Real Estate PropTech: A Look at the Major Shifts in Strategy and Tools

How We Supported Gurru in Launching a PropTech Platform That Saves 125k Per Year

In 2020, an Australian innovator dealing with waste and facilities management came to us with a clear problem: sustainability reporting was getting serious, especially with NABERS Waste ratings becoming standard, and most commercial real estate buildings were still tracking waste with clipboards and spreadsheets. No real way to trace anything, no audit trails, no real-time data to actually do anything with.

Gurru wanted to build the whole infrastructure for a platform that could totally modernize waste operations, automate reporting, and impact the environment.

The Challenge

Before Bintracker came to life, getting accurate property data on waste in large office buildings was a matter of guesswork:

• Cleaners were manually estimating bin weights.
• Managers received reports that were often late and inconsistent.
• ESG teams struggled to meet tough compliance requirements.
• Property owners had no clear visibility into what was happening at their buildings.

Building managers didn’t know how to identify issues like contamination, overbilling from waste vendors, or opportunities to reduce landfill waste. Regulations were constantly changing, and the existing digital tools weren’t nearly keeping up.

Our Approach

Gurru brought us on board as a dedicated development partner to help build a scalable SaaS product from the ground up.

We created a strong, integrated, expert team (backend, frontend, QA, and project management) working within their product cycle. From day one, we became an extension of their tech department.

And don’t just take our word for it — Gurru’s CTO also weighed in on our partnership:

“I keep getting messages from other vendors trying to pitch their teams, but honestly, it’s not about the price for me. It’s the quality you deliver and how easy it is to work with your team. You get things done, you communicate clearly, and it always feels like we’re building this together. That’s rare.”

Our Joint Deliverables

Here’s what our collaborative efforts brought to life in the realm of property technology:

• Cleaners now use a cross-platform mobile app to scan bins, log waste types, and get precise weights via Bluetooth-connected smart scales.
• We delivered a web dashboard for property managers and ESG teams. It’s a hub for detailed building- and tenant-level insights, contamination alerts, custom collection schedules, and location management.
• An automated reporting engine (using Power BI and Azure Logic Apps) moved them from clunky spreadsheets to dynamic, real-time dashboards and automated monthly ESG reports.
• We enabled API integrations with leading ESG tools like Envizi and added features to validate data received from external waste providers to ensure data integrity.
• A dual-tier product architecture with both Lite and Full access allows it to cater to clients with varied operational complexities and needs.

Quantifiable Wins in PropTech Adoption

Started small, in just one building, and is now driving smarter waste management across:

• Over 300 properties in Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore.
• Large-scale commercial real estate operations that include 19 of Melbourne’s 24 tallest office towers.

Big names in the real estate sector like ISPT, CBRE Pacific, JLL, and Canva trust Bintracker. And it’s no surprise why:

• Over $125,000 in verified annual cost savings for clients.
• A notable 14.6% decrease in landfill waste.

These figures are a huge win for any real estate business looking to smarten up their investment strategies and hit their sustainability goals.

Thinking about how advanced PropTech solutions could help you with your asset management and green initiatives? Let’s chat.

PropTech Real Estate: Market Size and Momentum

PropTech is a massive force driving how the whole real estate industry is going digital. In 2024, the global PropTech market was worth $40.58 billion, and experts expect it to jump to over $161 billion by 2034, growing at a steady 15.8% each year.

The growth is fueled by real demand from every corner of the real estate sector:

• 96% of homebuyers are using online platforms. Finding a property basically starts online these days.
• 79% of real estate agents are actively looking for new technologies to work smarter, connect with clients better, and get more leads.
• 58% of real estate firms already have clear plans for digital transformation. Almost half of them sped up their tech adoption after the pandemic hit.

That’s why we can assume this PropTech boom is a direct response to what the market needs and how people are now looking for properties.

PropTech’s Evolution: Simple apps turning into foundational tech

What started as simple software for things like scheduling or signing documents has completely transformed into fundamental infrastructure for how entire operations run. Now, PropTech covers AI-driven investment insights and blockchain-secured transactions, along with realistic 3D virtual tours and IoT-based building automation.

