Listening to remote work news, we can conclude that there will be a significant enough percentage of people and companies that will make remote work a reality; this is not a Covid-19 temporary thing. And, if this is going to be the new normal of companies and workers, proptech has to take action.
Some proptech points ideas:
- This situation will produce workers’ displacement. But not only surrounding big cities but also to more remote places. Will we be able to work in Berlin but live in Barcelona? Yes! Therefore, technology must help, so companies will have to come out to help in this process. So we clearly can say that there is a new opportunity for the technology sector.
- As there will be a population redistribution, Smart cities should be metropolitan areas and not cities, and in this new context, new opportunities will come out related to services.
- Proptech sectors such as furniture rental companies (Rentchester) or appliances rental (Tecfys), and even storage (Pinabox), will have a tremendous impact in this new living way. Displaced people will not know for how long they will stay at that place so they will need flexible solutions.
The proptech sector should take advantage of this moment and imagine what changes this new normality entails, which in some cases will be definitive, and create imaginative solutions for the unique challenges posed by the pandemic.
In Spain, we should take advantage of our way of life, climate, gastronomy, culture, and powerful digital ecosystems, as the Barcelona one, to attract young entrepreneurs who can no longer enter the USA and offer them scalability from here.
Gustavo Lopez
Operations Director at the Real Estate Agents Association in Catalonia