How PropTech Software Development Transforms the Real Estate Industry?

Proptech's revenue in 2023 was USD 33,554.4 million, pointing to the industry's potential. Nevertheless, knowing the prosperity of PropTech software development is not enough to understand its influence in the real estate sphere.

Therefore, we wrote this article to learn how property software development shapes the modern real estate industry and how to benefit from it the most.

What is PropTech Software Development?

Let’s start with the basics. PropTech software development is designing and creating software solutions tailored to the specifics of the real estate market and meeting the demands of real estate businesses.

Basically, PropTech solutions are industry-specific software applications that are gradually becoming a must-have tool for businesses in all spheres. There are many types of PropTech software, primarily including:

• User-oriented marketplaces for improved user experience
• Management solutions for real estate companies and agents
• Property investing apps that provide users with investing options
• Property listing and databases of various available assets

PropTech applications are designed to enhance real estate services and provide customers with advanced features reinforced with better personalization and customization and improved user experience.

One of the most astonishing facts about property software solutions is the variety of options and functional differences, depending on the target audience and business requirements. For instance, online marketplaces have little in common with property management software. Still, both are considered as PropTech solutions.

For a better illustration, let’s consider some of the core challenges that can be solved by Property software development.

How PropTech Software Solves Real Estate Challenges

Frankly, the most basic list of benefits offered by property technology integration consists of:

• Improving operational efficiency in property management
• Preventing fraud and increasing transparency
• Enhancing communication and collaboration
• Improving data accuracy and decision-making
• Simplifying property transactions

Improving Operational Efficiency in Property Management

Property management technology creation is one of the most popular approaches in the PropTech industry.

Such software solutions greatly increase a real estate company's efficiency, providing it with numerous management and tracking tools. One powerful benefit of such software development is improved and streamlined control over various business processes.

Just like any other management software, property management technology primarily focuses on undergoing business activities. However, most property management systems also help deal with big data, analyze it, and increase company awareness of recent trends and market changes, etc.

To simplify it, property management systems are an excellent and mighty instrument to streamline and improve business processes, making them more efficient and up-to-date.

Preventing Fraud and Increasing Transparency

Additionally, many PropTech software development solutions share the same functionality as the FinTech field. To be more accurate, they can be used to prevent fraud and increase transparency among transactions.

Once again, PropTech platforms are driven by data about various actors, such as property renters and buyers, investors, real estate agents, etc. Powered by advanced algorithms, PropTech apps can perform deep analysis of all assets and potential clients, making it easier to define potentially fraudulent activity and prevent it.

This becomes even more efficient and important if PropTech software offers in-app transactions for purchasing assets or booking them. In such cases, the number of features for improved transparency and fraud prevention rises. For instance, some popular online real estate marketplaces are already testing the possibility of completely integrating blockchain solutions.

Enhancing Communication and Collaboration

PropTech in real estate is also commonly used for improved communication and collaboration between various parties.

In addition to integrating in-app chats or calls, many platforms and businesses provide their users with customer support services, answering various questions and consulting on different assets. Apart from this, modern technologies offer even more advanced ways of communication.

For example, one of our recent case studies as a real estate software development company involved designing and integrating a conversational chatbot to automate some customer support services. To do so, we used one of the existing artificial intelligence models and trained it on how to answer specific business-related questions and how to behave in various circumstances.

After training and integrating the AI module, we tracked the efficiency of such property technology and its impact on business. Thanks to AI-driven customer support, our clients significantly reduced the expectation time and saved resources by redirecting a few customer support specialists to more prioritized tasks.

As a result, conversational AI for customer support benefited all parties: it offered 24/7 client support, providing customers with highly detailed information on various questions and covering related queries and topics, while the business managed to save time and resources, spending them on a more personalized approach to clients, who were not satisfied with the answers or requested contact with employees.

Improving Data Accuracy and Decision-Making

Once again, any software solution is data-driven. So, data management and accuracy are crucial for any technology.

On the one hand, it might create specific challenges, requiring redesigning or clarifications during the development. Yet, after setting up the software environment, businesses are provided with advanced data-related practices, ensuring the accuracy of data-driven decisions.

As a result, the management team's market insights and users' current demands become evident, allowing them to adjust the business model to customers' needs, gaining more competitive advantage and market relevance.

Simplifying Property Transactions

Finally, incorporating PropTech software into the real estate business helps simplify property transactions.

