Figure 1. Property development as a linear process.

Through the linear process shown in Figure 1, the distinction between early stage and late stage property development becomes clearer. Figure 1 is a revised version and combines elements from Børrud and Røsnes [6] and Carmona [7] . Early stage property development revolves around improving the decision making on the analytical, conceptual, financial, legislative leading to a concept, as opposed to the late stage, which is mostly defined as construction, marketing, managing and further development of the finished concept. Early stage property development is a small but important fraction of the activities in the real estate industry, and it often refers to the core of property development: The decisions on the visionary and entrepreneurial side of the real estate industry – the making of the blueprint before the construction plans go ahead [8]. In the late-stage property development, many of the most important decisions have already been made, and hence there are limited opportunities to influence the built structure. The late stage activities usually consist of managing either the construction process or the existing real estate portfolio with tenants, etc., hereunder management, operations, management (M.O.M.), which also includes FM [8].

1.3    The Sociotechnical system as context

A sociotechnical system (STS) is the networks of actors (e.g., individuals, firms), institutions (organisations, regulations, norms) and material artifacts/knowledge within a domain [9]. A bespoke STS (figure 2) has been defined as the main unit of analysis and has been established to explain how the Norwegian proptech market is influencing the real estate industry and the property development process. Proptech must be understood as an integral part of a ‘transitioning’ strategy, and by exploring who constitutes this domain, the socio-technical system will be used to evaluate different proptech tools. The STS in Figure 2 conveys the three layers that proprietary proptech interacts with:

• Public authority operates accordingly to the formal Norwegian legislation, and regulations.

• The real estate industry, as the business model or the network of individuals, firms, organisations that maintain the activities in the field.

• Civic society, the end users of properties and spaces, and opinions in a market liberalistic society.

• Proprietary proptech, the material artifacts/knowledge – software’s influence on various layers of the socio-technical structure. The nature of each proptech can vary, depending on what layer(s) they are answering to.

The vertical graph conveys proptech in equilibrium, serving the basic digital needs of the industry, e.g., TietoEvry that manages basic but important platforms between public authority and real estate industry (foreign white label tool not included among the 154 companies). The horizontal graph conveys gaps between the different layers. There are larger gaps that are more complex, e.g., solutions to automate creative processes (left side of equilibrium), and there are smaller gaps that are obvious and easier to close (right side of equilibrium). The proprietary proptech’s placements in the STS are based on measures of the degree of industry complexity, professional risk, and problem solving certainty the individual proptech takes on. More importantly the figure captures the adage: the bigger the risk, the higher the reward.

1.4 Diffusions of innovations and sustainability transitions

Two innovation frameworks will be used to examine proptech: diffusion of innovations and sustainability transitions. These frameworks bring with them necessary perspectives across business, institutional and societal contexts and are specifically designed to investigate how certain innovations succeeds. These frameworks conversely also provide insight into how certain innovations fail.

Diffusion of innovations is a communication theory that explains how, why and at what rate new technology spreads, and the social change it brings about. The five steps of adoption are described as: 1. Knowledge, 2. Persuasion, 3. Decision (adopt/reject), 4. Implementation and 5. Confirmation [10]. One relevant but less understood topic in diffusions of innovations, is the non-adoption of new or superior technological innovations [11]. Non-adoption or non-use stem from sociological research, that resistance to technology is not a study in technology, but rather a study of relationships between users or how technology interacts with its societal context [12, 13].

The term sustainability transitions, is defined as when socio-technical systems (STS) shift to more sustainable modes of production and consumption, and are identified by the long-term, multi- dimensional and deep-structural changes it has on existing sectors and industries [14]. Sustainability transitions is emerging as one of the core subfields in transition studies, which has evolved from technological transitions to socio-technical transitions – going from understanding transition from a purely technological perspective to including user practices and institutional structures [10]. Sustainability transitions is a key to understand changes on a large-scale industry level, as the real estate industry has the resources, influence, and a moral obligation to contribute to sustainable societies. The real estate industry is among the world’s biggest on revenues and employment [15, 16] and stands for nearly 40% of the world’s CO2 emissions [17].

