How to Build Proptech Software: Key Features, Approaches and Development Guide

Proptech software development can be a game-changer for software companies seeking to break into the real estate industry or for real estate companies looking to improve their operations through technology.

However, the success of your proptech software development project depends on several crucial factors. To ensure you achieve your desired results, consider the following tips outlined in this article.

1. Understand What is Proptech

Proptech, short for “property technology,” is a term used to describe the application of technology to improve and modernize the real estate industry. Its scope is broad, encompassing a variety of digital tools and platforms that aim to enhance various aspects of the property market. These include property listing, property management, financing, and construction.

Some examples of proptech include:

• Online property marketplaces — Websites and apps that allow users to search for and compare properties, such as Zillow, Redfin, and Trulia. Learn how to create a professional and effective website for your rental property with our expert guide.
• Virtual property tours — Software and platforms that enable users to tour properties remotely, such as Matterport and Realync.
• Smart home technologies — Devices that connect to the internet and provide remote access and control of home systems, such as Nest and Ring.
• Property management software — Platforms that simplify property management tasks, such as rent collection, maintenance requests, and tenant communication, such as AppFolio and Buildium.
• Construction technology — Tools that streamline and optimize the construction process, such as 3D printing, drones, and robotics.

Examples of successful proptech startups include VergeSense, OnSiteIQ, Knotel, Homeday, HomeViews, Acaboom, and OhMyHome.

The above is just a mere fraction of the whole scope of proptech solutions. If you’re interested in gaining a more comprehensive understanding of the meaning and scope of proptech, proceed to the article on Proptech Definition.

2. Define a Niche and Target Audience of Your Proptech Solution

As the world’s largest industry (and, apparently, one of the most undertechnologized ones, according to JLL’s report on the global real estate tech landscape), real estate has many sectors and industry players involved, and, consequently, a great array of industry problems they face. Each of those provides multiple innovation opportunities to proptech software developers.

Here are some of those needs broken down by stakeholder:

 

 

• The tenant or buyer wants to have a seamless digital experience that allows them to easily search for properties in one place. A customizable search with filters is also significant to help them find exactly what they’re looking for. Finally, they prefer less face-to-face interaction and more digital options.
• The broker’s needs include keeping all communication with tenants, buyers, and landlords in one place, generating quality marketing material, and automating prospecting to visualize the deal cycle. It’s also essential to automate workflows and collaborate with the team in a single system.
• The landlord wants to make sure that the asking price isn’t too low and that the renting or selling process is transparent. Running accurate and reliable tenant background checks is also a priority to ensure a good tenant-landlord relationship.
• The property manager needs tools in the arsenal to efficiently manage multiple properties on their portfolio, which involves features like centralized tenant communication, automated rent collection, maintenance ticketing systems, and financial reporting.
• The mortgage broker needs to ensure lenders and borrowers are on the same page regarding loan terms, documentation requirements, and the overall mortgage process. This can be done through experience portals and different facets of loan origination platforms.
• Appraisers require tools that simplify the property valuation process and allow the appraisal experts to be mobile rather than tied to the desktop. This can be done with the help of automated valuation models (AVMs), data integrations, market analysis tools, and report-generating software, all linked within one system that is available both from desktop and mobile devices.
• Investors (for example, REITs, entities that own and manage income-generating real estate properties) need tools that can provide detailed financial analysis, portfolio management features, lease administration, and investor reporting functionalities.

 

By understanding the needs of the stakeholders, proptech companies can develop proptech software that caters to these needs and improves the overall experience for everyone involved in the buying, renting, selling, investing, and lending process.

 

3. Conduct Market Research & Analyze Existing Proptech Solutions in Your Niche

Key takeaways:

• North America is still a major PropTech market player in terms of market share.
• The residential segment leads with over 58% revenue share, while commercial and industrial segments are projected to grow.
• Software solutions generated over 64% in 2022 and are expected to dominate.
• The vast majority of existing proptech software solutions are cloud, with slight growth in on-premise deployments.
• Housing associations hold over 35% revenue share; property managers/agents are also expected to grow (source).

 

First of all, it must be noted that proptech is still booming and has a lot of income-generating potential to offer to all market incumbents and disruptors in the following decade. To put things in perspective, proptech brought in $30.16 billion in 2022 and is predicted to leap to $133.05 billion by 2032.

 

 

 

However, depending on where you are located and what market you want your proptech software to target, the market situation may differ. From the illustration below, you can see that the leader in terms of the number of proptech companies founded is North America holding 56% of all proptech initiatives, only to be followed by the UK (805 companies), France (547), and Germany (342).

