📢 Our seventh podcast 🎙/article is devoted to Inclusion.  The “Real Estate Better” is our series featured by PropTech Slovakia and its partners from Slovakia and abroad.  Each episode is devoted to actual real estate challenges, while we share tips, solutions and experiences on how to solve them. This episode was focused on challenge of : 🔦 “More S in ESG & how Inclusion Boosts Business”.

Some topics are closer to our hearts. Especially if we feel more human with them. More of us feel the topic of inclusion is exactly the one.

We were speaking with my co-host Martin Stohl from Slovak Green Building Council with our guests Tamas Méri and Miguel Chaparro from Access4you.

We at PropTech Slovakia and FM Institute Slovakia often have missed „S“ solutions in ESG strategies. This has been not the case just in Slovakia but elswhere in the world as well.

Just a couple of years ago, founders of Access4you came with very nice vision of change to a much more inclusive society that includes the biggest minority of people with various forms of permanent or temporal disabilities
(I had not notion how big is this minority, but it counts around 20 % of global population = 1/5).

Now Access4you seems to become the most elaborated and inspirational certification and information system with track-record of more than 1000 assessed locations/projects in 23 EU countries.

We spoke about:
👉 Why this company was created? (Story of one of the co-founders)
👉 Who and How many people deserve special attention of Real Estate sector?
👉 What are the products Access4you can offer to help these people as well as Real Estate to be more inclusive and more successful in business?

Access4you is an international certification mark that provides detailed and reliable information about the accessibility of the built environment. It is good for society and brings benefits for business.

Thus Access4you does not only help people living with a disability to live a more confident life but also benefits property owners and companies, in addition to this, achieving their business and ESG goals with a certified S data.

You can view the whole recordings here: https://lnkd.in/eMpRKsHM
For better orientation here are the Chapters
0:17 Intro of the Webinar

3:33 Introduction of Tamáš

5:23 Introduction of Miguel

7:00 Introduction of Martin

11:45 How big is the related community?

18:30 What kind of facilities, spaces or events need to be accessible?

23:25 Accessibility in New European Sustainability Reporting Standards

26:31 Drivers of the “S” in ESG and green building certifications

31:58 Source of information on accessibility of buildings

38:40 How many projects are accredited by Access4you® so far?

40:25 Comparison with the green building certification designing process how to achieve the wished ranking

45:30 How long does the certification with Access4you® take compared to BREEAM/LEED?

47:46 Recognition of Access4you® by GRESB

50:28 Integration with ESG schemes and Green Building certificates

54:00 How long does it take to became accredited professional of Access4you® and related benefits

____________________________________________________________________

 Complete Transcription

(Dear visitor, this is complete transcription of our webinar and podcast made by the AI “Whisper”. Whisper is very good, but not perfect and we dared to make just a very quick human supervision of its work. Anyway, if you find some gaps, errors, etc. do not let them disturb you. You can freely contact us or any of our podcast participants via LI profiles, should you wish corrections or further explanations)

 

Milan (0:17 Intro of the Webinar)

Good morning, everyone. It’s a pleasure to have you all here. This is Real Estate Better. This is our webinar or podcast series that we put together with our partners. Our partners, I mean partners of PropTech Slovakia. And these partners are from Slovakia or from abroad. And what we are doing and speaking about during these webinars and podcasts is we are looking for finding solutions for actual real estate challenges. And we share tips, solutions, experiences with finding ways how to cope with them.

Challenge for this webinar is more S in ESG and how inclusion can boost business.

So it’s a really great pleasure that with me here is Martin Stoll who is a very deep in this ESG topic for more than 10 years. He’s architect, professional. He’s representing Slovak Green Building Council. And he’s very deep in this topic. He will be my co-moderator. He’ll place a couple of questions. I will leave you words in a while. Our host today and it’s my pleasure to welcome Tamás Meri who is one of the co-founders of company Access4you. And he’s actually Chief Business Development Officer and Miguel Chaparro who is a Business Development Manager. And it’s really good because today we will not speak just about the S but also about the business, about the G = Governance. And that’s why two people with focus on business development are really welcome.

What is Access4you? Access4you is an international certification mark that provides detailed and reliable information about the accessibility of the built environment. What does it mean? It is good for society and benefit for business. Meaning, it does not only help people living with a disability to live a more confident life but also benefits property owners and companies, in addition to this, achieving their business and ESG goals with a certified S data. These companies get also an idea of how barrier-free their locations are and how their accessibility can be improved for each stakeholder group. This is more like a definition but now in a human speech let me leave words to Tamás. What does it mean? And if you want anything to add to your introduction, please, it’s very welcome.

Tamás (3:33 Introduction of Tamáš)

Thank you very much. Thank you for the stage and thank you for the invitation. First of all it’s a great idea what you are doing. I appreciate it very much and I’m happy that we can share this topic with the audience. I’m Tamás Méri, the co-founder actually an entrepreneur in Hungary over 30 years and also a property professional for more than 25 years as developer and asset manager and in different positions also. And my story or our story in the Access4you International started five years ago when I started to let’s say consult my good friend who is a wheelchair user and he had a business idea and concept and he started to share this idea with me and it happened in 2019. Frankly saying I was that time like I didn’t know anything about these people at all and I faced a shocking statistic and I like to share our presentation sharing this statistic that in an average population the proportion of the disabled people is something like 15-16 percent. How is it possible? I don’t see them at all and the answer is that part of the disability is not visible because you cannot realize that someone has a hearing impairment.

