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Is the proptech bubble beginning to burst?

After a decade of extraordinary growth, the number of proptech firms offering services has reduced marginally over the past six months.

Nigel Lewis

proptech

The number of proptech firms in the UK has dropped over the past six months, indicating that the huge growth seen in the sector in recent years could be starting to slow.

Since the early noughties hundreds of start-ups have been piling into the property market including both consumer and business-facing offerings such as hybrid estate agencies and property management tech.

Some 2% of proptech companies have disappeared since January, data from global proptech portal Unissu suggests, down by 11 firms.

Its research reveals the full picture of the UK proptech sector for the first time including the dominance of London, the huge number of tech firms involved in property management, and the dominance of residential within the sector.

Some 400 of the 589 companies listed by Unissu are involved in residential, 518 of them are based in London with Manchester the next proptech hotspot with 25 companies.

Management tech

A third of offer solutions for property management, the biggest sub-sector within proptech, while buying and selling tech each hold 20% of the market followed by renting at 15%.

“Many of the UK’s residential sore points are found in the conveyancing and selling processes, 21.80% of UK companies are working to solve the inefficiencies of selling homes,” says Unissu.

“However, because the UK is also seeing more people than ever renting their homes – and for longer than ever before – innovation for the rental sector is also incredibly vibrant, with 21.35% of UK residential proptech companies trying to help renters enjoy a better experience.”

June 10, 2019

One comment

  1. Proptech bubble is not bursting – as the rush to invest money into the Proptech arena is getting ever greater.

    At present there is a massive surge of money being pumped into start up Proptech companies, just as finance was pumped into Fintech companies in the past decade, as a giant game of roulette is being played out to see which operating system will catch on or be the defining system.

    With 1 to 1.2M completions a year in the UK over the past 5 years, despite Brexit etc -estate agency as opposed to the rental sector, still is a very lucrative area for the champions who have the golden touch with regard to Proptech. The only downside is all of the investors who back the wrong horse and will not gain from being brave enough to bet their shirt on a non-runner.

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