Decoding the future of living

Published in

Builders Universe

5 min readJun 18, 2021

As a startup studio, we love opening up and accelerating evolving spaces where growth hurdles can be solved through software. Since venturing into co-living about two years ago, we’ve looked at several opportunities in the real estate space. While we started looking into co-living specifically, our search quickly branched out into more categories due to the big opportune moment within this space. The increased adoption of remote work boosted the PropTech sector to new heights. The radical shift in working and living habits creates an exciting playfield to build meaningful products for the movers and shakers in this space.

Meet our PropTech vertical

We see a common trend in which SaaS will consolidate and fit seamlessly into the operational environment of certain verticals. We’ve also spotted this trend in PropTech. For instance, in co-living, we found out operators had to buy multiple tools to run their operations, which is costly and turns their operational staff into firefighters who are constantly chasing service tickets, getting paperwork done for new residents and manually keeping all sorts of systems and spreadsheets in sync. Needless to say, this often gets out of control.

This is simply one of many insights we gathered along the way and the reason behind our decision to double down on this fast-growing and distributed space. Our PropTech market vertical sets the stage for ambitious founders who seek to positively impact how we live and work by enabling the people who shape this space to thrive. In addition, by venturing into PropTech, we can re-use our network and knowledge and accelerate our future ventures in this space even more.

Market size and timing

Real estate is one of the largest industry sectors ($2.7 trillion in 2020 according to Global Real Estate Market Report 2021), providing a huge market size potential. However, the sector is characteristic of slow adoption of new technologies, often not viewed as a key business driver. In addition, over the past decades, high profitability in the sector did not incentivize change and innovation from real estate developers and operators (if it works, don’t fix it). In that state, assuming a degree of risk by pursuing innovation seems unnecessary given the general stability of real estate as an asset class. However, the pace of change has accelerated over the past few years. According to PropTechLab, over $185 billion will be deployed into PropTech over the next five years.

The increasing adoption of PropTech is expected to be primarily driven by the following trends:

Remote work
Flexibility and remote work are not new concepts, but the pandemic has accelerated the trends that were already in place. As a result, people care more about their personal work environment while offices need to transform to accommodate new ways of working.

Sustainability
The real estate industry consumes about 40% of all raw materials globally, 40% of the world’s energy, and is responsible for more than 30% of carbon dioxide emissions. New legislation also puts pressure on real estate. Limiting the environmental impact will require a significant effort, and PropTech is expected to play a fundamental part in this response.

Ageing of the population
The data suggests that by 2030 there will be a 26% increase in people aged 65 and over. An ageing population is expected to have a big impact on the real estate landscape over the coming decade. As a result, we expect an increased demand for more modern retirement communities and senior shared living options.

Competitive landscape

PropTech is still a developing market that shares connections to Real Estate, FinTech, ConTech, and the Collaborative Economy.

The market experienced a huge influx of new players entering the market over the past few years. As the market matures, we expect consolidation down the line, with clear winners coming out on top.

Business opportunities

We identified several promising opportunities that fit our studio scope, and we’re particularly excited about exploring the following topics together with field experts in the months to come:

Building automation & IoTs
Technological advancement enables the adoption and combination of new types of software and hardware solutions. For example, property management solutions help operators quickly detect the need for maintenance and adjustments in those systems and the entire building structure. Occupants can also access that information, which allows them to learn about their use of those systems and control them remotely. Notable examples include Spaceti, Arturo, and Buildium.

Community living
As more people work from home, the importance of building good relationships with neighbours will only increase. Therefore, we are interested in identifying solutions that would help embrace the sense of community among tenants. Such solutions could target different dimensions such as self-management platforms, matching tenants, insights and community building tools. Notable examples include Spaceflow, MonBuilding, and Chainels.

Digitizing real estate assets
We are exploring the possibilities of using blockchain in the real estate industry. For example, potential solutions could help improve security in processes such as contract management or property investments. Notable examples include Vave, Figure, and Cashlink.

Advanced analytics in real estate
The potential of utilizing data in real estate is endless — advanced analytics to predict consumer behaviors and trends to offer valuable insights. Tailor-made solutions for the real estate industry could provide actionable insights to create better living experiences. Notable examples include TopHap, LiveBy, EverReal, and PriceHubble.

Real estate agent tools
Some real estate agent duties include promoting properties, generating real estate leads, managing contracts, showing properties, facilitating negotiations. Bundled solutions could enable real estate agents to manage their entire workflow within one platform. Notable examples include RealSavvy, HighNote, Matterport, and RealScout.

The future of living starts now

We are looking for entrepreneurial product builders to take one of our venture opportunities from spark to champagne. Together we will transform these opportunities into validated business ideas. In addition, we make sure the timing is right, the team is ready for the challenge, and the funding is on point. Are you a founder in tech wanting to shape the future of living through PropTech? Let’s talk!

If you’re ready for your next adventure, apply for our Future Founder position here.

If you have any questions, shoot us a message at founders@builders.studio.

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About us
Builders is a Rotterdam based startup studio. We build and grow impactful tech companies from scratch by bringing together bold ideas, seasoned co-founders, operational support, and investment capital.