Milan

Tamás, we will come to that. I would like to give it more space because this is really really important that we will come to this. I just want to give floor to Miguel to short introduction if he can say something about him and then to Martin and we’ll go straight to the topic.

Tamás

No problem. Thank you.

Miguel (5:23 Introduction of Miguel)

Thank you so much, Milan. Yeah definitely. So what I would have to add to this is that I joined Access4U because I truly believe in the mission. I think it’s something that is very needed in these times. I mean there’s a lot of solutions for the “E” aspect but there’s not too many solutions for the social aspect and we have seen more and more that there is you know more mental pressures and you know public pressure to put more emphasis in accessibility and inclusion and that’s why now coming back to this I you know I fell in love with the mission. I personally myself I have a two-year-old kid. And then when I joined Access4U I was truly shocked by the numbers you know the number that Tamash mentioned and I noticed that these numbers actually extend way more than only 15 percent because accessibility it’s a matter of not only to people with disabilities but people with mobility problems, the elderly, the people with temporary disabilities and people with strollers and I fell into that category. I definitely can’t relate to this because I have suffered these consequences myself and so. Yeah, that’s a little bit about me. Thank you, Milan.

Milan

Thank you very much. Martin, could you please tell us more about your background and why this topic is interesting for you?

Martin (7:00 Introduction of Martin)

Sure, first of all I’m really happy that we have this opportunity to discuss this topic I think it’s very important. Where I have started basically I started working in Canada by back in 1999 as an architect and it was a part of the initiation process for us architect designers that basically are both requested from us to sit on a wheelchair and spend the whole day you know on the wheelchair just to experience what’s going on and how it is in in real life when you cannot properly open the door or go to the toilet go to whatever you need to do around the building so this was all the first time that I really realized that it’s not enough to have some mandatory requirements by law or local authorities but you need to really understand what’s going on and this ever since this moment was coming through my professional life so I moved to Slovakia after 11 years in Canada. And the situation here is slightly improving but it’s still very significantly undernourished. Let’s call it that way I was comparing the standards what we have here in Slovakia We have five pages dedicated to specific requirements for buildings for example which is absolutely inadequate compared to let’s say DEAN requirements in Germany or ADA requirements or in the United States. So this is one side the other side is that I was looking at some statistics here in Slovakia we have 870 000 people with some kind of disability and this is a country of five and a half million you know. So, it represents more than those 15 percent that we discussed it’s 18 percent and another statistics is that 80 percent out of this number of disabled are in the age of working age so these are normally active people and what stuck in my mind is also the old-fashioned term that was used for these people they call them very nasty word “invalid” here which means that basically they are of no value to the society and these disabled people I think our purpose is also to enable them to not be disabled but be fully functional I much rather prefer the term handicapped. So that’s one package of people but of course we need to discuss the rest of all the groups that need to be addressed and those are people who also need special attention of whether it’s seniors, whether it’s pregnant women, whether it’s parents with strollers, small kids, etc. So it’s a huge topic. I was involved in this topic with big developer companies for the last 15 years here in Slovakia and I have also prepared a manual which is like a practical guide for our architects to design properly. But still, I’m really welcoming that there is initiative like access for you so I’m very interested also to hear more about it even though I checked out your website and we had the opportunity to discuss all this.  I think it was one year ago or a little bit longer than that so that’s the introduction from me. Thank you!

Milan

It’s excellent.  Thank you! Martin, if you have any question, please, ask. We have a couple of questions I think that there will be overlap with what you want to ask but if there is anything you would like to ask on top of that, please, ask. First of all, thank you for your introduction. It’s very nice to have you here. Tamás already touched this topic. It’s the: What group of people are we talking about?, and: How is it related to the overall community? Could you, please, tell us more, Tamas now?

Tamáš (11:45 How big is the related community?)

Yes, I have the pleasure and if I may to follow the stats of Martin here. Another additional statistic that you mentioned Martin that the majority of these people in a working age. It’s also very important to know and it’s an important statistic that 80 percent of these people who are in this kind of change status or in this special status they landed there between an age of 18 and 64. What does it mean for us? For them? That majority of these people they know that how was their life before. It was a complete life. A healthy life. A complete life they and they try to maintain keep working, keep entertaining, keep shopping, doing the same as before. And this is a natural need for their side, but they are in a different situation. And there is an additional important aspect, let’s say.

I heard somewhere there are two models, let’s say. One is the um the has model and the other one is the social model. The has model says that the handicapped people himself or herself is not able to access, is not able to communicate. But the social model says that our environment is not inclusive. So, basically we are not helping them or the environment doesn’t help them to access or to communicate or to interfere our life, which is a completely different attitude. Because otherwise that this has model or they are taking on themselves. Then they really feel uncomfortable that I’m not able to manage to do something. And this this is very bad because they have that very sad feeling that I’m not okay. But this is not the fact. Not they are not okay. The world is not okay around them. And this is a huge difference.

