Property Tech is the intersection of real estate with technology.
Property Tech (also called PropTech) has nothing to do with airplanes, though there certainly is a lot of technology that goes into designing and building modern propellers. Proptech (or Property Tech) is actually short for property technology, and is basically just what the real estate technology industry likes to call itself. I guess fin-tech (finance technology) has nothing to do with fins, though again, I’m sure that there’s a lot of technology used to design modern airplane fins.
Real estate technology is a sector that is growing rapidly, but the sector is somewhat loosely defined with all the different aspects of real estate where technology can be applied. When you consider processes like a tenant paying their landlord being more efficient with the use of an app linked to you bank account set on autopay, you can see how there’s value in having technology to verify the payments.
Hey, maybe someday all rental agreements will be smart contracts on a blockchain. No one really knows where additional technology infused into the real estate sector will take us. Will there be artificial intelligence (AI) house valuations? Will AI be able to asses where or not you’d really like the house you’re thinking about buying?
Drones have been used to create 3D mappings of high end homes for their real estate listings, so 3D walk-throughs can be inserted into the listing photos. What’s next? Will there be high fidelity maintenance cost assessments of homes? Will AI be able to tell you what items to fix/upgrade in your particular home to achieve the highest return on investment when you sell in 6 months?
Artificial Intelligence is certainly set to shake up the vending machine industry. There is also AI for investing (you may have heard of robo-advisors), and you can set up a portfolio of “stock” of large commercial real estate properties and receive a dividend, similar to owning stock in a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT).
To be clear, that is not what we’re talking about when we say micro real estate – we are talking about contracts and investments in literal physical portions of commercial real estate that can be put to use with a machine and generate additional income for the machine owner and the property owner. So, we want to see high foot traffic commercial real estate put to good use – and allow more business owners access to foot and vehicle traffic.
Micro Commercial Real Estate (Micro CRE)
Well, there’s way more innovations in the property tech industry than I can ever hope to dream up by myself, but I can happily say that Leptonic, Inc. is fueled by technology and participating in the micro real estate market, so I think we can call ourselves a property tech company. Or, maybe we’re a micro-proptech company.
Either way, Leptonic is tirelessly working to extract more value from commercial real estate through the use of automation. Micro real estate covers ancillary income from machines like electric vehicle chargers and vending machines, which allow for the automated sale of electricity and physical products.
Opportunities in a old and new markets
With micro CRE there is certainly a lot of opportunity for dividing CRE up in to smaller spaces and, therefore, more properties that real estate agents could help lease.
By the same token, the properties are significantly smaller, so if you’re investing with only a little bit of money, then there is a lower barrier to entry in micro real estate than any other type of real estate.
Since a major advantage of investing in micro properties is that automation and a top notch location will doing the selling of your product for you, there is ample opportunity for semi-passive income and passive income.