2. Methodology

2.1 Research design, data collection and analysis

The research objective for this exploratory case study [18] is to get an overview of the Norwegian proptech market and to gain insight in what types of proptech are being applied in the real estate industry. This necessitates data gathering and analysis from three different angles within the STS defined in this paper: the proptech itself, the interaction between professionals when applying proptech, and a theoretical analysis of what constitutes a relevant proptech market. Additional interviews (20 informants representing 30 organisations) have been conducted across the defined STS, such as executives in investment firms, property development, consultants, third-party proptech suppliers, government administrations, planning authorities and interest organisations. Depending on where they are employed in the STS, they have been questioned on their individual goals, challenges, time-consumption and focus on the real estate industry. Furthermore, they have been asked to elaborate on their relations to proptech, what/how they apply it in their daily practices, the proptech solutions that fell out of favour, what they see emerging in the market. This study’s strategic sample of proprietary proptech consists of more than 154 companies that mainly were selected on the basis of StartupLab’s lists with daily or weekly updates by their scouting team, Norwegian nominees for the Nordic Proptech Awards 2023 [19] and how they within the timeframe 2013 – 2023 relate to the linear process of property development, their recurrence in Estate Media, and appearances on conferences.

The information about the sample includes company names, management/board, owners/investors, technological/professional roots, type, stages (Figure 1), purpose/slogan, offering/value proposition, business model, end-user, area of application, staff, and number of years in business. To give a full picture of trends and fads during the last decade, proptech has been included independently from their performance and in some cases dissolvement. The proptech companies that has received less attention, are those with less than 5 employees and less than 2 years in business (e.g., Homies).

2.2 Limitations

Due to time restrictions, the understanding of performance is limited to interviews, observations, and their mission statements as opposed to first-hand testing and simulations of individual proptech software. However, the individual proptech companies’ mission statements or claims about what they offers have not been contested/proven. The figures in this paper are limited in three ways: Norwegian- centric, more specifically Oslo-centric, and company-centric and proptech relegated to the activities in the linear process excluding the institutional efforts. The data collection was based on Oslo-based informants and organizations, hence there are potentially some proptech cases outside Oslo flying under the radar. This paper is also running the risk of giving an uneven picture of what has happened during the last decade, as the survival rate of startups decreases as they get older (excluding the variety of dissolved startups): 13% between 2013-2015, 28% between 2016-2018, 58% between 2019-2022 and less than 1% in 2023 (as of February 2023). The calculations in figure 3 are also based on 127 out 154 proprietary proptech, due to the fact that 27 are aiming at sectorial or institutional interests, as opposed to proptech aimed at private stakeholders/companies. The national focus and timeframe of 2013 – 2023 touches upon the subject of internationalisation of Norwegian proptech as it cuts off a digital foundation that contemporary Norwegian proptech thrives upon as basis (e.g., Parallelo, Placepoint), such as the international tech giants (e.g., Autodesk) or the institutional efforts on making data readily available (e.g., the 1980-90s efforts with the Open Data Directive, leading to the national joint map data efforts, e.g., SOSI, DOK, Geovekst collaboration, Norge Digitalt) [20, 21]. A limitation of this paper is that it has not investigated non-adoptions, because most Norwegian proptech have been in business only for a few years (2013-2023). Some statements from the real estate industry are that they are still using the same project management software as they started out with ten years back.

3. Results

3.1 An overview of the Norwegian proptech market

The different Norwegian proprietary proptech has been categorised accordingly, to what activity they answer in the linear process of property development (fig. 3). There are also proptech that reappears in multiple stages, meaning there are many players resolving the same activities. This is conveyed as additional searched hits (184 in total) across the 154 proprietary proptech companies (percentage has been calculated accordingly).

In total, 85% of all proptech software, deals partially (hybrid) or exclusively with late stage property development. There are four main categories emerging: market majority (79%), market minority (7.9%), Pure FM, or M.O.M (42%), hybrids (6.3%). In addition, there are two minor, but pivotal categories that falls outside the linear process: the outliers, and customised modules.

A clear tendency is how the market majority (79%) are overflowing the real estate industry with proptech solutions in stage 6 Construction and stage 8 M.O.M., where the blueprints have been set and the challenges are quite well defined. As a result, there are many players competing in resolving seemingly finite matters within BIM, CRM and FM. In the market minority (7.9%), there is a greater variety, showing ingenuity in responding to analytical, conceptual issues, consisting of big data insight platforms, risk assessment tools and parametric analysis modelling software (PAM). There is a tendency that the earlier the proptech are conceived in the linear property development process, the higher are the ingenuity in its proposition due to the fact that decisions for the real estate/building in question has not yet been made.