 

The Proptech Market in the USA

The proptech software market in the USA represents a significant part of the country’s tech sector, thanks to its size, population, and global property powerhouse status. Many proptech innovations come from major tech hubs like New York City and San Francisco, which attract significant domestic and foreign investments.

Approximately 60.04% of proptech software firms in the US operate within the residential sector, 49.84% in the commercial sector, and 11.50% in retail. In terms of customer focus, 69.37% of the proptech companies serve B2B customers, 26.85% cater to B2C, and 3.78% operate in both domains (source).

Notably, most US-based proptech startups, both within the residential and commercial realm, are targeting property management.

 

 

Some examples of property management proptechs in the US include:

• ManageCasa – an automated property accounting solution that assists managers by automating the process where its solution analyzes and classifies relevant data as well as updates accounting books in real-time.
• HqO – a tenant experience platform that helps landlords create places people love.
• Zego – a platform that provides property managers with a suite of tools to help them manage their properties more efficiently.
• RentRedi – a platform that provides landlords with tools to manage their properties and tenants from one place.
• BuildingLink – a platform that provides property managers with tools to manage their buildings and tenants more efficiently.

 

The Proptech Market in the UK

Along with the US, the UK has been at the center of the proptech movement since day one. However, Brexit has cast a long shadow of uncertainty over many industries in the United Kingdom, and PropTech has not been an exception.

The negative effect of Brexit is especially tangible in terms of government Support. Brexit has diverted government attention and resources away from sectors like technology. As a result, government support for technology, including PropTech, has been put on hold to some extent. However, the government-backed geospatial data innovation program, Geovation, continues to support PropTech companies, suggesting that government support is still available but perhaps not as widespread as it could be.

This uncertainty, however, hasn’t stopped London from remaining a significant global hub for proptech software. London is home to more than 500 proptech companies, which is more than Germany has across the whole country, for example.

Similar to the USA, most of these companies, both in the residential nad commercial landscape, are targeting property management.

 

 

Some notable examples of thriving proptech startups in the UK include:

• Acasa – a platform that provides tenants with tools to manage their bills and household expenses.
• AskPorter – an AI-powered property management platform that helps landlords manage their properties more efficiently.
• Goodlord – a platform that provides landlords with tools to manage their properties and tenants more efficiently.
• Howsy – a platform that provides landlords with tools to manage their properties and tenants more efficiently.
• Plentific – a platform that provides property managers with tools to manage their buildings and tenants more efficiently.

 

The Proptech Market in France

The French Proptech scene, while relatively new, has been growing strongly and rapidly due to several key factors:

• supportive governmental policies
• the digital transformation movement within the real estate industry
• increasing national and international investment in the sector.

 

The French proptech software sector is broadly categorized into three areas: residential, commercial, and retail, with residential being the most dominant, covering 71% of the PropTech offerings. The rise of peer-to-peer renting and focus on well-being in neighborhoods demonstrate the innovation within residential proptech.

 

 

Some prominent startups focusing on residential real estate include:

• Colonies – a co-living company that provides furnished and serviced apartments with shared spaces and amenities. It raised $213 million in funding since 20171.
• ManoMano – an online home improvement retailer that offers DIY and gardening products.
• Luko – a home insurance company that uses AI and IoT to prevent and repair damages. It raised $85 million in funding since 2016

 

The commercial sector comprises 23% of French proptechs, many of which cater to the B2B market. There is an increasing interest in smart buildings and flexible working spaces, with PropTech playing a significant role in this evolution.

 

4. Choose a Proptech Software Type You’d Like to Build

Whether you’re looking to streamline property management tasks, enhance building security and energy efficiency, provide virtual property tours, optimize the construction process, analyze real estate investments, or provide data-driven insights into the market, you need to narrow down the type of the proptech software you want to build.

The tools and solutions within the proptech landscape can be broadly divided into various types, including:

 

 

Property Management Software (PMS)

Property Management Software (PMS) is a vital Proptech solution that automates and simplifies several critical aspects of property management. Some of the key features of PMS are:

• Tracking and managing tenant information and leases, including lease dates, rent amounts, and security deposits.
• Managing maintenance tasks, and work orders, as well as streamlining communication with vendors, improving overall operational efficiency.
• Financial management functionality, enabling property managers to track expenses and income associated with their properties.
• Reporting and analytics features such as occupancy rates, rent rolls, and financial statements, helping property managers make informed decisions and keep track of their portfolio’s performance.
• Communication and collaboration tools for property managers and tenants, including messaging and document sharing.
• Customizability and integration with other business systems, enhancing overall functionality and effectiveness.

