on the scene, is important in order to profit from the experience and the know-how of others. The ProptechDACH e.V. wants to promote this development and can thus be an important building block of the proptech scene.

Jens-Uwe Sauer, founder and CEO of Mezzany, Seedmatch and Econeers

 

Christoph Klemm, Team proq and geomap, Founding member

Christoph Klemm, CEO evermind GmbH

Digitalization is undoubtedly one of the current megatrends of the real estate industry. This is reflected not least by the numerous conferences, publications and consulting services being offered on this subject. The ever-increasing importance of apps, online portals and online mediation in the start-up process of real estate transactions exert an increasing pressure on the established players and processes in the real estate sector. This puts pressure on all parties involved to transfer the comprehensive availability of information and with it the accompanying expectation of speed of action into viable business models. With the increasing availability of digital information, both the requirements for corresponding software solutions as well as the users are increasing. A key to success is to develop, evaluate, combine and make use of a wide range of digital information sources. Under the key words Big Data and Proptech, this approach is currently on everyone’s lips. A key issue of our work will therefore be how Proptech can deliver the promise of greater efficiency and profitability. Common real estate sector standards for the communication between applications and users will play just as much a role as platforms on which information, offers and transactions will be processed in the future. We want to build on this future together.

Christoph Klemm, CEO evermind GmbH; Team proq, geomap

Stephan Schneider, REHOCH2 and Founding member

Stephan Schneider, CEO REHOCH2 GmbH

PROPTECH is more than just a short-lived trend. The digitalization transformations which affect almost every private and commercial sphere are changing expansively the space in which we live, work and play in. This is reflected in the new words that are appearing in the real estate sector, buzzwords like PROPTECH, seek to describe, in a compact user friendly form, the areas and subjects that digitalization now influences. The financial sector (FINTECH) and the healthcare sector (HEALTHTECH) are undergoing radical changes, the real estate sector, one of the largest economic sectors, will follow. This is by no means a `threat ‘, as one could rashly judge, but an outstanding opportunity. All real-estate value-added processes can be made more efficient and there are advantages for all market participants. Thanks to the almost unlimited possibilities of transforming existing processes into the digital world, cost and time advantages arise with a more than welcome uniform distribution of information. A development which – and there is no exception to the real estate sector – can no longer be stopped, let alone turned back. This makes it even more logical that market players devote themselves to this issue and commit themselves to playing an active role in shaping the process of change, which is subject to far-reaching consequences.

Stephan Schneider, CEO REHOCH2 GmbH