3.2 Reluctance to address early stage property development

To understand the current diffusion of proptech with emphasis on late stage property development, we must dive into the proptech industry’s perception of where crucial decisions are being made, potentially setting proptech up with limited impact on property development. According to a survey conducted in 2015 among relevant stakeholders in the property and construction industries, Norwegian property developers, landlords and tenants are reluctant to investing more in early-stage planning [22]. Property developers tend to focus on the late stage where the peak financial exposure is visible and apparent (stage 6 Construction of Figure 1 and 3), rather than focusing on the moderate financial exposure (stage 1-2) that carries more weight in the overall decision-making [23]. The decisions in the early stages are irreversible, in terms of defining the potential of what can be achieved in the late stage, such as profitability, adaptability, environment matters and the lifetime value creation of the given building.

The perception of early stage property development being the least of concern, potentially indicates a market with no incentives to diffuse innovations in early stage proptech. This affects the proptech ambitions that are being diffused, and if so, the real estate industry chooses to manage property development rather than the entrepreneurial part of property development, or to put it bluntly: simplicity over complexity.

Despite the disproportionate proptech effort/output, the real estate industry is currently highly profitable, and performs like a clockwork, and it begs the question if challenges within property development and proptech are two separate matters. This justifies the industry’s current image [3, 4] as conservative, risk-averse, and slow to implement change.

3.3 Stage 8 M.O.M. exclusively – a growing demand

42% of the proptech cases in this paper emphasise stage 8 M.O.M. in the linear property development process, and hence aim for facility managers and tenants/homeowners as end-users. The proptech in this category can be identified by their similarities in the offering: solutions of concrete and daily activities surrounding M.O.M. This narrow category instigates two important questions. Are all these proptech merely variations of the same offering “clever facility management”, and if so, are the innovators solving the same problem and competing to the bottom? A closer look at proptech like Defigo, Orbit, Really!, Bldng.ai, Unite Living, and Unloc shows that this is not the case due to at least two aspects. Firstly, there is no singular widespread adoption. Secondly, these proptech systems are unique variations of almost similar value propositions.

Facility managers across real estate companies has stated they would rather sit on their own big data by developing/investing in proptech, rather than using external solutions. Because the big data from stage 8 M.O.M. may have substantial value. This dictates a market without “one size fits all” solutions, but rather variations of the same proposition through different forms of insight platforms, online marketplaces, or smaller apps such as but not limited to intercom, housekeeping, office vacancies/flexibility, office leasing/booking, waste, gutters. Some of the proptech in this category stands out even so slightly, as some hardware/sensor installations are required (e.g., Soundsensing, Disruptive Technologies). This category may also have been expanded by a handful property developers developing their own software, because one of the property developers’ key concerns if adopting an external complete ecosystem is to avoid giving the third-party supplier full insight into the property developers’ client lists.

3.4 The market majority – niche opportunities within the bigger picture

79% of the proptech cases are a combination of stage 5-8 covering how to finance, manage and/or construct property or afterwards how to maintain, operate manage the property. The proptech in this section are characterised by its project or document management tools (e.g., Svenn, Perlo), or niche BIM tools (e.g., Sparkel, Modulize), different online marketplaces (e.g., Marketer, Drifti), or the typical “clever facility management” tools mentioned in prior section. There are two topics that stands out in stage 6. Construction, that highlights what is actually missing in the market, namely craftsmen-oriented proptech, as most proptech today mainly aim for project leadership or executive level. This is a conundrum as a large percentage of the workforce in the real estate industry are in fact craftsmen. The cases within this category show great promise, such as simplifying the craftsman’s daily life through automating the paperwork (e.g., Svenn), high-precision robotics machines for better craftmanship (e.g., nLink), troubleshooting construction sites with a digital twin (e.g., Imerso). The second topic of interest is the opportunity for learning outcomes from the typical subscription-based services in the tech industry, and the hourly fees rates among consultants in the construction stage. Instead of leasing out their tech to other craftsmen scanning sites, Emerald Geomodelling now contracts the job themselves, harvesting the big data and looping the knowledge back to their own R&D dept. The concept was coined as tech-enabled subcontractor by U.S.-based experts and presented in 2022 to StartupLab and challenges the notion about the location-specific nature of real estate and the scalability of proprietary proptech as separate matters.