So, I like to start presentations to play a bit with the audience that okay every sixth of the audience should stand up and when we counted 20 persons in the audience then okay. Who has registered the disability or something should stay out. One-two persons max with some hearing impairments or something. So, they are underrepresented in our everyday life. And actually, Balázs, my partner the founder, a wheelchair user, he realized that actually this underrepresentation is also based on three facts actually. And one fact is that the build environment is not accessible. But on the other side, there is no information about the accessibility features of the build environment. And if they are, exist, they are not precise, not trusted and not detailed. And why this is important? Because they – these people – they need to plan their everyday life. Or, once they leave their well-known surroundings, they need information accurate information to be able to plan because they are not adaptive. So, if I’m facing a closed door I am climbing through the window. This is me and you but a wheelchair user, they are they have a completely different opportunity. So, their skill capacity is different. Who we are speaking about? This was your questions. Actually, the registered 15 – 16 percent is people the wheelchair users with different kind of movement impairments, blinds or visual impairments, deaf or hearing impairments and the cognitive suffering, different cognitive problems like down syndromes or autism or any neurodiverse some problems. They are also our stakeholders group. So, we are working for all these and as Miguel very properly mentioned, our information, so the system, our answer, what we will explain later that what we created, this information is also useful and and valuable for the elderly people. Basically, they are suffering the same problems. And also for the parents with the baby strollers. So basically, we can speak even about one-third of the of the society.

And we can also add to that that these people are very often, the how to say, they are filtering the possibility of a bigger team. So a wedding, if the witness is a wheelchair user, the event hall must be accessible for him otherwise hundred people cannot join the wedding. So you can imagine that what we are speaking about is a crowd.

Milan

Exactly! Yesterday, when I was speaking about it, I realized that it is a snowball. Just this 15 or 30 percent that we define is a snowball of a much bigger team because it’s always part of the community and whatever you are planning, wedding or team building, the team must think about this and if it is not, the team is not complete. So,it’s really just the core of the snowball. The ball is much bigger.

 

Tamás

That’s correct and what we are also saying that if a building is designed or built based on the universal design this is not only good for the disabled people, people with special need, but it’s much better for everyone.

My personal case: I’m not in that age yet and I have not registered, but I don’t see properly actually. But a few years ago when I delivered Balász to a place for a negotiation I ran up from the garage and there was a glass door and I was running through the glass door. It was not broken but my head was almost broken. So basically, I’m, let’s say I’m okay. I’m not in any of the stakeholder groups, but I was running through because there was no signage on the door and there was a glass door there.

 

Milan

Anyone who is tired has some kind limited yeah in in cognitive perspective. Miguel, could you add, please, because I studied a bit and I know that the problem is big. Yeah? But what facilities are you preparing the certifications for? Is it just commercial real estate or just real estate or it’s something else as well?

 

Miguel (18:30 What kind of facilities, spaces or events need to be accessible?)

That’s a very good question. Yes. Definitely. Milan. Well, let’s go back a little bit. If we know the challenges, the ones that Tamás mentioned, that, the building environment is not accessible for everyone. There is none information and even though there is information, usually based on self-declaration- Right? It’s a problem that it’s related to people with disability or people with accessibility needs and it extends to the real estate market. Now, this is  what the solution where we’re presenting. It’s for,  you know, the commercial market, residential market and even events.  Because accessibility as you know, accessibility rights should be in many different sectors. Not only for building environments accessibility, universal accessibility should be extended to as I mentioned before – events as well.

So, the solution that we present for these challenges that extends to people with disabilities and to the real estate market is a certification and we make sure we certify how accessible and inclusive these environments or events are for people with accessibility needs and it’s based on not only in international accessibility standards, but also it has been developed by people that have some sort of disability and rehabilitation practitioners and so on, so on. So, we and engineers, we involve a lot of people to develop this software that audits the environment – the building environment. And to actually start ticking the boxes, if it’s really accessible or not. Because we have to face the reality that our effort and support today, building owners, they want to say that they are accessible and they are not. This was the reality. And we have to truly do something about it. This is the mission of, unfortunately Balázs cannot be here, but this is exactly the mission of Tamás and Balázs that knew to really provide a true information about the accessibility of this.

So, that is why, and just to finish the answer, that is why our website is made for the end user. It’s made to provide reliable information for the end user – for people with accessibility needs and to show truly how accessible these buildings are. You can name it. So, answer to your question:

• It could be office buildings, shopping mall centres, restaurants, governmental entities, so on, so on. Pretty much everything because it’s related to accessibility and inclusion.

Tamás

… museums, theatres, sports facilities, hotels, restaurants. We are certifying 15 different real estate segments. In the comparing, let’s say with the BREEAM certificate, this is the news. So, our core certificate is the Access4you® Building, which is for the existing building and we have two extensions or two additional product or services what we are delivering:

• One is Access4you® Workplace. Because we know that this is very important for the employers. And we can later speak about the four target groups in the “S” chapter of the ESG that who it is good for. So, we are giving a certificate for the employer. This is the Access4you® Because within an office building the public area is that the principal is the landlord – the building owner – they are responsible for the public areas. But the lease area, the tenant is responsible for the accessibility, the furniture and everything so that this is a separate topic actually.
• And we have Access4you® Design because the developers are very often coming to us that we like what you do. I don’t have a ready building, but I would like to have as much as possible accessible building when it’s ready. So, please, help me in the design phase, during the planning that how can I reach that goal.

So, basically this is our three schemes, let’s say. But as I mentioned that we try to deliver that equal life for these people in every segment of life. So that’s why we are collecting the data for them from every segment of the life, from shopping, working, entertaining and whatever.

