Property Development in the 21st Century: still advocate the “brick and mortar” business model?
It was only a few years ago, three or four, when a property developer, at a conference, clearly stated that, no matter what, property development was and still is a brick and mortar business.
Since then, plenty of innovative solutions for property development have been introduced in the market and many developers have started reviewing their “brick and mortar” style towards a more suitable and definitely sustainable digitally transformed world, the Proptech world.
Nowadays, everybody is talking about affordable housing and, for sure, digital transformation in property development is bringing a highly disruptive but positive impact in the property industry. The great thing is, properties shall cost less and consequently become more affordable! The how is not too complicated.
Below, I’m just giving a few examples of positive impact on property development from a costing point of view.
Proptech Positive Impact on Property Development
1) Pre-construction
Using big data and Ai is nowadays possible to understand clearly what the public is demanding in a certain area, what purchasing power do they have and which type of property they are looking for.
Valuers and professionals are preparing quite accurate feasibility studies using all the information as above and everything is there to give a clear direction to future property development.
2) During construction
We all have heard about BIM (Building information Modelling) which, though a precise integration of architect drawings with C&S (Civil and Structural) and M&E (mechanical and electrical) data allows to find and resolve beforehand all possible construction issues.
In this way the construction period will be shorter, easier and definitely less expensive.
IBS (Industrialized Building Systems) has been also widely adopted in property development. Its impact has reduced construction times and allowed better quality. Again, we talk about cost reductions.
3) After construction
Delivery of Vacant Possession, resolving construction defects and building communities have been mostly digitalized, as an example have a look at what ProFix can offer to both property developers and purchasers, and the outcome is once more cost efficiency and better relationships between all players.
4) Sales and Marketing
The day in which we will no longer need to visit a sales gallery of property development to discuss with an agent and to visit the show units is almost here! Nowadays, above all with the impact of Covid-19 pandemic and the forced social distancing, many developers have already adopted digital tools such as:
- AR (Augmented Reality) and VR (Virtual Reality) to allow the public to visit their sales gallery and “virtually walk through” the proposed property.
- Once the decision is made, on-line booking kicks in and,
- in a few minutes since when the transaction has been completed, bankers have already received the loan application (pending documents),
- the appointed lawyer is already preparing the Sale and Purchase Agreement and the sales staff can already see the new booking appearing on their digital sale charts.
You can see good examples of all the above visiting the few links below: for the Virtual Reality, for the virtual booking / sales admin and finally for the legal part. Another good example of how fast digital transformation is changing the property industry can be found in the website of the Malaysia Proptech Association.
ProSales has been at the frontline of real estate disruption since several years and helped developers in serving their purchasers in a seamless way. Are you ready for a future which is already happening in ours present?
Leave your comment below as we, at ProSales, would love to hear from you!
Stay safe and see you soon!
About the author
The opinions expressed in this article are solely of the author, Dr Daniele Gambero.
Dr Gambero has been an expatriate to Malaysia from Italy, since 1998 and has more than 35 years of real estate experience. He is the co-founder and group CEO of REI Group of Companies, the Co-founder of Propenomy.com and the deputy president of the Malaysia Proptech Association.
In the past 10 years Daniele, as international and TEDX speaker, has engaged several hundreds thousand people talking about Property, Economy, Propenomy, Digital Marketing and Motivation. He is also a bestselling author and columnist on several magazines and main stream media.
Good article, Dr Daniel.
Hi Grace, as Propenomy student your compliments have great value to us :-). Thank you and stay tuned for more to come