• Zillow uses AI to predict where the market is headed and tailor property searches to turn casual browsers into real potential buyers.
• Propy utilizes blockchain useful in making property deeds digital and automating real estate transactions to cut down on complications, fraud, and a lot of paperwork.
• Matterport creates realistic 3D scans of properties, letting people take immersive augmented and virtual reality tours and even plan out spaces from every possible distance.

Matt Knight, from the Foundation for Innovation in Real Estate (FIRE), believes AI will still be a hot topic in 2025, but we’ll start to see a clearer picture of which AI solutions are truly impactful and which aren’t. 

He also expects to see exciting breakthroughs in hardware and new materials, especially those related to climate solutions, recycling, and the circular economy. He sees these as major upcoming market trends in PropTech innovation.

How PropTech Changes Real Estate Operations

Real estate left the ‘location’ mindset behind. These days, the focus is on how easy things are, how efficient operations run, and how well you meet all the rules. PropTech is playing a big part in pushing the real estate industry away from old paper checklists and clunky ways of working toward a system that’s more open, automatic, and better for the planet.

PropTech in Commercial Real Estate: Smarter, Safer, Greener

Most commercial real estate companies are still playing catch-up with urgent changes:

• About 61% of these firms are operating on old systems, which often means they can’t easily get the property data they need for fast decision-making.
• Stricter ESG requirements are pushing them to find better ways to report and get a clearer picture of their building operations.
• AI and IoT technologies are a huge help: they optimize energy use, flag inefficiencies, and reduce emissions. The buildings become smart, compliant, and cost-effective.

Here’s a quick look at how PropTech changes things:

How PropTech Makes Real Estate Easier and More Efficient

These days, tenants and property owners want more control and fewer hassles.

• A good number of tenants and landlords actually prefer using digital tools to handle rent payments, maintenance requests, and just talking to each other.
• Self-service platforms make everything clearer, solve problems faster, and help keep tenants happy and around longer.
• The demand for virtual tours skyrocketed by 500% during the pandemic, and that preference for viewing properties remotely hasn’t faded. Now, for most clients who live online, it’s pretty much expected.

Here’s a detailed look at what changed:

How PropTech Delivers Real Strategic Value to Real Estate

As we’ve already touched upon, PropTech is transforming real estate from a static asset into a dynamic service platform. The actual tools matter less than the bigger outcomes they create: faster choices, smarter ways to spend money, and operations that run much leaner.

PropTech’s payoff: More profit, fewer expenses

Choosing to adopt PropTech puts you on a direct path to increasing your profits. Whether it’s for commercial real estate or homes, this property technology helps you find measurable ways to save money and makes your entire business run much more smoothly.

• With IoT-powered predictive maintenance, your equipment breaks down way less often, and your assets stay useful for longer.
• Digital lease automation speeds up closing deals, gets new tenants settled quicker, and cuts down on legal costs.
• AI-based back-office tools are taking over checking rent payments, approving paperwork, and typing in data.

All these improvements give your teams more time, reduce how much you depend on outside help, and let you focus on what really matters instead of constantly putting out fires.

“With PropTech, the true victory isn’t only the money you save. It actually changes how fast decisions happen. When property teams get clear, useful data exactly when they need it, they stop just reacting and start getting ahead. That switch turns something that was just an expense into a powerful driver of results.”

— Maksym Trostyanchuk, Inoxoft’s Head of Delivery

Curious about how these changes could impact your financial results? Schedule a free consultation.

How PropTech Strengthens Investment Strategies

Beyond daily property management, PropTech is having a big say in where investments go and how they’re planned. Real estate investors today see strong digital capabilities not as a way to stand out, but as a fundamental requirement if you’re aiming to expand significantly.

