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Proptech Association Australia – President’s Report 2024

Proptech Association Australia

PROPTECH BY THE NUMBERS 



Introduction

“You can focus on things that are barriers, you can focus on scaling the wall or you can focus on redefining the problem.” 
 Tim Cook, CEO of Apple

They say that numbers never lie. And the numbers in our At A Glance view of the year certainly paint a powerful picture. 

At last year’s AGM, I highlighted the challenge that the Proptech Association faced in 2024 moving from startup to scaleup. Startups are run on energy, passion, and enthusiasm. Established businesses are run on process, structure and accountabilities. 

In the middle are scale-ups – requiring both passion, vision and huge amounts of energy to go into the work required for the day-to-day AND to build the process and structure for the future. 

Add to that the challenge of market and economic forces and their impact on members, increased scrutiny and engagement with government at both federal and state levels and the time constraints of a not-for-profit board all juggling their own full time careers and family responsibilities. It’s no wonder that this year has felt particularly FULL ON. 

I love this year’s theme quote from the CEO of Apple, Tim Cook. It perfectly sums up a year of barriers needing to be overcome, huge athleticism, flexibility and stamina required for scaling walls, together with the mental agility to understand and redefine the problems faced. 

On any given day in any given way, dealing with just one of these would be enough. For both Proptech Association Australia – now renamed Proptech Australia – and for many of our members, we have dealt with all of this on a monthly, if not daily basis. 

It reminds me of another quote frequently mentioned in real estate circles that “What got us here, won’t get us there.”

And so as we head towards the fifth birthday for the Proptech Association, it is both exciting and liberating to reflect on what we’ve achieved so far and how we intend to progress into the next 12 months.  

So let’s take a look at the year:

Key Changes in 2024

This year we welcomed KC Rodriguez as our full-time Member Services Specialist as an outsourced worker in the Philippines. While having the role outsourced virtually has not been without challenges, it has been a significant step up to have someone full-time to throw to for the day-to-day admin that a busy industry association generates. What it did make us realise however was just how manual and impenetrable many of our processes are and how much work therefore still falls to the volunteer board as a result. These will be challenges that the new board will prioritise in 2025. We would like to thank Cloudstaff for helping us bring KC over to them after we identified risks within our direct hiring model. 

From just two government consultations in 2023, Proptech Association directors attended 25 (at last count) this year across both state and federal governments, requiring more than 120 hours of commitment and six separate position papers. 

The bulk of this heavy lifting was handled by Cecille Weldon on the REEDI Energy Efficiency Forum. Both the association – and the entire real estate industry – owe her a huge debt of gratitude for her passion and tireless effort here. She has single-handedly ensured that the proptech industry will play a central role in enabling the new NATHERs standards opening up enormous opportunities for proptechs across the energy efficiency, data, valuations and residential real estate spaces as just the tip of the iceberg. This has also led to the launch of the new Proptech Energy Efficiency Standard, announced at the Proptech Forum. 

In addition, we were consulted on the new NSW Renters Rights legislation and asked to provide evidence at the Senate Inquiry into the Financial regulatory framework and home ownership. You can read both submissions on the Proptech Association website. 

There have been a multitude of insights from these engagements. The first is that as awareness of our sector grows, we must expect greater scrutiny and need to engage more fully with government, including proactively. The second, and possibly even more importantly, is that a still young association, we are not neither structured, nor currently resourced to take on the level of engagement required. To date, it has occurred through the good will, energy and sheer bloodymindedness of key directors. Delivering a more sustainable model will be one of the key challenges for the new board. 

In 2024, the board resolved to reduce the number of meetings so that we were just meeting for key compliance obligations. Some additional key project meetings around the awards and forum were held. Directors took on key areas of responsibility and ran projects with the support of KC. 

As president, I appreciated the reduced meeting load, but it had significant downsides. With a new member services manager still learning the ropes, the work of the bigger projects of the awards and the forum fell largely where it could be executed quickly which was upon the shoulders of my team with a minimum cost cover. This will also be a challenge that I welcome working on with the new board. 

Membership for the association eased slightly this year – down from 189 members to 174. Much of this was due to mergers and acquisitions of member organisations and some was due to market challenges.

I am going to confess that I found some of the conversations around these decisions to end membership challenging. Some were around cost. When a $450 annual membership is a key decider in liquidity that speaks to the stress that many members are under. 

But it does bother me that there are proptechs out there that are interested only in what they can get ‘out’ of the association, and with an award under their belt, feel they no longer need to participate. This speaks to the need for the association to ensure we are delivering great value to members, that it is clearly articulated and we manage any sense of entitlement. 

The number of proptechs sitting in our database is now at 544, up from our Proptech Map estimate of 473 last year. This shows our membership sits at around 31% of the industry and demonstrates we have a good runway of proptechs to convert into members. Another board challenge for 2025.  

Highlights for 2024

We hosted just over 330 people at the Proptech Awards 2024 at the Fullerton Hotel in Sydney in another fabulous night that has become legend in the proptech calendar. 