 

Milan (23:25 Accessibility in New European Sustainability Reporting Standards)

Thank you! Thank you for mentioning this new European sustainability standards (ESRS), because they were published just in this December and what’s surprising is that they’re bringing four “S” standards. And when I was firstly thinking of people with some form of disability, I thought that okay, this is the maybe the biggest minority. So “Affected communities” – this is standard for them. But then I realized: No! These are also “Employees”. These can be also “Users”. Yes? So, all four standards, actually, and “Suppliers”. Yeah? So, all four standards should reflect needs and possibilities that this this group of people can bring. So, it can have impact on all four “S” sustainability standards.

Miguel

If I may add something to that, like this truly, I mean we could just think that this doesn’t affect the real estate community. But it’s extremely related to tenants or building owners, developers, property management. It’s extremely related to them. I know there’s a lot of focus on the social aspect, but let’s take into consideration that the relations for the ESG reports are coming altogether. They’re not coming in separate sections for different, for separate years. They’re coming altogether. And if property owners, developers or everyone related to the real estate segment is just waiting, you know, to put out fires, I think that’s at least a huge mistake. We should prevent this with solutions that are focusing on bringing accessibility and inclusion. Accessible for everyone, right?

And I think in AccessibleEU which is the European commission for rights focusing on European accessibility and that is going to make sure that these regulations are going to take place into European countries, they stipulate that companies in the European union will have to report disability inclusion. This is that is going to take place ver-very soon. And we have to be even for, it’s shocking one of the things that is very-very shocking to me, again is to find out that the real estate segment you know property owners, even CEOs of big corporations, they are not aware of these things. Because they’re taking advice from different advisories and it’s just a mess. It’s complete chaos. No one truly knows what is coming our way. And we should pay attention to this. It’s very-very important.

 

Milan

Thank you!

 

Martin (26:31 Drivers of the “S” in ESG and green building certifications)

If I may even. Maybe if I can expand on what Miguel had said. Again, a view from a developer, commercial developer. There are two aspects which are in my opinion very important. Drivers these days now:

• We do the ESG reporting. We have started with this process as most of the big companies are doing and it’s not only the systems such as GRI and GRESB, which show basically are kind of a checklist for ESG (environmental social and governance) which include the requirements for the social which includes the inclusivity but it’s also the more stringent CSRD, which is lined with the EU taxonomy. So, we are pushed we are pushed by the EU legislation to report on whatever we are doing on “S” front and this is a very critical part of this “S” in the ESG as basically, you, milan, had put right in the name of this discussion.
• And the other aspect is so, especially our viewing of the market. Basically, the certifications such as BREEAM had been here for a long time. But now we’re working much more with the system such as WELL, which is looking at the indoor quality environment. And the idea behind it is to attract the quality employees and especially the younger generation. And we can safely say that all the physical handicaps have nothing to do with the intelligence or capabilities. So, these people are really in the high proportion highly skilled and if employers are looking for really the best on the market to have engaged as employees, they need to make provisions for these people to feel included, to feel comfortable and be part of this whole infrastructure in the building.

So, we are trying to integrate all these features and go even beyond that’s required by the legislation. That’s really too little. And the other discussion I’m speaking now from practice, because we discuss these topics quite a lot internally, so one of the very frequent questions is: How much does it cost? You know, we have a difference between the existing built buildings, where we need to adjust for accessibility. But for the new buildings the extra cost is minimal, when you implement and when you think ahead about these provisions. So even such things as wheelchair accessible toilets. They could be very well integrated with other functions. Let’s say changing bed or changing station for small children with other things. So, this could be done very easily that goes also for the enough space you know. You need to provide this 1.5 meter radius wherever possible so it could be integrated into design when we are thinking about very early.

So, I think we are now in some kind of a transition stage, where there is higher demand. Both push and pull for all these things. So, I think even your initiative Access4you®, I think, is coming in a very right time. Because for ourselves speaking again we need to create some kind of a competitive environment even between investors and developers that would be very healthy to all show that ,basically, who is providing better environments. And also, I think it’s our pride to provide buildings which are inclusive and which are really welcoming to anybody.

Tamás

Absolutely.

Milan

Thank you! Thank you, Martin. If I may come back a little bit. You already mentioned that you are providing some kind of certification and but it’s not only about the certification about a trademark Access4you®. It’s also about information system. And this has something with a in my view is bigger vision. Because we are always looking at the buildings as just one building, yeah? Does it have this, does it have that? But when we are planning for instance journey or looking for a flat or looking where I will work for, we are comparing more buildings and is there something that Access4you® offers also in this sphere like information system?

Tamás (31:58 Source of information on accessibility of buildings)

It’s a basically our product that is an information system. It is a software. Actually, we have two legs for that: One is for the users. For this huge group of disabled people, they need this accurate information. So, this is, let’s say the output of our activity. It’s – these data are available for them on our website. And we have a special mobile application for them. They can filter it on themselves. We are including hundreds of buildings and hundred thousands of information. Actually, just for the knowledge of the audience today we are in a position to raise at least thousand different questions regarding the accessibility of a building of course it’s depending on the segment. So,  we are raising different questions. In a hotel like in a shopping mall or of course it can be spread but theoretically there are at least thousand different questions to be raised. So, the answers are organized accordingly. That according to the type of the disability the person can filter on himself. A wheelchair user is not interested what is relevant for a blind person. You understand. So, this is the output side.