 

Real Estate CRM

CRM software is a critical tool for businesses of all sizes, enabling them to store, manage, and analyze customer data. To ensure the software meets business needs, it should have several key features.

• Contact management is crucial to ensure that all customer information, such as contact details, demographic data, and communication history, is stored and organized effectively.
• Sales management tools enable businesses to track leads, opportunities, and deals, forecast sales, and generate reports to monitor performance.
• Marketing automation features help businesses to create and execute marketing campaigns, track their performance, and measure their ROI.
• Effective customer service and support tools enable businesses to manage customer inquiries, track cases, and resolve issues.
• Collaboration and communication tools enable teams to share information, delegate tasks, and communicate effectively, ensuring all team members are aligned and working efficiently.
• Analytics and reporting tools enable businesses to analyze customer data, track key performance indicators, and create custom reports to support decision-making.
• Mobile accessibility is crucial in today’s fast-paced business environment, as it allows businesses to access customer data from anywhere, at any time.
• Integration capabilities enable businesses to connect their CRM system with other business systems, such as email, social media, and accounting software, to ensure seamless data exchange and improve overall efficiency.

 

Real Estate Marketing Software

It is a crucial type of Proptech solution designed to help real estate agents and brokers establish and manage their online presence through:

• Email and social media marketing;
• Lead generation and management; and
• Creation of eye-catching marketing collaterals (brochures, flyers, and other PDFs).

There is a lot of untapped potential behind document generation software in real estate, as real estate agents and operators need to create property brochures, flyers, and other types of PDFs at all times, which can take quite a bit of your time if you do not have a creative team in place.

Document generation software checks this box. For greater efficiency, we recommend that your document generation software links into your CRM and analytics tools to grab the information for your marketing materials right from your database, saving you time on copy and pasting.

Property Inspection Software

Property Inspection Software is a must-have Proptech solution for property inspectors looking to conduct their inspections more efficiently and accurately.

• The ability to create customized checklists that cater to different property types, whether it be residential, commercial, or industrial properties.
• Templates that cover standard inspection criteria, such as electrical, plumbing, and structural components, ensuring that no critical component is overlooked.
• The ability to add photos and notes during inspections.
• Intuitive reporting capabilities.
• Ttemplates that cover different types of inspections, such as move-in, move-out, and routine inspections, and allows inspectors to add their branding and logo to the reports, enhancing their professionalism.
• Scheduling and reminders, enabling inspectors to manage their workload effectively.

Real Estate Investment Software

Real Estate Investment Software is a specialized type of proptech designed to meet the needs of investors in the real estate industry. This software offers a range of features and tools that allow investors to manage and analyze their real estate investment portfolios with ease and efficiency.

The primary features of Real Estate Investment Software are:

• Property management to provide investors with an easy way to track expenses, manage rent collection, and communicate with tenants.
• Deal analysis. to provides investors with the ability to analyze potential deals by calculating cash flow, return on investment, and other important metrics.
• Portfolio Management, including tracking performance, managing debt, and optimizing taxes.

 

Property Valuation Software

Property Valuation Software utilizes advanced algorithms and data analysis techniques to provide accurate valuations of properties quickly and efficiently.

One of the primary benefits of Property Valuation Software is that it offers real estate professionals accurate property valuations based on market trends, property characteristics, and other relevant data. For this, your Property Valuation Software should integrate with MLS and other data sources as well as have real-time data analysis and reporting tools.

Property Listing Management Software

• Property Listing Management Software is a proptech solution specifically designed for real estate professionals to manage their property listings with ease.
• The key features of Property Listing Management Software include:
• Creation of property listings with detailed property information, photos, and virtual tours.
• Listing Management within a central, including editing, updating, and archiving.
• Listing Syndication across multiple websites, social media platforms, and portals, increasing their reach and visibility.
• Lead and Inquiry Management to ensure that potential clients are never missed.
• Real-time analytics on listing performance, enabling real estate professionals to make data-driven decisions.

Virtual Tour Software

This software provides a suite of features that allow real estate agents and brokers to showcase properties online and provide a more engaging experience for potential buyers.

• Some of the key features of Virtual Tour Software are:
• 360-degree panoramas that simulates a real-life walkthrough experience of the property and its surroundings.
• Interactive floor plans that allow viewers to navigate through the property and get a better sense of its layout.
• Integration of various media types such as photos, videos, and audio to enhance the virtual tour experience and showcase the property’s unique features and highlight its selling points.
• Real-time analytics on the number of views, time spent on the tour, and other metrics to help real estate professionals track the effectiveness of their virtual tours and make data-driven decisions.

