Hanoi (VNA) - After financialtechnology (fintech), which changed the way the financial sector worked, now,property technology (proptech) is expected to effect a change in the realestate industry.

Proptech has emerged in the world afternearly a decade and has started to grab attention in Vietnam.

A report by real estate and investmentservices firm, Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), showed that 4.8 billion USD, out of 7.8billion USD worth of funding, was poured into Asia Pacific proptech start-upsbetween 2013 and 2017.

Asia Pacific was leading the investmentinto proptech start-ups, with a great deal of potential, according to JLL.“With its young population, rapid urbanisation and popularity of mobile phones,all the conditions are in place for this new sector to grow,” JLL’s reportsaid.

According to Nguyen Quoc Anh, deputydirector of Dai Viet Group, which owns property information websitebatdongsan.com.vn, proptech would help minimise risks for both buyers andsellers.

Proptech is defined as technology appliedto real estate information, transaction and management to digitalise servicesand products, so as to improve real estate processes and solve modernchallenges.

Proptech would help property developers andreal estate businesses to make changes and adapt to a new generation ofcustomers via the internet, build brands and direct their products to the righttargeted buyers, Quoc Anh said. He said that applying the technology would alsopromote sales efficiently.

With proptech, customers could search forproducts to meet their demands, compare prices and choose the best financialsolutions to minimise risks. In addition, all transaction procedures would beconducted online, Quoc Anh said.

Besides Dai Viet Group, other firms in Vietnamalso invested in proptech or hastened the application of proptech in their realestate business, such as Holomia – a startup offering virtual reality inmarketing for real estate projects and Homedy – a website which helps searchproject information and compare projects.

Recently, a number of developers such asVingroup, Sun Group and BIM Group made use of virtual reality and augmentedreality to provide customers with real-life experiences of their projects.

According to the Vietnam Association ofReal Estate Brokers, the development of proptech was an indispensable trend,but it was important to improve the awareness of both buyers and firms inapplying proptech to fuel a boom in Vietnam.

Nguyen Thanh Hung, chairman of the Vietname-Commerce Association, said at a recent online forum that proptech would alsohelp promote the transparency of the real estate market because it made accessto real estate information much easier.

According to Pham Van Hung, from propertydeveloper CenGroup, technology such as big data, artificial intelligence,augmented reality and the Internet of Things was being applied in the realestate industry of Vietnam, catching up with the global trend.-VNA