But since we are delivering this information digitally or digitized, we also wanted to collect it digitized. So, basically, the data collection part of our activity. which is very important in the whole procedure that the data will be trustful for them. I mean for the users. If it is not based on self-reporting of the building owner. Why? Because prior we realized that this self-reporting creates a lot of misunderstandings. Because there was no common language between the building owners and the users. So, if a building owner spoke about access, the term “accessible” –  it very often doesn’t mean the same what for the users mean. So basically, we had to create this common language.

There is a very fixed structure to collect objective data. And, actually it is done by our auditors. So, we are sending out professionals everywhere we are present on the markets either our staff or through different professional partners. We are collecting the data with the help of a software. So, we have our audit software in that we are raising the questions yes/ no answers or text answers. We are making photos with them a lot. And measurements. So, basically,  this is the data collection.

And between the two we have the black box. Let’s say the smart part. The brain, which is analyzing this data. We have our, or let’s say private standard and this will be for sure for Martin will be an interesting question that, okay: What is the Access4you® standard? Because he also mentioned the local slovak standards, which, i think, is rather code than standard. Because the building codes are a bit lower level than the standards themselves. And also in the United States ADA is the standard or a DeckBehind and but they have also different building codes in the countries and cities and so on. So we have our private standard which is mainly linked in Europe to the ISO, to the European accessibility ISO. But it’s a bit different. So, it’s not covering everything.  Our software for the users is based on usability of the building. So, we wanted to create hard criteria and a lot of nice to have features. But our ranking qualification and ranking system is based on the hard criteria. We say that for the wheelchair user there are 20-25 different aspects which has to be delivered by a building in order to be able to use for them. There are a bit less for the other stakeholder groups, but if a building is matching other hard criteria of a building then we say that okay. This is suitable, useful for them. And based on these things for the stakeholders group we are giving either a certified place or bronze, silver or gold ranking or qualification of a building as much stakeholder groups is served by them. And this is the final result.

And between the two after the analysis we are issuing an audit report which includes this final result. But it’s very important we are also adding improvement suggestions. It’s also just to reach a higher ranking. So, it is still based on our standards. But we have the building owners to improve the accessibility of the building. And it is, it was very interesting that finally we realized that this is an indirect impact of our activity. First of all, we wanted to deliver the information for the users. But because of this ranking a lot of companies told that bronze is not enough for me. I would like to have silver. And this motivated them to improve the buildings which is more than welcome. And, of course the carbon footprint of a prevention. So, a good design including everything is much cheaper than later on to modify the things.

But, frankly saying we see that in order to reach a higher ranking is very often is mainly for the other stakeholders. And it’s really cheap solutions. A device for example to deliver I mean to manage the communication between the deaf people it’s a, we see cheap solutions for that. So, basically this is what we are giving with the certification for the buildings. And everything is based in this complex

software actually. And what is very important in terms of ESG that ESG requires result based on data. And for PropTech and for your profession that actually it is really a challenge to deliver data in the social chapter. So, it is for that reason. It’s also fit very much into the ESG, let’s say thinking that this result it’s based on data. Real data.

 

Milan

So if I’m someone with a disability, I can find this information in the app that you mentioned and also on the website, yeah?

 

Tamás

Yeah, exactly.

 

Milan (38:40 – How many projects are accredited by Access4you® so far?)

And you have roughly how many projects behind?

 

Tamás

Actually, we started our activity in 2019 in Hungary. In Hungary we already audited over 800 different buildings from every segment as, let’s say, a pilot country. And now we extended our activity in other countries as well. Today, I think we have more than thousand buildings audited already. Of course, the need is to have as much as bigger database. As long as it is not so big our application is not properly working as a listing app. Because the aim would be that all these certified buildings are on the map. And wherever you are where you be and you are searching for a particular service which is accessible for you, you can do it via our app. But today rather the information is reaching the users either from the service provider side. So, for example media market in Hungary, they put our logo and the link on their website and they say that, okay: Once you are searching for a media mark shop, check it before through our website. Every single property has a property sheet in our database with all the accessible information. And on the top some photos about the building and the small marketing and the opening hours and things like that. So, basic information and so the users can check every single property separately. The data about them and basically this is the way how we are giving the information for them.

 

Milan

Okay Thank you very much!

 

Martin (40:25 Comparison with the green building certification designing process how to achieve the wished ranking)

If I may have a question to Tamás because I assume that basically you have a set of criteria based on which after checking by your auditors there will be a ranking point to the to the project. So, you can achieve one of those levels at the end. But my question is with regards to the designing process: If there is any support from your side or during the process when the project is being designed. Because those criteria it would be ideal this is actually the way we work for example with certification systems like BREEAM, LEED and WELL that they have let’s call it manuals. It’s very clear what you need to achieve in order to achieve the highest ranking. So, I was just wondering how does it work with Access4you®. If you have a similar system of criteria that we can follow and consult you.

 

Tamás (

Yeah. It’s a very important question actually. How we can, how often we are and how open the information is. It is interesting because as a startup and what we saw that our let’s say value or our know-how is this list or questionnaire and actually, our methodology that what we are speaking about. So, we were not so open to make every single of these questions transparent let’s say. So, basically if you have a client and we have in the design phase we are facing a good result in the existing building phase. So, this is a kind of preliminary work together. We make the same tour as in the reality on the side. But on the design, on the, I mean on the plans. We are making the same tour on the building. And basically, the assessment is exactly the same. But we are not making the photos but asking the same questions based on the plan aiming the good result in the existence when it will be ready. The criteria are today different. We are a bit less requirements towards an existing building than in the new construction let’s say. This is the term rather what LEED and BREEAM is using.