Smart Building Software

Smart Building Software is a type of PropTech that focuses on improving the operational efficiency and sustainability of buildings. This software provides a suite of tools that allows building owners and managers to manage, monitor, and optimize building systems and operations from a centralized platform.

Smart Building Software offers a range of features, including:

• Building automation that helps in improving energy efficiency, reducing maintenance costs, and enhancing occupant comfort.
• Data analytics that provides real-time data on building performance, helping building owners and managers identify areas of improvement and optimize building systems accordingly.
• Predictive maintenance which uses data analytics to predict maintenance needs and prevent system failures, saving on maintenance costs and reducing downtime.
• Occupancy management is also a part of Smart Building Software that allows building owners and managers to monitor and manage occupancy levels, and optimize building systems and energy usage accordingly.
• It can also integrate with security and access control systems, providing building owners and managers with a comprehensive view of building security.

 

5. Consider the Latest Proptech Trends

Artificial Intelligence

AI algorithms revolutionize real estate market development by empowering both landlords and tenants.

Artificial Intelligence allows landowners to use automated smart algorithms that utilize multiple criteria to search for the most relevant renters and accelerate the deal process.

 

Big Data and Digitization of property data assets

Proptech Big Data solutions provide real estate parties with powerful data-driven insights within all possible aspects, like marketing, sales, investments, and others.

There are several key ways in which the real estate sector is transforming through Big Data solutions and now let’s discuss them.

 

Building Information Modelling (BIM) technology for housing

BIM helps clients get relevant answers to the following questions:

• How a building will be built
• How much time it will take to finish the development
• How much it will cost and so on.

It becomes possible as answers become automatically generated based on analyzing PropTech big data of similar cases so that it saves much time for property managers and revolutionizes the real estate market.

 

IoT with drones for 360-view display

Internet of Things has already seized lots of market niches and now it comes to PropTech sector with sufficient benefits.

Simply put, it allows to simplify and automate most building operations in real-time by monitoring and storing important data from sensors, trackers, equipment, weather, and other devices.

What’s more, IoT even enables tenants to get energy savings through the automatic track of historic data collected from installed devices.

In 2021, PropTech startups began massively building advanced 360-view display drones that provide even more customer-oriented data.

This way, Internet of Things is about powerful and automated facility management in the real estate business that wasn’t available before.

 

Chatbots for customer-focused interaction

Modern PropTech software solutions have integrated chatbots designed specifically to greatly boost customer experience and provide tenants with immediate answers.

Chatbots become a win-win strategy for all parties as landlords can save much time answering basic questions of leads or clients about the building, licenses, etc.

This way, PropTech software with chatbots helps improve communication with clients thus increasing customer loyalty and boosting deal closing ratio.

 

Contactless Software Entry System

There is no secret that COVID-19 has greatly impacted most aspects of our life and PropTech software market is no exception. The market leaders and companies have sufficiently adapted to current circumstances and began investing time and funds into touchless software entry systems.

This technology provides lots of innovations like contactless check-in software, guest management, smart home systems with automatic and self-managing sensors, etc.

For example, rental platforms like Airbnb and Booking greatly benefit from smart check-in technologies as travelers can now check-in without any contact with landowners.

First, this is super valuable during the COVID-19 pandemic as it reduces potential risks to expand infection volumes.

Second, it saves pretty much time and boosts customer satisfaction while traveling.

Latch is one of the leading proptech startups delivering smart and contactless software entry systems for both commercial real estate market and non-commercial enterprises.

Smart access, guest and delivery management, connectivity technologies, smart home and sensors, and personalization are among its core proptech software offerings.

 

6. Choose a Proptech Development Approach

Before starting the development process, we recommend selecting the most suitable option for your project requirements, timeline, budget expectations, and other criteria.

Let’s discuss the most widespread and effective development approaches out there:

 

#1 Hire a PropTech software development company

Outsourcing software development of your proptech solution to a technology partner with a solid experience in proptech sector first means that you will mostly get a high-quality final product following the latest standards and trends.

This becomes possible as a software development provider having case studies in developing solutions for the proptech industry perfectly knows what tech stack, features, and scalability are needed.

For example, our Ascendix Tech development teams have helped multiple real estate enterprises like Colliers International, Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), Cresa, Transwestern, Stiles, and other companies implement customized cutting-edge solutions focused on solving their business needs through proptech software.

