After a welcome address by FIABCI-SUISSE President Thomas H. Henle at the Holiday Inn Bern Westside hotel and a reference to the upcoming FIABCI World Congress in Moscow, the 40 or so participants watched and listened to three keynote speeches on the highly topical subject of PropTech.
Mario Facchinetti, initiator and head of the SwissPropTech innovation network, explained the new world of PropTechs (property technology companies), which are bringing about a digital transformation in the real estate industry in both the B2C and B2B sectors. He distinguishes between so-called Re-Techs (Real Estate Technologies) and Con-Techs (Construction Technologies). Depending on the age and maturity of the young companies, they can be referred to as "startups", "scaleups" or "grownups", said Facchinetti. He then explained the (real estate) life cycle in which PropTechs, ReTechs and ConTechs operate: between the planning, development, construction and operation of a property. According to Facchinetti, there are currently more than 15 organizations worldwide that deal with this topic and are networked with each other. From a global perspective, there are currently over 6,000 PropTech companies that are newcomers to the real estate business and want to drive digitalization forward.
Christian Friesenegger, Managing Director of 3motion virtual gmbh and FIABCI member who travelled from Austria especially for our event, then spoke about his Austrian start-up, which was founded in 2016 and is redefining property viewing with its ideas and products, thereby revolutionizing presentations and planning for end customers. These include 360-degree tours, professional videos, new furnishing tools such as "virtual staging" (digital, fully furnished apartments for marketing instead of empty rooms in reality) or the many new options for visualizing properties for computers, laptops, smartphones or via VR glasses. Depending on the package, prices range from EUR 269 (basic package for new buildings) to EUR 1,099 (premium package for existing properties).
Finally, film and television expert Pete Dwojak explained how he and his company immotrailer.ch produce moving images for B2B & B2C customers from the real estate sector that are "worth seeing, sustainable and profitable". Professionally produced real estate films will become the standard in the future, according to his vision. There are advantages above all for the provider of the properties, as films and trailers, unlike photos, emotionalize and entertain, thus appealing to the end customer more appropriately and the filmed properties as trailers remain longer in memory and on the smartphone. According to Dwojak, the production of an immotrailer currently costs between 950 and 1,450 Swiss francs. The service is suitable for apartments, houses and commercial properties as well as land and building plots.
The very well-attended FIABCI meeting in Bern ended with an aperitif, lunch and networking. Meetings of this kind on other exciting topics are being planned, Henle announced.
MR/rev. TH