3.5 The market minority – proptech aiming for early stage property development

Only 7.9 % of the proptech cases in this study emphasise early stage property development only and they are combinations of stage 1-4. This is proptech aming for property developers, planning authorities, design consultants as end users. Most of the early stage proptech aim for the B2B (business-to-business) relations, or private/public interactions, meaning the proptech here has a direct impact on the real estate industry’s core business.

These proptech systems are by design and execution very different from one another, but their common characteristics are that they are process-oriented, addresses the regulatory system, and deal with different interpretations of risk assessment and decision making. The early stages are characterised by a greater variation in their proptech proposition – from informing policies to parametric design. From here, the proptech systems can be divided in two clear subcategories: insight platforms and CAD-related automation tools.

The unique sales proposition (USP) in insight or big data platforms lies in the specific ways they aggegrate big data themselves (e.g., Telia Crowd Insights) or overlap and combine publicly available datasets (e.g., Lytics, Nordeca Insight Property, Placepoint). The key to these tools is their ability to distil propositional products from publicly available datasets to end-users such as real estate agents, property developers, and ironically enough, back to the public administrations where some of the datasets came from.

CAD-related automation tools are emerging as a Norwegian expertise. Where the Norwegian cases succeeds (e.g., Spacemaker, Parallelo) is the separation between tasks that can be automated/standardised (parametric), tasks that necessitates human judgment and judicial assessment (analysis), and finally tasks resolved on design merits (modelling). Hence ‘parametric analysis and modelling’ tools (PAM), a contradictory term coined by Norconsult [25] as all three aspects are not equal and has to be weighed next to each other when applied. Essentially, the sum of all these efforts is alleviating more time for human judgement for the applicant and judicial assessment for the planning authority. The proptech must work independently from the municipality’s organisation and size, as many of them are struggling to recruit competence on a local level [26]. There are cases at Fornebu west of Oslo where the property developer is combining Spacemaker and Parallelo in the same planning proposal. Larger consultancy firms such as Link and Norconsult are also investing in customised parametric modules to their specific cases [27, 28].

3.6 The hybrids – feedback loops from late stage big data to early stage property development

About 6.3% of the proptech cases in our sample are what in this paper is defined as hybrid proptech, dealing with both early- and late-stage property development. These tools’ target groups are property developers, real estate agents, contractors, and consultants, who often have gathered big data through their insight platforms/online marketplaces, which allows them to buy up or venture into new business propositions. To succeed in creating tools in this category is rare, as the differences in problems addressed in early- and late-stages property development are widely different, let alone from stage-to- stage.

However, with moderations, some of the hybrid tools defies the claims of early-stage decision making as the sole source of increasing lifetime value creation of buildings. A recurring factor is their ability to capture a recurring problem and interpret solutions across theproperty development stages (e.g., Laiout – automated floorplans, Kvist – environmental certifications) or more importantly, the ones that can conceptualise early stage property development business propositions, based on insights derived from their aggregated data in the late stages (e.g., Marketer).

Given that big data about “dos-and-don’ts” from existing buildings are being applied retroactively to other early stage development projects, scaling up the lifetime value creation across a portfolio can be of substantial interest. For instance, Consigli uses AI to qualify all documentation throughout the linear process: financial sounding, construction period, M.O.M. [29]. Material Mapper answers the logistical conundrum of reuse: an online marketplace that tells you in real-time in the proerty development process’ stage 6 Construction -when, where and what quantities and types of building materials are readily-available [30]. Marketer that initially automated sales-ads on existing homes have now developed new tools/platforms called M360 on the basis of their big data on customer preferences across Norway [31]. This is where Marketer is interesting as they deal with both the late stage property development and the less innovative transactional part between residential sale, but they do it in such an unexpectedly innovative fashion.

3.7 Sustainability transitions enabling a diversity of proptech outliers

Given the stage categorisations in the linear property development process, there is also a handful of proptech outliers that either falls outside of this categorisation or compete in such a niche segment they have few or no natural competitors in what they do. In figure 3, there are 27 proprietary proptech that fell out of the equation in Figure 3. The business models behind these proptech tools are not the usual software-as-a-service (SaaS), they blur the lines between the ideal layers/assigned mandate in the sociotechnical system, and they also enable different modes of production and consumption. In other words, these outliers are clearly examples of diffusion of innovation as well as seeds for sustainability transitions. These proptechs would not have existed, had it not been for the real estate sector shifting to more sustainable modes of production and consumption or undergoing the multi-dimensional and deep- structural changes due to institutional and societal pressure. Some examples of proptech instigating sustainability transitions are for instance those that improving urban policies (e.g., GLEX, Halify), power grids (e.g., AVJU), infrastructure maintenance (e.g., 7analytics, Birdsview), water management (e.g., Infotiles, Intoto) energy consumption/production (e.g., Exortex, Evyon), waste recycling (e.g., Empower). These proprietary proptechs are drawing upon the same information from the Open Data Directive but going beyond in their offerings compared to what the usual suspects are doing with the same datasets (e.g., Nordeca I.P., Placepoint): compiling/combining it in a different manner.