 

So, the new construction is we can require a bit more. It must deliver better accessibility in the end of the day. And actually, in our report we are sending back the plans with our remarks that there it has to be modified and changed. So, it is a kind of consultancy. If we have a client and we are giving this kind of design tools. So basically, we say that okay: What are the requirements? You have to take care of and unfortunately not everything is, how to say, designable. So part of the requirements is, let’s say, is just on the last day you put the device on the reception desk which never appears on a plan but we also give information about this not 3d but let’s say 2d pieces actually. We try to work together with the with Graphisoft on that that those criteria which we really consider very important to create 3d tools in the design software. But, it looks so that it’s really not feasible because after using the 3d design software even the electricians are working in 2d and they don’t deliver their plans in .dvg but in .pdf. So, it is not the status at the architects. So, it’s probably too much about nothing to create new 30-40 different pictograms for them to put in the 3d design. But let’s discuss it because if you as designer you consider that it would be a help for the architect to show additional things then we can go ahead further with that. But finally, these things today we also give a list of necessary requirements. And they can express it in a designer report that I will take care of it. And there is a kind of declaration that I will deliver, when the building will be ready. And our preliminary judgment based on the plans plus the declaration that okay. I don’t want to do that but I will deliver that and that. And this is the final result. And this is how we can help them. But we are giving a kind of design tool or a not a full manual but more or less that’s, yeah.

Milan (45:30 How long does the certification with Access4you® take compared to BREEAM/LEED?)

Tamás, Miguel, can you try to specify  how long does it take? This process in average. An average project.

 

Miguel

Yes, definitely. In comparison to other certifications such as BREEAM, LEED or WELL that not only take a very long time, because of the complexity of the certification, but also takes time and project management from the clients as well. One of the things that we are very-very proud of to say is that our social certification is very easy to implement. It’s something that is by the audit. When we say an auditor to a certain place because of the software that we have, which is automatised.

Milan

And this is in case of any aspiration? If I want to be gold, silver or bronze it’s always the same?

 

Miguel

Yes. It’s relevant to the level of the certification. For example, it’s not going to take the same time to audit a restaurant than to audit a shopping mall centre. But still even shopping mall centre with more than 30 000 square meters, it can be audited in a day and the other reports it takes approximately the same time in less than a day. And as Tamás said we send it with the development suggestions.

Now this is excellent. I think it happened in Romania and one of our clients. They needed a really fast solution, because they needed to turn in to give the reports and they were short for a few points. And they were looking for a quick solution. A solution that was definitely reliable and not time consuming. And they audited their entire portfolio with us. So, this is one of the huge advantages that we can have.

(47:46 Recognition of Access4you® by GRESB)

Another thing that I would like to add, because Martin mentioned about some of the frameworks such as GRESB or GRI. These are, you’re right, we have been recognized as a design and or construction green build certification and an operational green build certification scheme under the GRESB framework which is very important. We can now validate and say that they can use us.

 

Milan

So, it means that this thanks to Access4you® in GRESB you can get another point. Yeah? Thanks to Access4you®.

 

Tamás

Today 0.3, but we are fighting to reach the 1 point. There is 0.3, 0.7.

 

Milan

Out of 100 it is significant.

 

Tamás

It is significant. Yeah. But we are recognized and to date our certification has a value of 0.3 point in GRESB but there is a chance that it will be increased now. And frankly saying it’s a secret but I can share because this will be published all over. We are trying to find an interface between LEED, BREEAM and WELL as well, because the area is a need in this every kind of service.  So, they want to deal something with disability. And now there is a hard working between this organization and us to analyse our approach, our methodology and if it is proper then our scoring system will be converted into this. So probably we also added after the bronze, silver and gold ranking a scoring final result. Which is rather the approach of this professional certificates. And probably fits better this scoring into the ESG report. And a horizontal comparison is possible within the industry or a vertical within the time. So, if a landlord is improving the building then three years later it can be re-measured. That okay: How much did I read the scoring caps in this respect. And we try to create a conversion system within our scoring into these systems. So, we are working very much on that that we will be not only recognized by GRESB but also by LEED, BREEAM and WELL. And because they want to solve it and it’s much better that someone has solved it in a proper way. And they can say that okay: If you have Access4you® this and that and it has a value also for us. Let’s see.

 

Martin (50:28 Integration with ESG schemes and Green Building certificates)

It’s really-really good to hear and I’m really happy to hear this that there is this integration with the both ESG and BREEAM and WELL. One, maybe additional comment that I would have: We typically work with a triangle of certifications. As I have mentioned it’s sustainability, that means BREEAM and the indoor healthy environment that’s mostly WELL. And then we have the third one. And coincidentally we cooperate here with Milan on the smart building certification which includes for example a smartphone application with wayfinding so this may be used very well as a tool also for the handicapped people who need assistance navigating – wayfinding around the building. So, all of these three I think your certification could be really nicely integrated. It’s somewhere in between both BREEAM and WELL have some parts of accessibility portion. You know we need to provide the accessible toilets and accessible wayfinding but if you have something dedicated to this topic it fits perfectly well. And again, speaking from our developer standpoint, we need this objectivization let’s call it of the criteria how do we compare it, let’s say, to our competitors to other buildings. So, this is a perfect tool and there will be I predict I have a crystal ball right now but I predict that there is a very strong future even for your certification.