A very big thank you to MC, Peter Schravemade, to our judges, KC Rodriguez who was thrown totally in at the deep end, and to Mark Hollands and the Proptech Guru team for filling in the gaps. 

Thank you too to our major sponsors TeamLink, Proptrack, Dynamic Methods, EzyPay, SERV, NSW Land Registry Services, Monoova, Stone & Chalk, REACH Australia and Ashurst. 

In 2025, the Proptech Awards will be held on Thursday 3 July at The Fullerton in Sydney. Nominations will open in February. 

Our third Proptech Forum was our most successful to date with the theme Make Change Happen. The day was set up brilliantly by former Xero, Microsoft and Apple CEO, Steve Vamos and carried through right until the final presentation by Angus Ferguson from Domain. 

We had more than 170 attendees with sessions across the board focusing on the intersections between human behaviour and technology adoption – across clients, teams and even government and ourselves as entrepreneurs. 

Our roundtable discussions were strongly attended and covered new rental reforms, facilities management, energy efficiency ratings, scaling customer care, ethical outsourcing and new identity verification, plus many more. 

An enormous thank you to our MC, John Foong from Domain who ensured the day ran flawlessly and brought his own unique insights to the event. 

Thanks to our gold sponsors Cloudstaff, networking drinks sponsor Dynamic Methods and our  roundtable partners on the day – Domain, PropertyMe, Realestate.com, Inclood, The Australian Land Services Organisations – SERV, NSW Land Registry Services, Land Services SA, Land Services WA and ConnectID. 

Over the coming months we’ll be sharing video, transcripts and content from the sessions available exclusively to members.  

 Our Proptech Forum for 2025 is moving to Melbourne with thanks to Direct Connect. We are working on a date for November. Stay Tuned. 

Recognition of the role that proptech needs to play in the roll out of the NatHERS (Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme) has been down to the tireless work of Cecille Weldon on behalf of the association and its members. 

The Proptech Association is honoured to be a non-voting member for the REEDI (Residential Energy Efficiency Disclosure Initiative) Governance Forum – a collaborative project of the Commonwealth, state and territory governments to develop a national framework for the disclosure of residential energy efficiency information (energy rating for all residential property).

Cecille attended REEDI Governance Forum meetings and four related working groups to discuss the various elements of the scheme including how the rating impacts apartments, the NatHERS rollout generally, the Disclosure Pilots and one on the behavioural science research. This involved 21 meetings, more than 33 hours of meeting attendance and three formal submissions, plus endless prereading. 

In addition, Cecille was generous with her time briefing key proptech organisations on how the changes could impact her business, and gave a stellar presentation at the Proptech Forum on the opportunities for proptechs created by the new system. 

A huge thanks to Carolyn Trickett and Cecille Weldon for their work on our rebrand to Proptech Australia. While we have yet to completely execute the new look, we love the new colour palette and articulation of our value proposition and will be sharing more details shortly. 

We decided to go with a new look and feel to recognise the coming of age of the association and to better reflect our value to members, positioning and membership of the global proptech community. 

I’m personally grateful for their work because it takes forever to type proptechassociation in an email and in light of the fact that it was frequently – and unfortunately – shortened to proptechass, it feels like Proptech Aus is a major step in the right direction. 

In addition to the awards and the forum, our Vice President Peter Schravemade took to the road to host two member meetups – one in Adelaide and the second in Auckland. Both were well attended and helped us broaden the awareness of the association and deepen friendship and connections. A big thank you to JLL for hosting our Auckland event.  

Board changes for 2025

Mindful of the saying that to lose one board member is unfortunate, but to lose two seems careless, I worry about what four means and hasten to add that all are leaving due to specific personal circumstances and intend to remain as enthusiastic advisors. 

Nevertheless, this year we farewell four members of the board. Ending their tenure this year are: 

Firstly, I’d like to thank our longest-standing board member – Marie-Anne Lampotang – who has held the role of treasurer of the association since we started and jointly as secretary for the past two years. Mal is the no-nonsense voice of reason on the board. She is practical, committed and capable and kept our official obligations under tight control. Mal had a career change this year and is now in the dynamic sector of superannuation (!). Quite simply, the association would not exist without Mal. She was one of the first people I sat down with to explain this crazy idea of setting up an industry association for proptech in her role at Stone & Chalk. Mal understood it within a minute and what was supposed to be a 45-minute meeting went for more than 2 hours in our enthusiasm. It has truly been an honour Mal. 

Also stepping down is Peter Schravemade, director at REACH Australia who has been our Vice President this year. Pete is one of the most recognised names in proptech and is never more comfortable than when he is on the road spruiking the value of technology to the real estate sector. He has been a stalwart defender of the real estate industry view this year which has been one of many valuable lenses. Pete’s ability to network, socialise and connect made him a powerful ambassador for the industry. While we sometimes don’t see things the same way, I count him as one of my closest friends, have been hugely grateful for the work he has done in his time on the board. I look forward to him continuing to be a close part of the association through hosting meetups and at our awards. 

