Among the many industries that weave together the fabric of the American economy, real estate has consistently ranked as one of the most impactful. Indeed, as the world’s population continues to grow, the need for housing has steadily strengthened, which has simultaneously prompted a surge in real estate jobs.
Data released by Google Trends in February 2022 showed people searched “how to become a real estate agent” more than any other profession over the past year.
And according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of real estate brokers and sales agents is expected to jump by 4 percent between 2020 and 2030.
Business consulting firm Grand View Research put the value of the global real estate market at $3.69 trillion in 2021, projecting the compound annual growth through 2030 at 5.2 percent. And it’s this overwhelming economic promise, in addition to its expected growth, that makes real estate one of the nation’s most popular sectors.
What Is Proptech?
Perhaps owing to real estate’s resiliency, the tech world has witnessed a rise in disruptors across the industry over the past several years. This rising wave of real estate tech innovation, known as proptech, has the potential to radically transform the housing market on a global scale.
What Is Proptech?
In a piece for Forbes, Mike Shapiro of real estate and technology startup Plunk described proptech as “the underlying technology that real estate professionals, underwriters, developers, property managers, title companies, banks and others use to manage and improve real estate transactions from start to finish.”
Falling under the proptech umbrella are well-known platforms like Zillow and Redfin, which help potential renters and homeowners in their property search, as well as closing tools and software services for financing a home.
Much like their predecessors, these newer organizations have their sights set on making the housing sector simpler to navigate and ultimately more financially rewarding. For the nation’s many proptech competitors, tech innovation is vital to the disruption of the real estate industry, whether that involves changing the way people buy a home or modernizing the closing process.
An October 2021 survey of U.S. and Canadian real estate professionals revealed automating repetitive tasks to be the top issue they believed proptech could help overcome. It also showed virtual showings had become the most widely used form of proptech as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A Brief History of Proptech and Its Impact
Despite its more recent rise in popularity, proptech has been taking shape over several decades. According to Forbes, proptech entered the tech scene in the 1980s, when real estate institutions began searching for more efficient ways to handle investment and portfolio management. While Excel had long been relied upon throughout the real estate industry, software companies started seeking new ways to tackle tasks like underwriting and analytics, paving the way for housing market innovation.
The early 2000s served as a pivotal moment for the cultivation of proptech, as internet usage skyrocketed and tech companies began to reshape the future of online sales. During this time, real estate tech companies such as Zillow, Redfin and Trulia emerged, establishing themselves as proptech frontrunners. Organizations such as these saw the housing market as a hotbed of disruption, leading to proptech’s rapid and prosperous transformation.
Although the number of proptech companies launched began to fall around 2014, fundraising by these companies has continued to steadily increase since 2012.
Over the past decade, startups and tech companies across the country have cashed in on this capital-rich sector, conquering challenges at the residential, commercial and industrial levels.
Between 2012 and 2020, proptech companies raised $43 billion across the globe, according to a Deloitte report. Fundraising hit a record high in 2021 as the industry shifted toward a growing reliance on technology in an effort to recover from COVID-19’s impact.
MetaProp’s 2021 year-end survey showed 96 percent of investors in proptech believe the pandemic sped up technology adoption and 85 percent reported companies in their portfolio at or above expectations for customer growth.
We’ve rounded up the leading proptech companies to give you a closer look at this robust and fast-paced sector.
Proptech Companies to Know
- HomeLight
- Zumper
- OpenDoor
- Qualia
- Orchard
Proptech Company Examples
Location: New York, New York
Bilt Rewards has created a rewards program for renters, and it operates with over two million participating properties. Once a customer pays rent, points can be redeemed to travel, shop, workout, pay rent or save the points for a down payment on a new home. For renters who do not reside on participating properties, the company offers the Bilt Mastercard, which includes the same benefits as the reward program while allowing renters to boost their credit.
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Purchasing Platform looks to transform how property management companies interact with vendors and the buying process. The company serves as an automated spend management solution that can house several portfolios for all organization levels. Purchasing Platform can also grant access to the online marketplace, discover which vendors can be used and track workflows for spending control.
Location: Denver, Colorado
AirDNA serves as a platform for short-term rental data. With integration and data from Airbnb and Vrbo, the platform provides data to inform customers about their next investment, optimize listings and research market trends. The company also provides two products — MarketMinder and Enterprise Solutions. MarketMinder allows customers to explore property-specific data to analyze decisions like pricing strategy. In addition to property-specific data, Enterprise Solutions explores future investment opportunities.
Location: Santa Monica, California
Luxury Presence offers marketing software to help real estate agents build up their online presence. The company’s all-in-one platform allows luxury real estate agents and companies to build websites, offering features like an intuitive page builder, blog publisher, listing manager and an IDX home search tool. Luxury Presence also offers managed SEO and Instagram plans, and copywriting and video production services.
Location: San Francisco, California
Zumper aims to reinvent the real estate rental process by granting people easy access to verified properties across North America. Its platform enables users to reserve available apartments, condos and houses on the spot and lease them entirely online, granting them the opportunity to apply without competition and receive approval feedback in as little as 24 hours. Zumper also offers access to virtual property tours and real-time alerts about new listings.
Location: New York, New York
Valon is a tech-enabled residential mortgage servicer. It helps homebuyers and homeowners find compatible loan options, leverage home equity and refinance loans. Customers can access Valon’s platform over a browser or mobile app, making mortgage information available instantly, anywhere.
