Challenges and opportunities of digital innovation for the UK property market

The UK property market is starting to use a diverse collection of technological solutions to navigate and thrive in an ever-changing environment

At the same time, the technological landscape is shifting fast. While AI has dominated headlines, the range of technological solutions available to support property businesses across the board has grown significantly over the past five years.

As we continue to venture into an era where innovation and technology have become synonymous with progress, the role of technology in reshaping and responding to challenges faced by the property sector has never been more pivotal.

A recent study conducted by the UK Property Technology Association (UKPA) and the British Property Federation (BPF) – supported by REdirect Consulting, leading real estate technology consultants, reflects on the views and concerns of industry leaders in both the real estate and PropTech sectors.

UK property market: Biggest pain points that tech can address

The report, which features insights from 250 leaders throughout the UK property and PropTech worlds, explores the leading pain points that technology can help to address. One of the most pivotal areas is enhancing ESG and sustainability goals, cited by over 80% of respondents.

By utilising monitoring technology and automation, can help the property sector meet its ESG and sustainability targets as energy usage within buildings can be monitored to ensure it is operating at peak efficiently, becoming more environmentally friendly while lowering costs for tenants and homeowners. Data management, security, and privacy (over 70%) were also key priorities and challenges for the property sector.

Implementing highly secure technology and using robust building management systems (over 60%) is key, particularly as these are highly vulnerable to hacking. Employing extra protection such as multi-factor authentication (MFA) will allow property organisations to secure sensitive information and prevent valuable applications from being accessed by criminals.

It’s clear to see the big impact that technology is having on the wider property market in helping to improve operational efficiency and enhancing data collection. Revolutionising business processes using AI, automation, and other evolving technologies is becoming crucial for enhancing customer experience. A common pain point among respondents is having enough resources and time to give to customer relations (over 60%).

By automating tasks and manual processes using technology, more time can be dedicated to customer service and offering an enhanced experience, leading to increased satisfaction for end users.

Financial performance and appropriate tracking capability are also a large challenge for the wider sector. Using Robotic Process Automation (RPA), such as Bank Reconciliation solutions, empowers organisations to retrieve transaction records and compare them to a client’s financial records and match transactions using a client-specific tailored algorithm. Not only does this speed up this fundamental process, but it also increases accuracy while meeting key compliance requirements.

By automating daily bank-to-book tasks, real estate organisations can attain a clearer understanding of their cash flow, enabling better financial management and decision-making.

Overcoming industry barriers within the UK property market

Despite the clear advantages of digitally transforming and implementing new technology across the property sector, there is still some pushback. Results from the survey reveal that the most common barriers for concern are organisational resistance to change (33%) and cost implications and transparency when it comes to return on investment (32%). A common barrier among property respondents is dealing with the lack of integration across technology solutions (41%) making it difficult to employ more than one form of technology and for these to communicate cooperatively. Alongside this, respondents report a perceived lack of understanding among technology providers of how the property sector works (21%), which could be impacting the implementation of new solutions and confidence in initiating new technology for real estate organisations.

However, this is reflected from the technology provider perspective as the survey showed that organisations are facing many challenges, from trying to grapple and get to grips with the

fragmented nature of the property industry (53%), to achieving enough sales to grow their businesses (38%) and dealing with legacy systems and processes (36%). There is also a view among this community that property businesses should be prioritising technology even more and increasing uptake. However,the survey also found that coinciding with this, there is a sense that the property sector’s engagement in digital and technology innovation has improved over the last 12 months despite the economic pressures facing both property businesses and technology providers.  

How to improve uptake and deployment of technologies

For the sector to reach the next level, it needs to leverage the benefits of implementing PropTech and see it as an investment for the future that will filter down into almost every stage of the business. But there is a way to go to increase deployment of new solutions and as a result, the sector needs to be aligned on its approach. Transparent access, open source, and collaboration will be the cornerstone for future development and implementation in this area.

Open access protocols will allow the sector to collaborate more effectively and enable co-development across the sector, this will increase awareness around implementation protocol and improve integration with existing technology and solutions. Increasing accessibility for the wider sector will also highly improve the uptake in technology; this extends to the user-friendliness of solutions and how cost-effective these are for organisations. Combining these will enable a bigger picture to be built, and ROI and value will become much clearer for the wider sector.

PropTech providers and organisations need to constantly improve their knowledge and expertise, including understanding common challenges for real estate organizations. By engaging sector specialists who understand the unique challenges within the property life cycle and can impartially support the implementation of suitable solutions, the adoption of technology can be significantly increased. Partnering with advisory firms that offer expertise in leveraging technology for real estate can help organisations optimize their solutions and provide tangible examples of success.

This approach not only enhances operational efficiency but also boosts confidence among stakeholders that the chosen solutions are effective and reliable for their needs and those of their customers. It’s clear to see the many challenges that the property sector is facing when it comes to digital adoption, but for every challenge, there are many opportunities and gains to be made. While technology can and is already having a positive impact, providers need to embed themselves in the day-to-day operations of organisations to fully understand common challenges and find new ways to provide value and allow the sector to thrive for years to come.

This piece was written and provided by Callum Board, Client Success Director at REdirect Consulting