This year, we also farewell Carolyn Tricket. Carolyn has done a wonderful job representing both commercial proptech and the big end of town through her work at JLL in their accelerator JLL Spark. She was the founder of the Commercial Advisory Committee and has done much to build the associations connections and credentials in the commercial property and proptech sector. With her role now largely focused overseas creating some extremely unusual working hours and Chris Havill from JLL volunteering to join the board, Carolyn has nobly offered to step down on the basis that two out of seven JLL representatives on a board is probably one too many. We will however continue to lean on her in an advisory capacity. 

Finally, we farewell Cecille Weldon this year whose commitment to the association cannot be underestimated. Cecille has been tireless in her work for the association and members with her work in the REEDI Forum, most of which has been as a volunteer requiring hundreds of hours of meetings. She has also successfully launched our first industry-standard – the Proptech Energy Efficiency Features standard which has been game changing in how we view the data space in which so many of us work. (https://www.proptechfeaturesstandard.au/). She was also the driving force behind our rebrand to Proptech Australia. 

Cecille’s professional, passionate and graceful representation of the proptech industry at government level is largely the reason why the association has been invited to provide further input into the housing conversation nationally. Her commitment to good structure and practice has been foundational for the board. Directorships always require hard compliance obligations. As Cecille’s consulting work steps up, it is a requirement that she step down as a director. She will however, continue to represent the association at REEDI and I wish her all the very best as she is at the heart of one of the most exciting spaces the industry has seen and if anyone can make a success of it, it is her.

I would like to thank John Minns and AJ Chand for their continued commitment to the association in their decision to serve again this year with AJ in the role of Treasurer. 

With the upcoming vote progressing as intended we will welcome new directors to the board whose talents, and experience are both an excellent cross section of the industry and provide the skills for Proptech Australia to grow into its next phase. We are especially excited that our new board includes greater representation from Melbourne. 

Up for nomination are: 

Chris is the COO of the Bestrane Group which runs the proptech MobileDock. He has a unique background including senior roles in large complex enterprises including Telstra, first hand experience in the commercial proptech sector and has also worked in industry associations. 

With strong communication skills, and experience gained locally and in India, Hong Kong, Philippines, Singapore and Malaysia he has been recognised for his ability to combine the development of short and long term strategies with operational execution. 

Chris was a founding member of the Commercial Proptech subcommittee and has bravely agreed to take on the role of secretary. 

Hedy is a Business Architect at Milk Chocolate Property, a proptech startup, and a seasoned strategy and operations professional, with extensive project management and product go-to-market experience. Previously, Hedy led regional teams across tech, commercials, ad creative and business transformation over 13 years at Google. 

With a Bachelor of Communication and certifications in marketing, behavioral economics and leadership, she excels at solving business challenges using human-centered and data-driven approaches. As a licensed real estate agent and lifelong learner, she is passionate about ensuring tech solutions meet industry and customer needs, and connecting the dots between diverse fields of knowledge.

Erik Tveitnes is the API Lead at REA Group, where he has been driving innovation for over seven years. Based in Melbourne, he brings a wealth of experience in software development and systems architecture to the board. His experience integrating proptech partners into the REA Group’s APIs has been marked by a collaborative approach and a commitment to frictionless customer experiences.

Erik also has experience in procurement, digital marketing and logistics. His career began in Norway, where he provided IT support at Apply Leirvik AS. Through these diverse experiences, Erik has honed his skills in technology solutions, continuously advocating for innovation and excellence in all his professional endeavours.

Chris is the Engineering Director of the Command Centre Platform at JLL, leading the roll-out of smart engineering services for buildings across the APAC region. He is also responsible for supporting the development of client reporting for building performance and operational metrics while piloting new technologies and platforms regionally and globally, leveraging custom APIs and AI tools. 

Chris also has both Property Services Manager experience, has worked as a research assistant at the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southhampton contributing to a range of projects involving AI and the Internet of Things. 

I am extremely excited about the range of skills and experience that will now be represented on the board and their match for the challenges that the association faces in 2025.

With a new board, the association will meet for a full days strategy session first week of February and we will report in on the new strategy. 

However, background projects include: 

This is all important foundational work. We’ll report on the fun stuff after the strategy day. 

Finally

An enormous thank you to our members, associates and sponsors. 2024 has been a BIG year – fast paced, demanding, relentless. Across the industry, I hear stories of people who are both  invigorated and exhausted in equal measure. 

It has been a hard year for raising capital, for property market transactions, for winning and onboarding new clients, sponsorship. But it has been an incredible year for collaboration, for powerful conversations, deep friendships and for proving the value and worth of proptech. 

Proptech Australia has managed to maintain its momentum for members, deliver some incredible events, deepen the conversation about the value of proptech and wield some genuine influence across key areas. 

What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger and many of us have developed considerable muscle tone this year. It’s been a hell of a ride. 

I wish everyone the gift of some time off the hamster wheel at Christmas. Turn off your devices for just a week. Take your kids to the beach. Feel the sand between your toes or read a book by the pool. Relax and take a break to refresh you for the new year. I know that’s what I’ll be doing.

See you in 2025

 

Kylie Davis

President

Proptech Australia

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