Proptech Espresso

What are the myriad of layers and people involved in getting a successful real estate deal done? Why is there an information gap on how to successfully build a downpayment for a home? Why have lenders historically neglect long term prospective customers? What are the creative ways in which people can obtain financing in order to purchase their first home? How can technology accelerate the savings...

How is the shift in the way people are living and working driving interest in the short-term rental market? What defines turnkey short-term rental investing and why is the appealing to prospective investors? What are the differences in serving mom & pop investors versus professional investors in the short-term rental space? What are the toughest scale challenges that short-term rental investor...

America's housing affordability crisis needs innovative solutions. Fortunately the Ivory Prize was established to spur this exact innovation, supporting companies and groups working on ambitious, feasible, and scalable solutions addressing this complex issue. The Ivory Prize for Housing Affordability focuses on solutions from three categories: construction and design, finance, and public and...

How is technology evolving the full value chain of real estate assets? What are the technology categories that make up the built world? How do the unique needs of different real estate asset classes increase the complexity for developing vertical software solutions? Why have paper processes and human errors traditionally made insurance compliance the bane of property owners and operators? How does...

What is GIS and why is this technology so important for real estate? Why is city planning at the core of almost every aspect of real estate? Why is lead follow up for sales people, inside and outside of real estate, such a struggle? What is conversational AI and why does it make sense to use this tech for sales lead follow up? How is the predictive analytics branch of AI being used in proptech tod...

How does the scale of European and US proptech initiatives at the city level compare? How does the mix of proptech funding across residential, commercial, and retail differ in the US versus Europe? What are the seven key challenges of real estate that individuals and cities face regardless of geography? What inspired a physical manufacturer of door lock technology to innovate and create an entirel...

How do the realities of a home being sold influence the spectrum of staging opportunities? How has virtual staging impacted the home selling process? What are the different relationship dynamics at play between the real estate agent, client, and stager when working on a sale listing? How does location and proximity come into play when considering staging services? How is Stagerie leveraging tech a...

How solving key management issues for commercial markets unlocked (pun intended) multiple residential property management opportunities? How did technical innovation force a classic start-up pivot from PointCentral's original lockbox product? What are sensory buildings and how do IoT devices enhance these buildings to deliver improved resident experiences? How does PointCentral leverage its p...

What is placemaking and how does this concept intersect with proptech? How has location data emerged to significantly improve decision making by expanding what is known beyond the limited data contained within the four walls of a building? What are location scores and how are these the backbone of Local Logic's product suite? Sara Maffey - Head of Corporate Strategy and Business Development a...

Why was real estate industry operating like the wild west before the advent of the internet? How has the proptech space transformed over the last 20 years? What are the complexities of zoning in real estate and why is this the invisible hand in real estate development? Is real estate zoning a challenge globally? Are we incorrectly blaming zoning for real estate development issues or are developmen...

How and why has the definition of proptech changed over the last ten years? Why is it important for founders to remain involved in sales discussions for early stage companies? What separates good and great product managers at tech companies? Who are some of the proptech companies to keep your eye on during 2022? Russell Smith - CRO of Earnnest, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and...

How can upheaval and uncertainty create opportunities in unexpected segments of the real estate market? What are the benefits of cutting your teeth in new real estate investment areas quickly and at scale? How has technology better enabled home sellers to market their homes? How can for sale by owner and real estate agents work together to have the best experience for all parties in a home transac...

Why are highly regulated industries difficult to innovate in? What are the challenges and opportunities of launching a startup during a global pandemic (while living in lockdown with your co-founders)? What are some of the ways in which real estate photos are underutilized? How has the real estate photo space been positively and negatively impacted by the huge adoption of smartphone cameras by age...

How has the role of the residential real estate agent changed over the last 15 years? Over the same time period, how has the technology that real estate agents rely on changed (beyond the demise of carbon copy contracts)? How did the benefits and learnings from traditional door knocking lead to the startup idea for Drop Offer? Greg Burns - co-founder and CEO of Drop Offer, joins Proptech Espresso...

What is the flip side of crowdfunding for real estate investing? What can be done to increase the transparency in commercial real estate financing options to bring it on par with what is available in residential real estate? How do you successfully build and scale a commercial lending marketplace? How has the aggregation and up keep of supply side rates created an opportunity to carve out a valuab...

What is a social enterprise and how does this business model support more equitable homeownership? How has information asymmetry contributed to the inequality in homeownership rates? How did the lack of adequate information geared to the most vulnerable homeowners leave them susceptible to predatory scams during the 2008/9 financial crisis? With the wealth of information available online today, wh...

What are the opportunities and challenges of founding and growing a tech company in the midwest? Why has the homebuying process not kept up with the technological evolution of other processes? How has the emergence of iBuyers changed the dynamics for home sellers? What opportunities exist for implementing machine learning techniques into property matching and recommendations? Jay Cambron - founder...

What integration challenges did hotel channel managers face in the early days of vacation rental marketplaces? Why is live 24 hour guest service a differentiator when the prevailing trend is to minimize human communication? What have been the challenges and advantages of growing a tech company in Canada? Has Europe caught up with the US in technical innovation adoption or does it remain somewhat b...

How central is real estate photography to the home transaction process? What is the ecosystem of participants and content creation involved in real estate photography? Why has property imagery surpassed property details as the primary reason users surf listing portals? How has COVID accelerated the adoption of real estate photography technology over the past year? Branick Weix , Brendan Quinlan ,...

What are the pain points senior engineers contend with when managing hundred million dollar construction projects? Why are Facebook ads and LinkedIn messages not going to crack open the doors to decision-makers and influencers within construction firms? How did going to MIT's Sloan business school provided the opportunity to carve a new path within a construction career? Why has working with...

Why has omnichannel marketing not been as successful within real estate as in other industries? Why have real estate agents historically resisted adopting new technologies into their businesses? How has the elongate sales cycle of real estate been a challenge for lead nurturing for agents? What are the emerging opportunities for social media marketing for today's real estate agent? Ajay Pondi...

Why have commercial real estate agents historically shied away from short-term rental needs? What are the issues with subleasing which cause parties to avoid the obvious solution? How can you automate the commercial leasing process which typically takes months and teams of lawyers? How do you build a two sided real estate marketplace where everyone wins? What impact has Amazon had on commercial wa...

How does the complexity of real estate transactions create an opportunity for technology to improve the overall experience? What similarities exist between the adtech and proptech industries? How can the playing field be leveled for families and individuals that want to purchase homes and build communities? What can be done to empower real estate agents to help their clients in hyper competitive b...

Why does being an entrepreneur equip a founder to expect the unexpected? What lessons did Scott learn from losing almost everything in the 2009 financial crisis? What are the unique investment insights that Privy has built into it's solution to help individual investors make decisions? Why should novice real estate investors avoid the lure of gurus and the guarantees that the promise? Scott F...

Can the current housing crisis be solved with technology? How have different government policies and social forces contributed to economic and racial inequality in housing? How is the Terner Center advancing innovative policies to influence the way government at all levels is directing money towards creative ways to address housing needs? What successes have the first cohort class from the Housing...