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Virtual summit on the role of property technology to drive real estate investment and management

Virtual summit on the role of property technology to drive real estate investment and management

Despite major setbacks in property valuations since the lockdowns started, a young promoter of the role of technology in property management is upbeat about the future. Property as an investment class and the technology that will drive it, are the main topics for an online forum pencilled for next week, 07 September 2021.

Kfir Rusin, the founder of the Africa Proptech Forum, said “Covid-19 accelerated the growth of technology in real estate management on the continent with smart building and sustainable technology being the most broadly adopted innovations to date.”

Proptech is attracting more and more funding from Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), property managers, venture capitalists and other investors looking to stay ahead of the value curve. To highlight all these issues to investors, Africa Proptech Forum has organised a virtual summit which will broadcast live at https://bit.ly/3yytsS3 .

Rusin said there are tangible pointers that underscore the growing importance of proptech, for instance, Spleet, a leading Nigerian Proptech start-up is included in the New York-based Metaprop accelerator; increasing fund allocation to property technology by VC’s such as Kalon Ventures, Kepple Africa and others.

Furthermore, proptech is now included in some universities’ curricula on real estate investment, and prominent players in the real estate sector like Broll, Turner & Townsend and ATTACQ are developing tech specific strategies and services.

Mark Fairweather, the Africa MD of a leading proptech developer, MRI Software, said more than 70% of South Africa’s REIT sector now uses proptech.

On the power of proptech, Fairweather said “Predictive analytics is the next big leap that we want to take. Each company using solutions for planning and forecasting is doing things slightly differently, but there are also things that remain consistent and repeatable regardless of circumstances. In areas of consistency like this, a lot of planning and analysis could be replaced by a predictive analytical engine powered by artificial intelligence.”

While the real estate sector increasingly values data as the new gold; the analysis and usability of the data is what will set apart industry leaders from their peers.


Distributed by APO Group on behalf of API Events.


 

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