The Past, Present, and Future of Proptech

Looking for an explanation of the power of "proptech," technology designed to disrupt the real estate industry? Then look no further than New York City, where Crain's New York Business reporter Greg David shows how one real estate company is already putting proptech to work.

David starts the exploration with the example of NANTUM, a cloud-based operating system developed by the Rudin Management Company. Rudin has even created a subsidiary called Prescriptive Data to develop proptech. Examples of NANTUM at work include property managers responding to citywide mandates for temperature regulation across the entire Rudin portfolio, or using the technology to respond to power spikes after a power outage.

Despite the successes of the companies already in the proptech space, the number of traditional real estate companies pushing into proptech "can be counted on one hand," according to David.

New regulations might push NANTUM into the next level of scalability, according to David. "Nantum's biggest opportunity may come from the tough climate-change law passed by the City Council this year requiring a 40% reduction in large building emissions by 2030 and an initial cut by 2024." Protech will become a necessity in the kind of regulatory environment established by laws like New York's new climate change law, according to sources cited in the article.

The article includes more details about the origins of NANTUM (the 2009 Obama stimulus package) and its partnerships with Con Edison, the utility in New York City.