 

Miguel

Thank you, Martin.

 

Milan

Thank you very much. I see two questions. One is very similar to the topic that we are just speaking. It’s about comparison with other certification schemes: To which one is Access4you® the most similar. Is it BREEAM? Is it WELL? Is it FITWELL or new European sustainability reporting standards? This is I think something absolutely unique but complementing.

Tamás

Yes. We are only dealing with a very-very small portion of all these big schemes. That’s the reason that the management contribution from the principle is far less. So as long as LEED and BREEAM is a very complex requirement stuff, actually, and accessibility is a very small part of it, the principal has to deliver a lot of information. Here in our, and this is the answer for your prior question, if someone decides that I want to have Access4you®  certificates it’s six-eight weeks max so after contracting and to deliver the final result. And the only contribution from the landlord is to give someone who is leading us through the building and basically that’s it. Everything is done by us. It’s a very objective, a very neutral data collection which further on will be analyzed and evaluated by us. So, we are completely independent. We value what we assess, what we see. So, basically this is the base for our analysis. And it’s very simple. And it really takes no more than one or max two days even in big and complex buildings. That’s the real work actually. Yeah.

 

Milan (54:00 How long does it take to became accredited professional of Access4you® and related benefits)

And the last question from audience or it was first one: How difficult is it to become acredited professional for sales of Access4you® trademark and for auditing individual project with Access4you® and how much time do candidates need to reserve for it. I think this is relevant when you are entering new market like Slovakia, because as Martin said we do not have nothing else than law at the moment. And the certification schemes touch it very-very lightly. So, and if we want to start certify your buildings and you are looking for candidates how long does it take.

 

Tamás

Luckily our business model is exactly answering this question.  That we were ambitious at the beginning. We saw the answer for this global problem on earth that there is lack of information and we created our answers in a way that it’s able to be copy past. So, we wanted to be a standard all over the world. And actually our or we can deliver the growth and be present everywhere through accredited partners. We have an e-learning staff, an accreditation system with e-learning staff and the exam and today we split it in two different chapters, because there is a let’s say a sales part. And to be become an auditor it requires a bit more learning and knowledge to learn: Our admin tool software, how it works. The sales accreditation is for free because it’s in order, it’s for the mission that we want to grow the presence of this mission everywhere. The accreditation part, I would say that if someone is really keen to do it, it can be done in a few weeks. We see that it’s only dependent on the appetite of the potential partner. It really doesn’t take so long. By the admin. So in the audit we require a pilot project. Some building should be in seen a proof surroundings. Actually, it is not the hot database. Something can be measured by themselves and we are helping a lot. Our chief auditor or the staff – we are helping to learn it. And we also suggest that once you are an accredited partner we are also helping by the start. So, probably the first sharp audit we can have by phone or to be there present. Actually, Sovakia is a neighbour country. So, we can help you even on this learning by doing so on the site if necessary. So, I really encourage the audience or the person who raised the question to join us.

 

Milan

Thank you, thank you very much. It sounds very interesting. Is language a problem? Is it delivered in in English. Because projects normally if you are doing design phase are in Sloven language, yeah?  Or the language where you want to certify the project. Is this an issue?

Tamás

Actually, the software works today in English. But I think that in this level everyone understands. So, it is not so difficult to use it. This is particularly for the building. So basically, we have two different accreditations  for the audit.  And for the design phase it is a bit more difficult. And it costs more today. The accreditation fee for two years it’s 1200 euro for a company. For an individual is 600 euro that includes a unlimited use of our software as well. So, they can audit hundreds of buildings within this two years period for that fee. So, it is also an available, let’s say value or price for it. The audit is a bit more difficult. That requires some engineering pre-life let’s say. Or some experience. Or you need to learn a bit more. But that part which can be audited on the plans is the same as in the life. And all the rest the local language is much better that if you have to discuss it with an architect it’s probably better in Slovak language. But you will know that what you have to ask there.

 

Milan

Yeah. That’s very good that the local people can become accredited because they speak the language.

 

Tamás

Absolutely.

 

Milan

Thank you very much! It was really-really good discussion. I have very good feeling about it. Let me wish you all a very nice day and really- really very much thank you!

Tamás, Miguel

Thank you very much for the invitation. Thank you, Milan! Thank you, Martin! See you,

Martin

Thank you! Bye

📢 our second podcast 🎙/Article with Vlad Costea, first and hopefully not the last from podcaster.sk

This was our first episode from the Podcaster.sk, second with Vlad Costea, who despite our three days lasting grilling in person in Bratislava, we hope has become our dear friend and, altogether, fifth episode of our podcast series Real Estate: Better so far. I have enjoyed this episode even more than the previous ones. We had very nice opportunity to speak in person and the location is truly remarkable. I strongly recommend this studio for other podcast creators as well. We have to come back ourselves.

💡  The “Real Estate Better” is our series featured by PropTech Slovakia and its partners from Slovakia and abroad.  Each episode is devoted to actual real estate challenges, while we share tips, solutions and experiences on how to solve them: this episode was again focused on our challenge: 🔦 “How to make life of large real estate portfolios easier ”.

Links to the episode recorded on 24 November 2023  on www.youtube.com:

• podcast

____________________________________________________________________

Time stamps/chapters

00:00 Introduction

2:33 Start of the Three Minutes Pitch

4:45 Internal Private AI

5:10 Differentiation from Competition

5:48 Ideal customer

6:34 Customers that we are proud of the most

9:36 How hard is it to become a supplier of a large global RE agency?