• In 2022, $196.6 billion flowed into PropTech globally. Even after some market adjustments, 2023 still saw a solid $113.7 billion.
• Big VC firms and private equity leaders, from JLL Spark to Fifth Wall, continue to invest heavily in platforms that improve how well assets perform and how easily they can be bought or sold.
• Also, major investors and real estate funds are increasingly demanding clear, data-driven insights into their portfolios, especially for ESG and Scope 3 reporting.

Given today’s market trends, you really can’t ignore PropTech. It’s woven into how real estate professionals size up properties, dig into deals, and build portfolios that actually perform.

The Roadblocks to PropTech Trends Adoption

While powerful solutions of AI for leasing, IoT for asset tracking, and digital twins for facilities management exist, their everyday adoption often proves challenging. And it is not a lack of desire, but rather a combination of practical constraints.

Our COO, Nazar Kvartalnyi, explains exactly why it’s so complicated:

“When you adopt new technology, you’re dealing with years of old habits, how teams usually operate, and all the compliance stuff. Even if a solution is valuable, it still needs to work with existing old systems, many different people with a say, and company cultures that shy away from risk.”

Legacy systems

A lot of commercial real estate companies have tons of data sitting in old databases, Excel sheets, or separate CRM tools — systems built for past ways of working.

For many real estate agents and brokers, their old software is more than just a tool. It’s the system they’ve always used for critical tasks like making lease decisions, recording inspections, and fostering internal trust. Moving to a new system requires them to abandon established, comfortable, familiar routines.

Getting people on board

Engineers build the tools, but the leasing agents, maintenance crews, and finance teams are the ones who bring them to life through everyday use and trust.

This whole process takes time: you need to train everyone, map out new ways of working, connect it with other systems, and sometimes even navigate office politics. We see it as a common issue in PropTech real estate when companies want to boost their operational efficiency and tenant screening, but a great tool just sits on the shelf because there’s no clear plan for it or a leader pushing for its use.

Security worries and rules

When you bring in AI, IoT, and systems that link up everywhere, security becomes a top concern. Property owners deal with a lot of sensitive data — about tenants, energy consumption, building occupancy, finances — and their caution is totally fair.

They need to know:

• Is this GDPR compliant?
• Can it fit with our existing SOC2 requirements?
• What’s the plan if we face an audit?

If a vendor can’t give straightforward answers to these questions, the adoption of their tech often stalls. Following all the rules actually gives you a big leg up in the market.

Regulatory ambiguity

The real estate industry typically adopts new things at the pace of government regulations. Many new PropTech solutions involve sensitive areas: tenant data, financial dealings, and reporting on environmental impact. 

Even though AI is now being used for things like lease decisions and forecasting maintenance, the regulatory bodies haven’t yet caught up with how to oversee these specific applications.

A commercial real estate executive might see how great it would be to use drones for inspections or AI for rental applications. But if there aren’t clear rules, they’ll be slow to use it everywhere.

PropTech Examples in Action

To show that PropTech helps everyone in real estate make faster, smarter decisions, let’s look at how some big companies are using this technology in their daily work and getting clear benefits.

JLL turned AI into a strategic differentiator

Recognizing unorganized property data wasn’t enough; JLL launched an AI-powered intelligence engine built from its own data to meet CRE needs. It was meant to help them understand tenant risks and predict when building systems will require maintenance.

The impact 

• Valuing properties took 20% less time thanks to real-time AI insights.
• Energy consumption in some buildings decreased by 15%.
• Virtual tours boosted tenant engagement by 25%, pulling in remote investors.
• A 10% jump in service revenue for 2024, partly from these efficient PropTech solutions.

How CBRE Cut Costs with Smart Sensors

CBRE moved past simple ways of seeing data. They focused on getting real-time information about their properties and introduced CBRE Vantage. The platform connects AI with huge amounts of property data to help them make better decisions for their properties. They partnered with other tech companies to install AI-powered sensors that check how space is being used, and where it’s sitting empty.

This allows international buyers and companies to take virtual property tours from afar. That sped up leasing and stopped people from losing interest.

