I have just spent the past two days at the CREtech conference in London. Great venue, speakers, content and very well executed by Michael Beckerman and his team.
My background is a FinTech platform which funds CRE transactions. FinTech is 4-5 years ahead of PropTech and within PropTech, ResiTech is prob a couple of years ahead of CRETech, but I was enthused by what I saw and the people I met. There are some good products coming through.
BUT on one panel, the question was asked who/what is the next moonshot?
IMHO, the responses showed that the CRE and CRETech industry still thinks of itself in isolation. CRE and CRETech cannot exist in a silo.
The next moonshot will come from the company who works out how to tie together CRETech, with FinTech, and RegTech and LegalTech and ESGTech. i.e the whole supply chain.
Rightmove is 21 years old now, but they are still just a portal for people to search for a property. Even after 21 years you can’t do anything else on Rightmove. You can’t make an offer, you can’t get an instant mortgage quote / offer, you can’t instruct a lawyer/ valuer, you can’t exchange or complete. They are still pretty much just a property portal.
Compare that to the past 21 years at Amazon. They started out as a simple search facility to find and buy a book, now they are the whole transaction supply chain and more. Plus they do it at speed and deliver the next day!
CRETech needs to think more like Amazon!
