Proptech experts see plenty of opportunity in data aggregation, data analytics, and machine learning. Warburg Peters stops short of saying that data offers the biggest opportunity in proptech but acknowledges that it’s certainly one of the biggest.
“Aggregating data and then leveraging it is going to be one of the core sources of innovation in the real estate world,” she says. “It’s remarkable how much we do not do that at this time.”
Data-driven proptech companies emphasize the benefits of understanding trends and taking advantage of current market conditions. Data, when used correctly, can help real estate organizations make smarter decisions, according to JLL’s Wagoner. He points to the firm’s recent acquisition of Skyline AI as an example of the industry’s increasing interest in leveraging data.
Investment management firms both small and large are leveraging data by layering external data over internal data to help asset managers and acquisitions teams not only make better decisions, but make them much faster.
For example, data-driven investment firm Archer recently launched AIM Automated Underwriting, which leverages machine learning to reduce the amount of time required to complete a first underwriting from days to minutes. The tool is built on the firm’s proprietary technology platform, which aggregates traditional and non-traditional data.
“Quality underwriting is crucial to the successful execution an investment strategy, but speed also matters because investors that act quickly have an advantage over their competitors,” says Thomas Foley, co-founder and CEO of Archer.
Looking forward, MetaProp’s Block expects more investment managers to follow in Archer’s footsteps by using data as a differentiator. In fact, if he were launching a real estate investment firm today, proptech would be one of his main priorities.
“I would bring in a technical co-founder and build technology from the ground up because I personally because that data is super valuable and delivers a huge competitive advantage over time,” Block says.