Location: San Francisco, California
HomeLight offers a simpler approach to the home buying and selling experience. The company’s software helps users locate real estate agents in their area, discover pre-approved cash buyers, apply for home loans and receive home estimates. HomeLight offers its services in major cities across the country, including Atlanta, Houston, Portland and Seattle.
Location: San Francisco, California
Using smartphone photos provided by the customer, HOVER creates 3D models that can be used by homeowners to visualize home improvement projects or by professionals to help determine accurate measurements and estimate potential costs.
Location: Boston, Massachusetts
Hometap helps homeowners benefit from their property’s equity. The company’s home equity investments allow customers to receive up to $600,000 without having to worry about monthly payments. Hometap says it has provided funding for more than 14,000 homeowners throughout the United States.
Location: San Francisco, California
Qualia offers a suite of cloud-based title, escrow and electronic closing products for real estate professionals. It includes remote online notarization and a mortgage lender platform to help automate operations. Qualia also integrates with third-party services to bring together tools like shipping through FedEx and property data through Google Maps in a central platform.
Location: New York, New York
Orchard seeks to make the home buying and selling process fair and straightforward. The company uses its own cash to make a contingency-free offer and reserve homes on behalf of buyers, so they don’t have to pay their mortgage until their old home sells. Orchard then takes care of the home selling process, transferring each buyer’s new home into their name while allowing them to use Orchard Home Loans or their choice of lender to finalize their mortgage.
Location: Denver, Colorado
With over 25 years of experience, Air Communities is one of the largest property management companies in the United States. The company is a real estate investment trust with 76 diverse communities operating under the AIR Edge, a model focusing on resident retention and satisfaction.
Location: Santa Clara, California
Realtor.com is an online platform for renting, buying and selling properties. Founded in 1995 with locations all over the United States, the company was at the forefront of real estate’s digital transformation. The company uses AI technology to comb through listings for renters and home buyers while also generating leads for real estate professionals.
Location: Greenwood Village, Colorado
Engrain offers a suite of software solutions to change the way people find, lease and manage property. The company’s products include SightMap, an interactive map that allows people to search for available units within a property, as well as TouchTour, which enables leasing and sales centers to engage customers and empower on-site teams to lease and sell faster. Engrain partners with a wide range of developers in the multi-family, senior living, student housing, single-family and commercial markets.
Location: San Francisco, California
Opendoor’s digital real estate platform seeks to cut out the hassles that can bog down buying and selling a home. Sellers can get a preliminary offer within minutes and then do a video walkthrough to finalize what Opendoor will pay to purchase their home. Buyers can also use the Opendoor app to explore listings, schedule home tours and make an offer. The company operates in several major cities across the United States, including Atlanta, Austin, Denver, Houston, Phoenix, Portland, Sacramento and San Diego.
Location: Seattle, Washington
Flyhomes helps people buy and sell homes. The company provides cash offers, the ability to buy a new home before selling the old one and listing services. It employs research analysts, loan officers and tour specialists to help navigate the buying and selling process. The company operates in six states.
Location: Denver, Colorado
Homebot is dedicated to driving repeat and referral business for real estate agents and loan officers. The company’s portal allows users to deliver personalized, actionable insights to their clients while engaging renters, investors and new leads with valuable market data.
Location: Playa Vista, California
Crexi empowers the commercial real estate market using advanced, integrative technology and data analytics. The company offers intuitive CRE solutions that accelerate transaction velocity. Its trading properties and AI-powered industry intelligence have allowed millions of monthly users to close $540 billion in deals and market over $5 trillion in property value.
Location: Denver, Colorado
FRONTSTEPS is a resident engagement platform that is catered to HOAs, PMCs, security organizations, home builders and real estate agents. From community management portals to accounting solutions, the Denver-based company offers products that are secure and safe for residents to use. The company also supplies management workflows that track visitors, enable online payments and store community documents.
Location: New York, New York
Machine learning company EliseAI has built an AI assistant for property management companies that automates customer conversations over email, text, webchat and phone. Its platform integrates with property management systems to automate interactions, schedule tours and manage resident services.
Location: Austin, Texas
Founded in 2017, Closinglock makes software designed to prevent real estate wire fraud. The company works with closing companies, property buyers and property lenders. Each buyer and lender logs into the website to receive closing instructions or documents from a company of their choice. By communicating through Closinglock, there is no speculation of wire fraud for either party.
Location: New York, New York
Real estate agents and teams use Ylopo’s AI-powered software to attract and engage potential clients. Ylopo’s platform integrates with various CRM programs, helping users enhance their connections and leads. The company’s name is the last five letters of the game “Monopoly,” spelled backwards, a nod to its goal of turning the game of real estate on its head.
Location: Fully Remote
Northspyre assists real estate development teams in achieving predictable outcomes on projects. The company powers an all-inclusive information platform that proactively discovers warnings, assists capital planning, automates manual tasks, generates critical reporting and more. The cloud-based program is used by project management firms, internal real estate teams and real estate developers.
Location: El Segundo, California
Endpoint is a digital title and settlement company that develops technology to streamline home closing for investors, real estate agents, home buyers and sellers, as well as other proptech companies. Its proptech technology allows businesses to open and track transactions directly from the platform and streamlines communication throughout the process. The company’s aim is to make the process of home closing easy for everyone.
Location: Boulder, Colorado
Digible offers a suite of digital marketing services for apartment complexes and property management companies. Its AI-enabled platform, called Fiona, provides predictive analytics and fair housing compliance tools to help clients manage risks and improve data-driven decision making. Digible specializes in marketing for large apartment buildings and student housing complexes.