Simply put, to ensure the efficiency of PropTech real estate solutions, companies must use as much data as possible, including arrays of data about property assets. This can be partly streamlined by creating property profiles and using various templates.

This also can be used to create digital copies of property documentation, starting with various permits and certificates and ending with more personal information about the owners, their banking details, etc. As a result, users can be provided with options for in-app purchasing and transferring.

Nevertheless, such a step is highly complex and regulated. So, before considering developing such features and services, we HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you discuss this functionality with your lawyers or IT consultants familiar with modern legal regulations related to personal information, financial and property transactions, etc. For example, the European Union has a General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that defines how the personal information of EU citizens should be treated in software applications.

Each region and country already has similar regulations; in the US, it is primarily CCPA, but depending on your target state or region, there are also other alternatives to such compliances.

What Technologies are Used in PropTech Software Development?

PropTech software development companies can provide countless tech solutions depending on your goals, needs, and preferences. Nevertheless, we can name a few most common and popular property technology solutions in the modern real estate industry:

• Artificial Intelligence for predictive analytics and tenant insights
• Blockchain for secure transactions and property records
• Cloud computing for scalability and data storage
• Back-end Technologies for Server-Side Development
• Front-end Technologies for User Interface Development
• Mobile App Development Technologies

Artificial Intelligence for Predictive Analytics and Tenant Insights

The elephant in the room. The rise of AI solutions is impossible to ignore. Modern AI models can help you write texts, generate images on demand, write songs, and do whatever you want if you have enough prompt writing skills.

However, most of the preceding is usually used for personal purposes and with third-party platforms and services. But what if you need an AI for a real estate business?

Fortunately, many ways exist to integrate AI to satisfy various business needs. One of the most common ways of using AI in real estate is using AI models' data analysis capabilities for predictive analytics and multiple insights.

Modern generative AI models like ChatGPT can be easily integrated via API. Additionally, they are highly customizable and can be trained to perform multiple tasks, starting with conversations with clients and ending with conducting data analysis on demand.

Still, generative AI is a popular choice for predictive analytics, apart from utilizing it for customer support or other conversational purposes. Such virtual assistants trained for predictions can additionally be used for tenant insights and management in real estate.

Training modern AI models to perform such tasks is resource-intensive and requires time. Yet, the ultimate benefit of such expenses is a high competitive advantage, providing businesses with a deep understanding of what is happening now and what can happen soon.

Blockchain for Secure Transactions and Property Records

Blockchain technologies are also becoming a prominent player in property software development.

Besides offering an alternative payment method for expensive transactions, blockchain can be used for various less obvious tasks: Blockchain technology transfers and stores data (a chain of data blocks).

So, the elementary level of utilizing blockchain in property technology solutions is creating a protected environment for vulnerable data assets. Still, some real estate companies are testing the possibility of fully integrating the smart contracts concept into the property industry, enabling deep process automation and securing various transactions.

When they succeed, PropTech platforms will become almost autonomous parts of the real estate market, providing customers with highly convenient and efficient ways to perform such intensive and highly regulated tasks in just one click.

Cloud Computing for Scalability and Data Storage

Cloud computing is essential not only in property software development. Such services bring countless advantages to many software projects, helping to cut expenses and ensure cybersecurity, scale apps, simplify setting up IT infrastructure, etc.

The reason why cloud services like AWS are so popular nowadays is simple: they offer customers tech solutions at a fair price. As a result, businesses can reduce maintenance costs and migrate from traditional servers to the cloud. Besides being cheaper, cloud services provide their clients with advanced cybersecurity measures, offer unlimited storage for data or code-based software, and give the companies IT infrastructure, regardless of complexity.

Summing up all the above, cloud computing is an excellent solution for property software development, offering a seamless user experience and data security and protection. It is also a great choice for real estate companies that lack coding experience and are unwilling to participate in server maintenance and support.

Back-End Technologies for Server-Side Development

Alternatively, you must deal with the coding if you decide to develop full-fledged property technology solutions. One of the best ways to initiate such a development project is to cooperate with PropTech software development companies, at least for IT consulting.

Frankly, choosing a tech stack is one of the most critical and challenging tasks in software development. Multiple solutions are on the market, each with pros and cons.

Still, you need more software development experience to make the right choice, which will be noticeable later. For example, choosing the wrong backend framework for server-side development can be noticed in small-scale apps. But when software functionality scales, you can face difficulties and challenges in integrating new features and ensuring their performance.

Front-End Technologies for User Interface Development

Another crucial part of property software development is choosing front-end technologies to create efficient and seamless user interfaces.

