Key ideas from MIPIM PropTech NYC

For a city that never sleeps, the energy was certainly high as the 3rd edition of MIPIM PropTech New York welcomed 1,000+ property and technology professionals to the Metropolitan Pavilion.

The event, which hosted the second day of New York’s Real Estate Tech Week, was aptly situated next to one of real estate’s biggest disruptors, WeWork’s HQ in Chelsea, New York.

Aaron Block, co-founder of proptech investment firm MetaProp, opened the event by talking about the importance of diversity and inclusion in tech and real estate: “We don’t want proptech to look the way real estate or tech has in the past. We need to do a better job to make sure women and people of colour are better represented in the industry.”

Aaron Block, co-founder of proptech investment firm MetaProp, opened the event

Filippo Rean, director of MIPIM, instilled this message announcing that 30% of the attendees were women and argued that despite this being better than previous years it’s “still not enough”.

Like most MIPIM events and more specifically proptech events, the attendees were truly global with 40% coming from outside the US and around 40 countries represented, Australia, India and Japan among them.

The C word

The day began with a panel focused on CEO collaboration. This, alongside another buzzword – customer – is a much-spoken term in proptech currently, and was on the lips of many throughout the day. Click here to read the catch up from our London Trend Talk where collaboration was a key theme.

Moderated by Chantal Clavier, sector leader at executive search firm, Heidrick & Struggles, the panel featured Scott Rechler, CEO of RXR, one of the biggest developers in New York; Chris Marlin, president of Lennar International, a leading homebuilder; and Ric Clark, senior managing partner at Brookfield Property.

• Scott talked about how “the greatest return on investment tech is providing is insight”
• Ric added: “Proptech makes our clients’ lives much more efficient; it helps us move from a bricks-and-mortar industry to a service industry”
• Chris admitted that at the Lennar office they have posters of dinosaurs on the wall to remind them that they have to “evolve or die. That’s the temperament at our company. There isn’t a way to protect from disruption: that’s the point”
• The panel agreed that collaboration has limits in such a competitive environment, but the benefits often outweigh the negatives.

“Regularly re-calibrate reality” is the discipline Scott believes is required to thrive as the real estate and tech worlds evolve

MIPIM PropTech NYC featured multiple flash talks from companies in the exhibitor area touching on subjects including blockchain, 3D visualisation and Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence, and using tech for analysis and insight.

TH Real Estate’s technology strategist, Jack Sibley, moderated a panel featuring WeWork, WiredScore, and Edge Technologies, discussing tomorrow’s users, employees and guests. There was a keynote from Michael Phillips, president of leading US investor Jamestown, who recently sold the famous Chelsea Market to Google, about innovative tech in their buildings. There were panels on venture capital and how tech founders raise money and scale; a discussion surrounding the potential of construction tech which is considered to be the slowest subsector in proptech to innovate.

The breadth of panels at the event. Click to expand

MIPIM PropTech also held the regional heat of its global startup competition. Two winners go through to the grand final at MIPIM in Cannes in March 2019; London-based District, a mobile app that connects users to buildings, and New York-based onTarget, a real-time field intelligence platform for the construction industry.

Stay tuned for more MIPIM PropTech New York coverage including video insights and a look inside the event.

There is another MIPIM PropTech this year, taking place on 27-28 November as part of MIPIM Asia.