American professional services and investment management company JLL estimates that the overall value of investable commercial real estate all over the world will touch $65 trillion by 2020 and the Asia Pacific will account for more than 30 percent of those investments, bringing it to $19.5 trillion.
Taking the number of emerging economies and their growing urbanization rates into consideration, the APAC region will play a key role in the international real estate landscape.
In its report “The Growing Influence of Proptech”, JLL has named China with the most market potential in the region.
Proptech is short for property technology and it refers to the application of technology as a solution to challenges in the property sector. The sector has witnessed a wide adoption across the world, more so in the APAC region.
The APAC region has witnessed its own share of startups in the proptech emerging with 179 proptech startups in the region received nearly 60 percent of more than $7.8 billion invested all around the world from 2013 to 2017, which amounts to $4.8 billion in funding.
Two of the most dynamic markets for the sector in the region are China and India, however, other countries in Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, and Australasia are getting closer quickly.
In spite of having just 23 of the 179 proptech startups in the APAC region, Mainland China raised about 60 percent proptech funding between 2012 and June 2017. Out of the best 10 funded proptech startups all around the world between 2011 and 2015, the top two were from China.
With 77 funded proptech startups, India has the highest number of such startups in the APAC region. Leasing and brokerage dominate the Indian proptech sector and it is projected that the middle class constitutes about half of the country’s total population.
The report said that smart nation Singapore also is fast becoming the headquarters for tech startups in the APAC region. The city-state was recently awarded top ranking in JLL’s “Global Real Estate Transparency Index” in Asia.
However, the report mentions South Korea as a proptech laggard as the country has been unable to connect the dots on how the sector can help the country having better buildings and better cities. The report also said that the country is only beginning to understand the international smart and sustainable city trends and is anticipated to become a key player in the proptech space.
Asia presently has 12 startups those are viewed as among the world’s most notable proptech companies.