Agents struggling to succumb to proptech
Real estate agents are struggling to let go of clients who are finding it more beneficial to consult proptech companies, according to an expert in the space.
Speaking to Smart Property Investment as part of the proptech special, Yabonza’s Mark Trowell said a key challenge he’s seeing play out in the property market is agents who are struggling to realise the impact proptech is having on clients.
“What we’re finding, which is a positive and a negative, onboarding from incumbent agents is tricky because they don’t want to let it go,” Mr Trowell said.
“Traditionally, if an LJ Hooker and a Belle had invested into something in the same suburb and it had gone to Belle, LJ Hooker would go, ‘Oh well, business is business. We lost it, we’ll probably get it back’. But when a legacy business is losing business to a business like ours, they will never come back.”
Mr Trowell said many proptech companies, including Yabonza, are seeing more Aussie investors keen to take up their offering, with this set to continue going forward.
“We’re not the only ones, of course, there are other alternatives, and [traditional agencies are] worried that they’ve got about 80 per cent of the market that they’re sitting on based off a legacy framework — 20 per cent self-managed,” he said.
“Once they start falling out of that, and the percentages start moving into verticals that are sitting to the right of that, they know they won’t go back, so businesses are scared.”
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