The outcomes

• Office vacancy dropped 12% because space was used better.
• Operational costs went down 10% with smarter energy management and maintenance plans.
• Virtual tours boosted engagement by 30%, especially with clients from other countries.
• Because they focused on tech, their market share in digital CRE services grew 15%.

“Investing in PropTech provides early access to innovations that enhance asset performance, reduce costs, and create competitive differentiation.”

— Connor Hall, Vice President, Head of Global Digital Partnerships at CBRE. 

Cushman & Wakefield: Better PropTech for Tenants

Cushman & Wakefield decided to focus on making things easier for tenants and smoothing out leasing. They tried out blockchain smart contracts to make commercial lease agreements simpler and more secure with less paperwork and fewer rounds of approvals.

At the same time, they moved to cloud-based property management platforms, getting rid of their old, disconnected systems. Now, tenants can report issues, follow up on repairs, and find lease information all in one spot.

Behind the scenes, AI-powered analytics helped their leasing teams find promising tenants and set flexible prices. 

Among other outcomes

• Lease agreement time fell 40% because of their blockchain tests.
• Tenant satisfaction scores rose sharply after maintenance response times got 50% faster.
• AI targeting helped them close 20% more deals.
• Smart energy systems cut utility costs by 8%, which helped them hit their green building goals.

What PropTech Means in 2025 and Beyond

The PropTech industry is on the verge of a significant transformation, with artificial intelligence, blockchain, and immersive tech leading the way. Here’s what we’re seeing:

AI: Core Property Technology

Artificial intelligence has outgrown simple roles like quick chatbots or mere price guesses. It’s now powering the core of real estate dealings:

• Predictive systems for building energy and maintenance.
• Property valuation and underwriting for real estate investment, guided by AI.
• Automated management for the entire lease process.
• It’s informing real estate investment decisions across entire portfolios.

“Lately, most of the founders and real estate teams we work with don’t just want to talk about AI anymore. They want it built right into their products, into their daily routines. Less manual work, more clarity, faster action — it all sounds just great. [There’re] more and more cases where AI ends up becoming the core engine that helps them get everything done.”

— Nazar Kvartalnyi, COO of Inoxoft

Want to see how AI can enhance efficiency for you? Let’s talk.

Smart Cities and Connected Buildings

Smart buildings are the starting point for truly connected cities. PropTech platforms bring together IoT sensors, access control, tools to make climates just right, and ESG tracking. All this info feeds into bigger city systems.

• Energy optimization is cutting costs by as much as 25%.
• Remote monitoring of air quality is fast becoming a standard feature in sustainable buildings.
• Digital twin technology lets people manage and plan buildings from anywhere.

It’s an area with huge potential, though still pretty new. Real estate will just get more important in the smart city picture: with smart building technologies, property managers can get valuable insights into building operations, leading to more informed decisions and a healthier environment for tenants.

Blockchain’s Role in Trustworthy Transactions

We’ll find blockchain popping up as a solid base for secure and traceable deals. It’s still early days for everyone to be using it, but its uses are definitely gaining ground:

• Smart contracts for automatic lease agreements.
• Turning real estate assets into digital tokens for fractional ownership (also boosts market liquidity).
• Property records that can’t be changed, which makes audits simpler and cuts down on fraud.

For the commercial real estate industry, this means transactions happen faster, cost less, and become more transparent worldwide. It’s a shift that’s opening the door for new investors to join the market.

Early Explorations in Virtual Real Estate

Right now, digital real estate and the metaverse are a small part of the PropTech market. But big firms are getting more serious about them, especially as a way to find new investment opportunities. A survey from early 2025 showed that 76% of institutional investors planned to invest in some form of tokenized assets by 2026, which includes virtual reality real estate.

• Digital Twins: Firms like Brookfield Properties have used digital twin technology to create virtual replicas of their buildings. For instance, a New York firm used a digital twin to track HVAC costs for a year, saving over $138,000. These twins allow for real-time monitoring and predictive maintenance, making a building’s management more efficient.
• Tokenized Assets: Companies like Fireblocks and MultiBank.io are working on platforms to tokenize billions of dollars in real estate assets. This allows for fractional ownership, which could open up real estate investment to a much broader group of people.

