What happened at the recent Prop Tech event…
We at Estate Apps recently had the pleasure of attending the property tech event held pretty much right in our own back garden! The rainmaking loft by tower bridge was chock full of property professionals, all bringing their own unique ideas to the table.
We were lucky enough to hear from 4 key note speakers: Bethan Jenkins of Crowdlords, Russell quirk of Emoov, Trevor Mealham on INEA and Hannes Buhrmann the head of innovation at Rightmove. Each speaker gave a fantastic insight to their business and how they operate.
First to the stage was Bethan with the Crowdlords start-up. They put forward that we in the UK is far too focused on owning a property when it comes to property investment. They suggested another way in which you don’t have to own a property to take advantage of the property industry, you can become an investor. The site its self works by connecting potential investors with developers and landlords in need of investment in return for equity. With investments starting at as little as £1000 it’s much less strenuous on the bank account than purchasing your own property.
Russell Quirk from Emoov shared an insight into his online estate agency and their low fees. He’s set out to prove that lower fees doesn’t have to mean lower quality service. This has been ensured with his unique commission model whereby his employees don’t get their commission from just making the sale, they have to get great feedback too. Not only did he make some great points in his talk, he left us with a smile on our face when he brought up what his competitors say about him.
Trevor Mealham took to the stage next with almost a polar opposite view next with his company INEA. His idea is to create a network of estate agents all sharing the properties they have with other agents. The issue he’s looking to solve is that sometimes an agent just doesn’t have a property that meets a clients requirements. While this would normally end in the client being shown the door, what this now means is the agent can pull from a new wealth of resources and still help close a sale. He sees this as a way to help consumers while still keeping agents fees high.
Last of the Keynotes was Hannes Buhrmann who talked us through the 12 week process of creating a new app. One currently in the beta stages of development is geared towards informing users what their property will potentially be worth in 5 years. I’m always a little nosey myself to see what properties are worth and something like this will do wonders in satisfying my curiosity. It’ll be great to see what they come up with next!
In addition to the main presentations, we also had the opportunity to hear from a handful of others who came along for the “open mic” section of the evening. Speakers were given 2 minutes on stage to give a quick rundown of their business. Included on the bill we had Sarah from renovate me, with her start up looking to make finding renovation properties easier to find and acquire.
We also heard from Will Burton from Chiphall, who had one of the shortest presentations but one of the biggest crowd responses. They’ve got a piece of kit that can scan a house room-by-room and then replicate it in a 3-D model. Not only does this replace the need for a photographer, it builds a full scaled digital version of the house far more engaging than any standard photo. These guys are ones to watch!
Post event was a fantastic opportunity to get out there and meet some of the professionals that we share the industry with and put some faces to business logos. The whole event felt very friendly and welcoming start to finish so you can be sure we’ll be popping along to the next one! Hope to see you there.
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