ADOPTION OF PROPTECH IN THE RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY MARKET: IMPACTS OF V360 AND DRONE ON SALE PERFORMANCE

Abstract

There is an increasing trend of Proptech in the residential market, in various verticals such as brokerage and leasing. Given that COVID-19 has accelerated the use of Technology, more real estate agents and industry professionals are turning to Proptech to reduce time-to-market (TOM) and close a sale. As supported by current literature, Proptech in the form of V360 and X-Drone has significant impacts on sale performance of a property in other markets outside Asia. In Singapore’s context, there is a clear opportunity to examine the impacts of Proptech in effecting sales at the property and agent levels. This study dives deeper into the characteristics of technology in relation to property (from listing, and transaction angles) and agent attributes.

The datasets are categorized into Condominium and HDB projects. Several hedonic and probit regressions are conducted, including a 2SLS model which rules out the endogeneity issue of X-valuation in the property listing level analysis. These regressions will analyse the relationship between the use of technology and sale performance, such as transaction price, and price premium and time-to-market. Furthermore, the study predicts the likelihood of using technology with regards to total competition in the market, and agent attributes such as industry experience and awards won.

The outcome of the study revealed that the use of technology increases listing and transaction prices, a faster sales cycle, but does not increase the price premium (difference between listing price and transaction price). Moreover, experienced agents are more likely to adopt technology whereas award-winning ones are more dependent on their own networks and abilities in closing deals rather than relying on technology