PropTech is the collective term that is used to describe the wave of tech innovations set to disrupt the real estate market. The future is both exciting and hard to predict for the real estate industry at the moment as PropTech is already starting to make its presence felt in both the residential and commercial property worlds.
The Malaysia PropTech "Gathering, Networking, Socialising, Knowledge Exchanging & Collaborating" event held on 26 March 2019 at the rooftop of Dorsett Hotel, Sri Hartamas, was jointly organized between Malaysia PropTech Association and Asia PropTech marked the new remarkable era for the growth of proptech in Malaysia and also marks the path for future scalability of Malaysia PropTech to other parts of Asia.
The event was attended by 100 guests, made up of mostly PropTech startups, property developers, real estate practitioners, government agencies such as MDEC, MaGIC and affiliated associations like REHDA and FIRST (Fourth Industrial Revolution Structural Transformation).
The President of Malaysia Proptech Association, Dato Sri Gavin Tee Swee Heng shared on the potential of technology transformation and disruption for the property and real estate industry and urge the audience to stay ahead of the game in order to get ready for the next property wave. He explained that the Malaysia PropTech Association was incorporated two years ago with objectives to:
1. improve the science and proptech practices for social, economic, environmental and public benefits; 2. encourage training, education, and research in proptech industry; 3. promote the use of proptech systems in Malaysia; 4. promote the development of new techniques of proptech; 5. assist members to enhance the knowledge, skills and capabilities in proptech; 6. take care of the general welfare of members.
The Deputy President, Ms. Elizabbeth Siew explained the road map and agenda for Malaysia PropTech in 2019, being the following:
1. gathering and bringing together all proptech startups and players in Malaysia, including related construction tech, fintech, insure tech and legal tech; 2. establishing the Malaysia proptech verticles; 3. engaging with government agencies and related Ministries (Housing Ministry, Finance Ministry and Work Ministry) and work with related associations (Fintech associations, MIGHT, FIRST) to provide solutions to property and housing industry; 4. engaging with incubator, accelerator, fund houses, proptech VCs and PEs to help proptech startups in Malaysia in strengthening their strategic competitiveness with foreign players; 5. engaging tech talent pool for proptech startups. Work with Universities and tech labs and IT training schools on hackathons. Work with property developers to create solutions needed for the property development market and construction industry. To work with real estate practitioners and licensed property management companies and valuers to create practical solutions for them; 6. exchange programme between proptech Malaysia and proptech Asia to create more overseas exposure and opportunities for Malaysia proptech startups.
Elizabbteh Siew further explained that Malaysia Proptech startups need to scale overseas, therefore a collaboration between Malaysia PropTech and Asia PropTech has been established.
The Founder of Asia PropTech, Leo Lo and the Deputy Chair of Asia PropTech Malaysia Chapter, Leong Seng Tat explained that the vision of Asia PropTech is to create an ecosystem of five components, which are: 1. PropTech Lab: provide collaboration opportunities with other PropTech startups; 2. PropTech sandbox: provide a place to validate and test business ideas and innovations; 3. Fund: provide financial support to support our startup's operations and expansions; 4. Accelerator: provide expertise of all aspects to help startups scale and expand; 5. Connect: build connections with the largest real estate and PropTech players in the Asia Pacific region.