The Future of Estate Agency
In this article Vik Tara, CTO of PropCo, explores what the digital revolution in property means for the people and roles across the sector.
Britain’s high streets have declined markedly in recent years as consumers shifted their spending first towards out-of-town shopping centres and then to e-commerce. But the high street estate agent has maintained a stubborn presence.
The top of the market with its ever-higher levels of foreign investment and premium housebuilding has skewed things, with the number of London branches even increasing. Few people want to spend millions without the royal treatment.
But what about the bricks and mortar offices helping ordinary people find ordinary homes? They are increasingly assailed by online-only or hybrid agents and government policies such as the tenant fees ban. For those businesses and their staff, digital transformation is now a burning issue not just for their success, but for their survival.
In the main, digital transformation is enabled by PropTech platforms which deliver cost efficiencies by streamlining often laborious processes for agents and customers alike.
History and popular discourse would suggest that this signals an inevitable end for high street roles. For the foreseeable future, I’m inclined to view it as an evolution rather than a paradigm shift, enabling people to do their jobs more effectively rather than deleting their roles. In fact, technology is often called for by branch staff themselves, rather than imposed by nervous head office executives.
Trust opens doors
We now use technology in every aspect of our lives and demand improved transactional ease and quality of service. The technology to search for a property, view it, sign a contract and collect the keys without ever having to see another person already exists.
Yet while most of us are willing to buy a pair of trainers or book a flight online, the property market is not yet ready for full digital transformation. The simplest reason is trust. Firstly, trust from the industry itself as it decides to take the plunge but, more importantly, from customers.
Customers need to trust the parties they are dealing with as they make life altering, expensive decisions for themselves and their families. A strong human element is often the deciding factor in a business transaction.
They need to trust that the technology is effective, secure and transparent. That their private details and life savings will be protected; particularly pertinent as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into force.
In an industry that can be unpopular with customers as well as policymakers, this is no mean feat. Full digital transformation isn’t yet viable.
The bionic estate agent
Until complete transformation is trusted by agents and customers alike, the natural model will be an estate agent ‘cybernetically enhanced’ with PropTech. The tactical implementation of PropTech can enable people to become more efficient in their roles, empowering them to focus on critical activities such as business development. Most of the day-to-day workflow processes such as marketing, managing inventory and reporting can now be accomplished through PropTech.
Taking the example of Uber; the company isn’t able to remove the need for a professional driver. Its dream of an autonomous self-driving fleet isn’t here yet! What the Uber app does do well is maximise drivers’ time spent with a passenger, removing the need for cash payments and paper receipts and incentivising responsible conduct by both driver and customer.
PropTech enables agents to unify and streamline work internally as well as with customers and contractors. This applies equally to property management as it does to sales and lettings. For example, a rental tenant can use a portal to report an issue with a property which is logged with the agent’s PropCo software and the job passed to the relevant contractor at the touch of a button.
Likewise, the time spent by negotiators logging, tracking and chasing leads is drastically reduced, freeing them to do what they do best – injecting a human element to the transaction and building trust. When they agree a deal, contracts can be e-signed by all parties. Traditional bottlenecks in the process are circumvented by the direct messaging services we now take for granted in our daily lives.
For me, for now, the prevailing way of working will be cybernetic enhancement, rather than replacement. Tech is undeniably more effective at certain tasks than humans are; but while the opposite remains true as well, the rational move is to implement a model that enables each to play to their strengths.
Future transformation
PropTech is already more capable than most are comfortable with. As industry and customer faith increases, elements will be introduced that will irreversibly alter the ways we work, rent and buy.
From virtual reality house viewings becoming the norm to remote management of digital keys and locks. From contracts that auto-execute using blockchain technology to augmented reality decorating. The roles the estate agent profession plays within the market will irrevocably change.
We could see a shift to a brokerage-style model which empower individuals rather than traditional offices, or increased outsourcing of property management to offset the impact of upcoming legislation.
Whatever the future for estate agents looks like, I’m confident that people exist within it. A total loss of human interaction and trust will always detract from customer experience, even as technology transforms how we deliver it.
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