Breaking Property News – 07/05/24
Daily bite-sized proptech and property news in partnership with Proptech-X.
CoreLogic U.K., a wholly owned subsidiary of CoreLogic® completes acquisition of Parity Projects Limited
PRESS RELEASE MAY 2024 CoreLogic U.K., a wholly owned subsidiary of CoreLogic®, a leading global property information, analytics and data-enabled solutions provider, today announced the completion of its acquisition of Parity Projects Limited, a leading expert in the domestic housing retrofit sector, providing retrofit advisory services, tools and data. This acquisition will allow CoreLogic to accelerate its progress in helping to minimise environmental impact in construction and will be instrumental in providing expertise and tools that enable stakeholders to reduce the carbon footprint of their building projects.
Established in 2005, Parity Projects Limited uses data science, proprietary software and analysis to help clients deliver energy efficiency competently and effectively, working with local authorities and landlords of every size, mortgage providers and private homeowners to develop cost-effective retrofit programmes.
Clients can work with address-level data and use their highly flexible modeling to identify ways to improve energy efficiency—reducing carbon emissions and fuel bills, delivering more comfortable homes, and delivering against the Net Zero agenda. Parity Projects’ mission is to provide a decarbonisation plan for every home, which is crucial, considering Met Office figures showed that temperatures across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in June 2023 were the highest in a series since 1884.
The Parity Projects acquisition will further enhance the retrofit services that CoreLogic U.K. currently provides, with a key focus on providing the ability to analyse address level data to identify, assess and model properties that should be targeted for retrofit measures, therefore releasing into the market more properties and extending retrofit opportunities on their Net Zero journey. This acquisition is an extension of what has already been a very successful strategic partnership and will allow both parties to utilise each other’s expertise, strengths and industry position to evolve a whole new set of products and services to address climate challenge and deliver more comfortable homes and lower energy bills along the way.
Russell Smith, (Picture below) Managing Director at Parity Projects commented: “There has always been a strong synergy between our two organisations given the complementary software platforms that are already integrated to some extent, and the aligned markets that we operate in. The Parity team and I are particularly excited about the opportunity to accelerate our development plans in several areas and achieve the major impact on the environment and householders lives that we have been striving towards for almost 20 years.”
Jim Driver, (Picture below) Managing Director, Energy, Mortgage, Real Estate & Data Solutions CoreLogic UK added: “This presents a fantastic opportunity for us to expand our offerings in the retrofit market, allowing our customers to more effectively identify properties for retrofit measure upgrades. Having collaborated with Parity Projects for a number of years, this acquisition is a logical step forward and closely aligns with our objectives. We look forward to what this new venture will bring.”
Technology takes centre stage in The Home Stretch Podcast
In the latest tech-focused episode of The Home Stretch podcast, host Ben Sellers, Co-Founder of Starberry and Brand Director at nurtur.tech, is joined by Heather Staff, Co-Founder of Street Group, to delve into the innovative tech solutions driving the property sector forward.
In this captivating episode, Staff shares her journey into proptech, revealing the genesis of Street Group and its evolution into a pioneering force in the market. Drawing on her background in accounting and her family’s deep-rooted ties to the property sector, Staff recounts how Street Group identified a crucial need for modern, consumer-focused technology within estate agencies, leading to the development of street.co.uk.
Listeners gain valuable insights into the cutting-edge technology integrated within the Street platform, including an advanced booking engine, agent-facing and consumer-facing apps, and comprehensive data insights. Staff highlights Street’s commitment to empowering agents with cutting edge technology that vastly improves their own productivity, while delivering a flawless digital experience for vendors and buyers alike.
“Sometimes people can get confused between the difference between an app and mobile-first. An app enables you to send a push notification, so if you want to get somebody to do something, a push notification is the 2024 way of doing that. For example, if a vendor receives a push notification that says, ‘viewing request on Thursday at 9am, click yes to confirm’, you know 99% of the time a vendor will do that on the app,” Staff comments.
The conversation extends beyond technology to encompass the importance of company culture in fostering innovation and excellence. Staff emphasises Street Group’s dedication to cultivating a positive work environment where values such as fun and exceptional results drive every decision.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) emerges as a pivotal topic, with Sellers and Staff discussing the transformative impact of AI on property technology. Staff reveals Street Group’s pioneering efforts in implementing machine learning and AI-powered solutions, such as predictive analytics for property listings and AI-generated emails.
“We have had a data team here since the inception of the business, they said we should be implementing some machine learning in our technology and initially that was to predict which properties were going to come to the market. This tool is learning every day to this day, so it just gets better and better. We also do image recognition, and we were the first CRM to get AI property descriptions and emails – around 80% of all emails in Street are written by AI,” she adds.
nurtur.tech has recently completed a deep integration between their email marketing and automation platform from BriefYourMarket and Street, allowing customers to dynamically create nurture journeys to sellers and landlords whilst sending property updates to active buyers and tenants. Sellers describes the service from nurtur as, “Your sales and marketing powerhouse. An integrated ecosystem that lets you control the tools your business needs to compete.”
Looking ahead, Staff hints at Street Group’s relentless pursuit of innovation, emphasising their agile approach to product development. She comments, “We move quickly. We are innovators. Most other CRMs release upgrades every six months, we release a new version of Street 25 times a day. We are continuing to invest massively in our products, and I genuinely think Street is the only CRM that is geared up to service the changing consumer expectations.”
To hear this conversation in full and find out more about Street.co.uk and how their technology is streets ahead, visit The Home Stretch podcast.
Andrew Stanton Executive Editor – moving property and proptech forward. PropTech-X