The traditional housing market is now being influenced by a new area for property values and future real estate dealings.

Actionable Insights for PropTech Real Estate Companies and Startups

In order to succeed in the real estate industry, you must have a focus on a smart strategy. For real estate professionals managing a large number of properties or developing the next great tool, here are the key areas to consider.

For Real Estate firms

• Start with a clear goal in mind. Take a close look at your old systems to find where your biggest gaps in property data hide: this assessment is key to a smooth rollout and can lead to major savings. You should also prioritize platforms with open APIs if you want to avoid getting locked into a single vendor and stay flexible to add other tools later on.
• Pick tools that have a clear return on investment. Start by automating tasks in areas like leasing, energy management, and maintenance — these are the places you can quickly see the money you save and the time you get back. 
• Build ESG tracking into your systems from day one. Put sustainability reporting right into your data architecture to easily meet new rules and tenants’ expectations. Buildings with strong ESG ratings can have capital values 14-16% higher than properties that don’t, all thanks to lower vacancy rates and higher rents.

For PropTech Startups

• Solve real problems. Focus on the actual inefficiencies in daily workflows, reporting, and decision-making. A 2024 report by CRETI highlighted that successful PropTech companies are those that focus on a specific operational issue, instead of creating a feature-heavy product that lacks a clear purpose.
• Build for integration first. Building your solution to work with existing CRE software, IoT devices, and ESG platforms makes your product more valuable and easier for firms to adopt. You’ll be closer to solving the issue of disconnected data and fragmented workflows that are common pain points for property managers and real estate professionals.
• Earn trust and prove readiness. Concerns about data security are a primary barrier to new PropTech adoption, meaning your product needs to be transparent, explainable, and compliant. The stakeholders who will use your tool must have full confidence in it and be able to clearly explain it to their tenants, executives, and regulators.

Turn Real Estate Friction into Functional PropTech

At Inoxoft, our goal is to help real estate companies and PropTech startups transform operational challenges into functional software. Since 2014, we’ve developed over 200 custom solutions, including solutions for property listings, tenant apps, ESG compliance, and AI-powered energy management.

Why Work with Us?

Our clients don’t come to us for basic development help. They come when their current building systems can’t keep up, and they need a new solution that’s fast, reliable, and scalable.

• Real PropTech outcomes: We build platforms that make leasing workflows smoother, reduce operational costs, and speed up ESG reporting across hundreds of properties.
• Our team is in-house: With over 200 engineers (not freelancers), we offer fast onboarding and consistent long-term support, which is key for complex, data-driven platforms.
• Security is our priority: We’re ISO 27001 certified and a Microsoft Partner, with GDPR-ready solutions — essential for handling sensitive real estate data and ensuring enhanced security.
• We’re ready for AI/ML: We create practical, smart tools for anomaly detection and predictive analytics that provide valuable insights.
• Mature DevOps: We do weekly releases, have minimal downtime, and build scalable systems. PropTech platforms can’t afford to stop working, so we won’t.

We stay involved from the very first idea to the final product. Expect a real team working with you to build exactly what the real estate market needs.

Ready to turn your business challenges into a custom PropTech solution? Let’s talk.

To Conclude

The real estate industry has gone through a massive shake-up, and PropTech is the reason why. The market is turning into a giant system, with AI and IoT now running the show from backstage. Inoxoft’s successful work with Gurru proved this, as their waste management solution delivered big savings for a major player in the commercial real estate sector — the kind of results you could read about in the Wall Street Journal.

Despite a lot of new ideas, the real estate world is still complex and slow to change because of old systems and cautious people. To win, you need a clear, smart strategy. For PropTech companies, that means you have to be agile problem-solvers who can connect with all the other tools out there. 

At the same time, bigger firms need a solid plan for tech adoption, using data analytics to get ahead of market shifts, keep an eye on economic indicators, and make sure they meet all their ESG compliance goals.

Want to see how you can get in on the game? Reach out to us.