Between Two Bricks: A Guide to the Top News in Real Estate Tech (#7)

A guided tour of the best stories in real estate with a slant towards new technology and its impact on the future of buildings, neighborhoods, and cities.

Happy...Saturday? I have no idea what day of the week it is. This week I'm thinking about the future of proptech (shoutout to Michael Beckerman for an amazing read); co-living as a possible winner post-covid; the increasing trend of self-guided tours; the essential need for tenant engagement platforms to facilitate constant communication; and everyone suddenly caring A LOT about cleanliness. I'm also thinking back to the trend of "designer" buildings brought on by our love for brands. I wonder if that's still a thing?

Things to read about this week:

• CRETech/PropTech 2.0 - "The pandemic will therefore fundamentally impact how corporations spend, locate and operate space for the foreseeable future. When things do stabilize and the economy begins to regain its footing (who the hell knows when that will be), business leaders won’t forget the scare they just went through and the majority of them will rethink A LOT."
• Co-Living Through a Pandemic - "Co-living might not be quite so attractive in the heat of an outbreak, when people are concerned about shared quarters. In the aftermath, though, when the infection risk has mostly passed yet people are still grappling with the economic impacts of the crisis, it’ll likely become even more desirable."
• The COVID-19 Outbreak Is as Good a Reason as Any to Learn More About Our Buildings - "Our buildings are increasingly learning about us, personalizing their services to our needs (even if we don’t know what our own needs are). Now it is time for us to learn about them. Occupants are just as important building stakeholders as anyone. In order for buildings to improve both their operations and their stewardship, occupants need to be part of the solution. Technology can help the surrounding world understand us in a much more personal way, but that goes both ways. We already have many of the tools necessary to know more about our built world than ever before, if we are willing to use them."
• The COVID-19 Pandemic Will Accelerate the Trend of Self-Guided Tours - "Huge spikes in demand for virtual property tours as well as showings through FaceTime and Zoom signify how quickly the property industry is willing to adapt. Self-guided tours are another way real estate is building its new normal. Because of the convenience and efficiency associated with self-guided tours, they were already becoming a viable option for many properties equipped with the software needed to handle them."
• Accelerating Critical Channels of Communication Between Retailers and Landlords in an Emergency - "What has happened to the industry in the past few weeks has demonstrated that tenant engagement platforms are no longer a ‘nice to have’ accessory for retail real estate."
• Will Commercial Real Estate Ever Return to the Way It Was Before COVID-19? - "As COVID-19 deepens its hold on cities around the country, the question is increasingly becoming when it will peak in each city and for how long? By now, U.S. cases have risen to top 600,000 despite a recent plateauing of cases in some areas. Even once the worst of it is officially behind us, we may continue to see the virus pop up here and there, menacing populations that may have thought they were safe."
• Zillow Co-Founder Spencer Rascoff Leaves Board - "Fourteen months after being replaced as Zillow’s chief executive, co-founder Spencer Rascoff is leaving the company’s board of directors."
• Your Building is Struggling Under Social Distancing, Too - "Having the ability to take care of even the most complicated tasks via mobile access has gone from personal convenience to outright necessity due to the precautions needed to slow the spread of this virus. For many multifamily buildings, the facility teams that take care of them may be quarantined to their homes in another part of town and dependent on the capabilities of remote monitoring platforms to see how the building is holding up. The teams that have data available to them and can change system performance from afar were much more prepared for a global pandemic than they could have realized."
• Cleaning Automation Becomes Post COVID-19 Priority - "Cleaning automation, particularly in large commercial spaces, will now be a priority. People who inhabit these spaces, and who will be inhabiting them (once the time comes to reopen offices and non-essential businesses), will want to know these places are clean and safe. Whether as workers, patrons, managers, tenants, or owners, people will be much more inquisitive about how the spaces they occupy are cleaned, not just one time to disinfect, but on a regular basis going forward."
• Rent payments fall as layoffs ripple through real estate - "Just 69% of U.S. apartment renters made payments through April 5. That compares with 81% who paid their rent by March 5, a new tracking tool published by the National Multifamily Housing Council shows."

Things to come back to from the past:

• Designer Building Mania: Branded Spaces Change the Way We Think About Real Estate - "According to the numbers, a residence that is branded as a premium property can bring in a 30% higher asking price than a non-branded building."

Updates from Hello Alfred:

• Hello Alfred makes grocery deliveries personal, provides full-time jobs
• New Grocery Delivery Service Will Pick Up Anything for $25 a Week
• How NYC Tech Companies Are Supporting Their Communities
• How to Get Grocery Delivery in NYC (and other cities) Right Now
• Adapting to the new norm: how Hello Alfred pivoted its business model in the face of a pandemic (webinar)
• Across the world, organizations are coming together to confront COVID-19 in their own way. Here’s a quick glimpse at what our team has learned in the process
• Doing our part to show support for those affected by COVID-19 by offering our new resident experience app FREE to building teams and creating an Employee Assistance Fund to support local small businesses and front line workers nationwide
• For the third consecutive year, Hello Alfred has been named one of FastCompany’s Most Innovative Companies
• Forbes has honored us as one of America’s Best Startup Employers 2020
• A Slice of Modern Life: How Our Lives Have Changed Over The Past Five Years

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