Here are the core benefits of hiring a proptech software development company:

• Tried-and-true high product quality
• Result-oriented proptech consulting (the company analyzes your business goals to provide the most relevant technical solutions)
• Increased flexibility and scalability of your proptech software
• Time savings avoiding talent acquisition and onboarding activities
• Quick access to a large pool of technical professionals
• Cost savings in the long run.

 

#2 Find a Chief Technical Officer/Partner

This option means you search for a tech-savvy and business-oriented soulmate with solid experience and background in proptech industry. This specialist will fully take care of project technical issues allowing you to focus on strategic tasks like funding, marketing, sales, etc.

The most effective ways to find a CTO are offline conferences/meetups/tech-related events and online platforms like ProductHunt, Reddit, LinkedIn, Founders Network, and so on.

The core benefits of finding a technical partner for your proptech business:

• Unique mind and skillset
• Keen understanding of technologies
• The same passion to create proptech software that rocks
• Delegation of technical project issues.

 

#3 Partner with freelance development teams

Hiring a freelance team of developers means using online platforms like UpWork, Credo, Fiverr, Outsourcely, Freeeup, and others to find technical specialists that meet your project requirements, preferred development rates, and have reliable experience in building technology solutions for proptech business.

The main advantages of this approach are the reasonable rates, wide talent pool, and faster project delivery. However, you may bump into communication issues, low product quality, project security risks, and failures to meet the set time constraints.

 

#4 Build proptech software yourself

This option supposes you have solid technical skills that allow you to implement at least the skeleton of your proptech software and transform business requirements into useful functionality.

Developing proptech solutions locally may require help from additional specialists like DevOps engineers, QA specialists, and others who will handle important project development activities.

To sum up, this option may become the most cost-efficient, but rather long-running as you should allocate lots of time on proptech software development yourself.

Our PropTech Software Expertise

At Ascendix Tech, we have 25 years of experience in CRM consulting, over 10 years of expertise in delivering technology solutions for real estate companies, and 10 years of custom software development background.

This tried-and-true combination allowed us to build our own proptech software products and help dozens of large market players meet their business goals through high-quality technical implementation and serve thousands of clients around the world.

Now we want to share several proptech software case studies to showcase our technical expertise in delivering cutting-edge solutions for proptech business.

 

Colliers PropTech Real Estate Lisings Software Development

There is no secret that Colliers International is one of the biggest real estate services companies with over 18,000 employees and $2,8 bln annual revenue as of 2018.

The company contacted and hired Ascendix over 13 years ago to help them implement and customize Dynamics 365 to boost productivity and improve performance of internal teams.

In 2020, Colliers International asked us to build a Property Listings Platform and help their brokers promote availabilities for sale and lease.

Apart from this platform, they also wanted to improve communication and security issues by using robust collaboration and deal rooms and this is how ColliersView appeared thanks to Ascendix Tech’s real estate software development services.

So, here are the key challenged we faced:

• Create a Convenient Way to Promote Listings
• Automatically Generate PDFs
• Integrate the Property Listing Platform with Dynamics 365 CRM
• Enhance Communication of Brokers with Investors.

 

Below you can see technology solutions we have delivered:

• Created a multi-channel real estate listing platform to help brokers promote building efficiently
• Implemented robust and safe deal rooms for collaboration with investors and tenants sharing sensitive data, signing non-disclosure agreements, and getting feedback from clients without multiple email chains
• Built collaboration rooms to interact with prospects which allowed to boost the lead-to-deal conversion rates
• Customized and improved search and filtering tools
• Adjusted automatic and regular synchronization with CRM
• Integrated powerful availability report generation tool
• Implemented effective image management for uploading visuals from both a CRM and a platform.

 

This way, we have helped Colliers International automate their daily business operations even more and increased real-time data accuracy streamlined the lead-to-deal process, and empowered with advanced promotion opportunities.

Learn what Saimir Qalliu, Managing Director at Colliers International, said about our cooperation:

Bottom Line

Proptech software development is a relatively new, but extremely promising direction for real estate businesses and clients helping both parties revolutionize their interaction and take the real estate services market to a new level.

The process of building proptech software is a complex of skillsets and latest trends combined to solve real problems of all parties. At Ascendix Tech, we have solid experience in proptech software development and would be glad to help turn the challenges of your company into tailor-made technology opportunities that will help you grow and scale.

If you want to discuss your project idea, feel free to check our case studies and contact us. We will be glad to engage in a discussion to better understand your goals and objectives and if appropriate, provide you with a free estimate of your proptech software development requirements.