Experts seek regulation for property technology

Following the projection that proptech will attract about $20billion to real estate industry in 2019, experts have asked the federal government to put in place policy and regulatory framework that would enhance performance of property technology sector and help start-ups overcome challenges faced in their operations.

This was the position of experts who gathered at the Nigerian Property Technology Conference held at the Eko Atlantic City. Specifically, they believed that if the real estate space could have crowd funding regulations, prompt accessibility to the data base of states and federal government in terms of housing data, mortgage volume and number, among others, the industry will witness tremendous growth.

Proptech is technology enabled in the real estate industry; it touches areas like planning of buildings and property management for efficiency and smartness in a shared economy. It involves the block chain technology, artificial intelligence, crowd funding, and Internet of Thing (IOT), which are basically the future of the industry.

PropTech also describes the wave of tech innovations set to disrupt real estate markets and which have already started to make its presence felt in both the residential and commercial property segments.

The conference was attended by experts in the proptech community which include, CEO of Cobuilt, Olayide Opaola, founder of Zama, Abdulhakeem Sadiq, Founder of Estate Intel, Dolapo Omidire, Teal lead, operations, Mixta Nigeria, Ola Awodipe and head of ICT& business process operation for Nigeria Mortgage Refinance Company, Taofeeq Olatinwo and others.

Leading the call at the two-day summit organised by PISON Housing Company, the founder, Roland Igbinoba expressed dismays that the Nigerian Security and Exchange Commission don’t have a crowd funding regulation that could help pull together funds for real estate financing in the country stressing that it remained a major challenge in the 21st technology world.

He said the benefit of established regulation is that foreign investors will be able to look into the market and have clear information on how to play in the market.

“People from New York, the United Kingdom and others who wants to invest in Nigeria will know that there is a regulation and procedure that needs to be followed. The industry needs to work more with government to try and take the market to the next level. The major goal we are trying to achieve is to work with Security and Exchange Commission to have a regulation for the industry so that a lot of investors who want to come into the country will not be deterred. Today if you go and sell the idea to them on crowd funding for real estate, they will tell you that they don’t understand and they we ask for how would it work in absence of regulation”.