One could argue that these are not scalable industries but factories, or tech-related, or not even innovative in their offerings, but they represent a current zeitgeist of making the real estate industry more environmentally sustainable, more socially responsible, and more professionally collaborative – through offering services for the greater good. An established industry mantra is to compete where one must (e.g., big data) but collaborate where one can (e.g., environmental matters). Birdflock offers a social forum for professionals across the world to troubleshoot and resolve unique construction challenges. Sunday Power is a digital platform that offers free solar-cell panels on your building, with the only catch that Sunday Power retains the rights to the energy generated. Material Mapper encourages upcycling of demolition sites in close vicinity to new development sites. Kvist simplifies the BREEAM certification processes for the property owners/developers across the early and late stages. Infotiles are one of those rare privatised proptech systems that operates on an institutional level, that monitors water and waste management on a sectorial level. Their natural end-users are the government, and regional/local public authorities.

3.8 The nuances between customised modules and proprietary proptech

There is a tendency across the STS, as property development as a profession is not a rinse/repeat exercise, so are the proptech application to every unique case. Architects, engineers, property developers, and municipal and government officials are opting to customise their own modules, at times resolving real estate issues or innovating faster than the proprietary proptech software. However, the separation between customised modules and proprietary proptech is not clean cut.

In computer science, a module is described as one of many things: in terms of hardware, it is an assembly of parts. More relevant for this paper are the descriptions in software and programming: a module is an extension to a main software, or a section of code applied to a whole sequence [32]. Here comes a challenge with the application of proptech: even though the proptech itself is scalable, the real estate cases that feeds this software are non-scalable. Practitioners outside proprietary proptech companies are instigating customisation in various degrees of independence from the proprietary proptech software, and for different drivers and reasons. For instance, for consultants coding/developing niche modules saving thousands of hours (e.g., Norconsult), as there is no one-size-fit-all proptech solution to their real-world construction sites. The consultants involved in Norway’s new Government Quarter (e.g., Haptic Architects, Reope) have not only developed customised modules but are currently since its launch in November of 2022 coding sequences to complex construction matters with the help of Chatbot GPT. Other specialised consultants such as Reope, has seen how their modules have been reapplied so many times that they have transformed it back to a proprietary proptech software (e.g., Anker). Property developers are combining from two worlds, investing in how some proprietary proptechs (Consigli, TietoEvry, Sikri, Visma) that consist of multiple customised modules in answering both the early and late stage notary or risk assessments tasks. In doing so, these property developers are able to harvest on their own big data rather than giving away data as subscribers. The digitalisation of the planning process is a more complex matter, The Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development (KDD) and The Norwegian Building Authority (DiBK) are specifying strict guidelines concerning how to digitalise the government, counties and the municipalities. It is up to the third-party suppliers to rise to the occasion and interpret the digital platforms the municipalities’ planning and building agencies should use. These tasks revolve around among others internal systems (across sector interests), multiple external qualifying processes between private stakeholders and government officials surrounding building and planning matters (e.g., eKostra, the Norwegian Mapping Authority’s land registry and cadastre, Statistics Norway, etc.). There are only three major proptech suppliers in this category Sikri, TietoEvery, and Acos, offering white-label-like platforms with a built-in opportunity for public administrations to customise in line with changing legislation and practices – that generates additional consultancy fees for the three suppliers.