Any software solution demands both front- and back-end development. While back-end technologies are used for server-side processes and are “unseen” to the users, front-end solutions are utilized for interfaces, enabling users to interact with the app.

Front-end technologies must perform well and offer many functional options while still being visually intuitive and attractive. So, in addition to choosing the right software frameworks and programming languages, you will also need UI/UX designers on board who can design such user-friendly interfaces.

Once again, the best way to do so is to cooperate with property technology companies, which offer all these processes as a service, providing your business with a full-fledged and competent team on demand, capable of satisfying all your needs and demands.

Mobile App Development Technologies

Last but not least, don’t forget about mobile property software development.

Mobile devices have already become an everyday part of our lives. More and more users are using their smartphones for multiple purposes, including searching for real estate. Therefore, it has become a requirement for real estate companies to have mobile versions of their apps.

We are talking about online marketplaces and property investing apps, at least. Clearly, property management software and other PropTech solutions designed for internal usage might only have a web or desktop version. Yet, if you are considering property software development to increase the audience reach - mobile app development should be your choice.

Choosing the Right PropTech Software Development Approach

The best approach to starting a PropTech project is contacting competent developers for property technology consulting and development.

Nevertheless, the variety of options for such cooperation is wide: whether you want an expert opinion or a full-fledged development team for the project, independent software engineers as freelancers, looking for a long-term tech partner or considering gathering your in-house team.

Each has its pros and cons, yet to be more precise, let’s stick with the three most common solutions:

• CTO or software development consulting
• Outsourcing software development vendors
• Freelance developers

CTO or Software Development Consulting

CTO software consulting is the best option for startups and companies unfamiliar with software development.

Simply put, CTO consulting is a service offered by different IT companies, whose responsibilities include:

• Estimating future software development project
• Consulting on various technologies and other software solutions
• Consultations about development processes and their management
• Calculating the risks and knowledge sharing

Still, the preceding is not the final list of offered services. Applying CTO consultation to your software development helps to avoid mistakes and risks by having an expert opinion on the topic when specialists advise businesses on various software steps to create a seamless and risk-free project.

Another advantage of such services is that they can be easily combined with outsourced developers and in-house engineers. The main drawback of such consultants is a relatively high cost of expertise. Still, reliable CTOs quickly pay off their services by helping to mitigate risks and balancing the software project.

Outsourcing Software Development Vendors

On the other hand, outsourcing software development vendors partly include CTO consultations in their services. Yet, their main offer is a full-fledged dedicated team responsible for end-to-end development or other software-related tasks.

The core benefits of such cooperation are reduced development costs, faster and easier team gathering and management, and niche expertise.

By choosing outsourcing software vendors, businesses can delegate the whole development process and concentrate more on business-related tasks and processes, keeping track of the software development progress.

It is an excellent alternative to having an in-house development team, offering the same services and features quicker and for a much smaller fee.

Freelance Developers

Freelance developers and team extension services are popular for increasing team performance and performing smaller tasks like quality assurance, feature integration, software optimization, etc.

It is not the best idea to outsource the whole software project to such individuals due to the scope of work and task complexity. However, they are indeed an excellent solution for urgent tasks and cases with strict deadlines or when you require more experts on board.

Why Choose Incora for PropTech Software Development?

Let's consider Incora to better illustrate what your potential candidate for PropTech software development should look like.

First, let’s examine public opinion on Incora. To do so, we should find a B2B platform for software developers like Clutch, GoodFirms, or any of their alternatives.

Incora’s Clutch profile displays almost all the required information about its expertise, previous projects, and client feedback. The most important indicators here are:

• Clients reviews
• Platform rating
• Portfolio and awards

Often, such B2B platforms might delay posting the most recent case studies. Besides, not all of them can be published. To get more information about the niche expertise of a software development company, you should visit their official website, where you can find more data on various aspects besides case studies, such as familiar technologies or industries they are primarily working with.

So, why Choose Incora for PropTech Software Development? Our developers have much experience working with various industries, including real estate.

Recently, we participated in property management system optimization and scaling, where one of our responsibilities was to design, develop, and integrate an AI module for customer support of a real estate development company.

Additionally, one of the latest cases we entirely covered was an advanced business analysis and IT consulting for a smaller design and construction agency. With limited resources, we had to define the core business issues and find software solutions and business advice to streamline and optimize operations.

For more information and details, we welcome you to contact us directly. We will gladly discuss your ideas and even estimate a custom software project for you.