4. Discussions and conclusions

4.1 Incubator for game changers - Late stage big data proptech influencing early stage property development

The question is whether this allocation of the profession’s capacity is justified, and how this M.O.M heavy knowledge benefits the rest of the industry? One way to look at the overshot demand on later stages proptech, especially stage 8 M.O.M., is that the majority of overall resources are not evenly distributed in the real estate industry. The late-stage subleasing/access tools such as Unloc, Unite Living or Vogl aggregating enough big data to outperform their counterparts in their stages (7 Marketing and 8 M.O.M.). Then there are a handful few hybrid tools (6.3%) that are using their aggregating late stage big data to inform new early stage propositions more systematically and at a higher rate. Being the entrepreneurial and visionary part of property development, also means that early stage proptech is in need of substantial doses of creativity and that the solutions conceived through a high degree of trial and error – the hybrid method are potentially reducing the knowledge gap and entering the early stage market. In practice, this means instead of succeeding with that one-in-a-million standalone proptech such as Spacemaker, we are now gaining a handful of innovators (6.3% of the market) that are systematically producing a volume of unique early stage products, e.g., Consigli, Marketer, Again X. This could potentially prove beneficial that this hybrid approach by design are equally distributing the overall capacity, efforts, and resources for the real estate industry. In a sense, the strength of hybrid tools is the weakness of any successful proptech tool, namely to widen the scope so much (as deep into the late stages), or have a more open-ended offering, that can be applied in many settings rather than for a specific purpose. Thus, hybrid proptech based on use of late stage consumer market or big data can facilitate diffusion of innovations as well as sustainability transitions.

4.2 Increasing professionalism vs. replacing professionals

One of the age old questions is whether technology will replace humans, or in the field of architecture in the 1990s if CAD would replace humans. We can now ask almost the same question, namely whether AI/automation will replace professionals in the real estate industry?

This paper illustrates findings in the same vein as among architects in the 1990’s, because property developers will most likely not be replaced. However, proptech will make them rethink their current practices as the information base becomes richer, workflows changes, and productivity increases. Proptechs are now handling more than CAD, a property developer must be able to assess the volume of “automated” material that consultants are able to produce, how a proposal aligns with the strict institutional requirements on environmental/social sustainability, and not least, they are also held accountable to adopting any emerging developer-dedicated proptech that improve their analytical or assessment skills. Thus, a property developer is at a higher rate required to instantly predict, decide, and assess more complex matters than before. However, there are so far no signs of proptech replacing professionals.

4.3 No widespread adoption without institutional/organisational change

How slow or fast the rate of innovations are occurring in the Norwegian proptech market, hinges on the users’ mindset to change established business practices. Informants in private enterprises and public administrations are pointing out there are usually few issues with the proptech itself, but rather the reluctance residing in old practices. For instance, in the government administration the utilising or updating of both smaller proprietary software (e.g., Miro – foreign non-proptech tool) and larger digital platforms (e.g., Sikri) at times requires approval/coordination across ministries, directories and/or agencies. Miro for instance, has proven quite efficient in participatory processes, yet it has taken years for City of Oslo’s Planning and Building Authority to approve it as one of their official tools. There are also challenges separate from the proptech itself, as they are rooted in how public officials are judging themselves what parts of their domain knowledge can or cannot be digitalised. In the private sector, the onboarding cost of entering a specific proprietary proptech is so high, that certain property developers and consultants are refraining from implementing superior proptech alternatives. It is possible that this mindset resolves itself, with the next generation of practitioners who most likely are digital natives.

4.4 Some preliminary conclusions and topics for further research

An important side effect of the proptech development presented in this paper, is that some proptech has started to influence the professional dialogues between property developers, architects, consulting engineers, the municipalities’ planning and buildings authorities, and other stakeholders. Thus, proptech is gradually influencing and altering the property development process as well as the sociotechnical system [8] where the property development takes place.

Secondly, the real estate industry’s adoption of proptech has started, such as indicated by the diffusion of innovation theories [10]. There are examples of non-use [12, 13], but the diffusion of proptech is gaining momentum, both nationally and internationally.

Thirdly, there are currently customised modular innovations moving faster than the proprietary proptech companies in terms of problem solving, and that should not be regarded lightly in terms of whether a particular proptech is perceived as a valid option for its end users.

Fourthly, there are opportunities in merging concepts between a location-specific field and the scalability of proptech software, so that proptech is more easily diffused and adopted by the real estate industry. This paper has so far come across issues concerning the profit model, and which could be applied to different areas in the field.

Finally, one should debunk the idea that only proptech aiming for early stage property development are able to address the visionary and entrepreneurial part of the property development process, because there are valuable insights in late stage proptech. Among others because there is a considerable volume of big data in late state proptech, and because there are transferable data in the late-stage ecosystem of proptech solutions to novel proptech products, as opposed to celebrating stand-alone early-stage proptech. There is also proptech facilitating reuse of building components and circular economy and clean energy production. Thus, some of the proptech is facilitating sustainability transitions.