11:49 The tenant is the hero

12:49 Branding and Corporate Identity at stake

14:55 Product covering the whole tenant lifecycle journey

18:39 Storage of data via cloud or physically?

25:37 How do you enjoy Slovakia?

 

 Complete Transcription

(Dear visitor, this is complete transcription of our webinar and podcast made by the AI “Whisper”. Whisper is very good, but not perfect and we dared to make just a very quick human supervision of its work. Anyway, if you find some gaps, errors, etc. do not let them disturb you. You can freely contact us or any of our podcast participants via LI profiles, should you wish corrections or further explanations)

Milan

So, thank you very much! This is our first podcast in Podcaster, but I’m very happy that we are finally here because I heard only good things about recording here. Any podcast edition that I’ve seen was good. This is our podcast series called Real Estate Better, and it is designed in a way that we do it together with our partners.

We, I mean Proptech, Slovakia, and our partners are usually innovators that help the real estate sector function better.

And we also devote each edition to Real Estate Challenge. The last one was „How to make life of large real estate portfolios easier.”

And we a little bit did not finish it. But I even didn’t dream that my partner will come to Slovakia because I had a discussion with him via online space.

And now he is with me together. We are here in the studio.

Dear Vlad, thank you very much that you came.

 

Vlad

Thank you for the invitation.

 

Milan

That you accepted our invitation! Because we wanted to have a real experience either with your product, with you: How are you as a person?

And we would like to grill you even in this way.

 

Vlad

Okay, you should try.

 

Milan

Okay, let me – let me place the first question.

You know about me that I like startup and scale up competitions. I like pitches.

I know that it has a lot of disadvantages and you do not have a good chance to see all that you need if you look for a business partner.

But I think that it always gives you a solid starting point.

You can always refer to it.

And if you could be so kind and try to do a three minute pitch for me.

 

Vlad

Three minutes? Oh!

 

Milan

Three or five minutes pitch.

Usually, it is three minutes and two minutes are for Q&A’s.

 

Vlad

Okay.

 

Milan

So if you could in three minutes tell us, I will stop it not to prolong this first question. And after three minutes, I will tell „Enough!” and I will place first question, okay?

 

Vlad

Perfect. In this case, it means that I have enough time to say that Bratislava is an amazing city.

 

Milan

Thank you!

 

Vlad

And now to start with the pitch. We offer an operational platform for real estate property and leasing managers.

And real estate has been changing throughout the last few years, even during the pandemic and post the pandemic.

And now we face a situation where the leases that were signed before 2020, so 18, 19, will renew starting with 2024.

And most of them will renew with a lower space value than they were initially signed.

This will create a lot of small spaces that will become available in the market with an average availability of around 15% across Europe.

And our product has adapted over time to address this changing environment.

So therefore, we offer an application that supports operationally the leasing managers when they interact with the tenants and they interact with the brokers.

And then they transfer the platform, the lease sync space towards the property managers.

And then we support the property managers to do a better job in engaging with the tenant, monitoring suppliers, offering perks and benefits and have an effective communication.

All of this by reducing the number of hours necessary to handle a very, very large portfolio.

So we target large portfolio, mixed portfolios, ideally of commercial offices, retail spaces, residential, we can cover all of them.

In a nutshell, this is our solution to, I would say, a growing problem.

Because the problem is that the volume of work for the real estate professional increases during this period of time.

We are heading towards a recession, but the number of resources usually decreases because all the companies are reducing budgets and they are reducing costs.

And I think we have the right tools and a very, very good product to help all of this.

Of course, in the age of AI and supported also by AI because this is something that we managed to do in building – our own internal private GPT product.

That will support everything that I’ve said until now. And I think I am under three minutes.

 

Milan

Yeah, one minute left.

 

Vlad

One minute. So, I have time to speak also a bit about our competitors and what differentiates us from them.

And the main thing is our possibility to absorb large portfolio really, really fast.

So do all the configurations on the fly because the product is very, very flexible and it’s also aligned with the current ways of working.

So, while other products focus on verticals, we focus horizontally and extract value from the tenant journey from lease to property management to exit or release.

 

Milan

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Two questions. Who is your ideal customer?

 

Vlad

Asset managers that own a diverse portfolio that they want to manage their portfolio by leasing it and having a yearly yield out of it.

And when I say large portfolio, they should be higher than 200,000, 250,000 square meters of office and commercial spaces and on residential side, maybe more than 500 apartments.

So, they can be developers that they do internally the leasing and property management processes, or they can be asset managers that have their property and leasing management processes,

or they can even be large agencies who sign a lot of deals, maybe exclusivity deals, and are also handling on behalf of the landlord’s leasing and property management processes.

Milan

And the second one, the last one, could you name some of the customers that you are the most proud of?

 

Vlad

I’m proud of all of my customers.

 

Milan

Excellent!

 

Vlad

And actually with most of them, we have a very, very low churn rate and actually most of our customers have increased their portfolio over time and have come with new requests from us.

We work with the largest agencies in the market and right now we are present in Romania and Hungary and we work with the largest asset managers from those countries as well.

So especially in Romania, we work with the biggest asset manager. Hopefully pretty soon we will work also with the second biggest one.

And in Hungary, it’s just something that has started happening now this year and it will continue to grow in 2024.

 

Milan

Thank you very much. It now should come applause during the competition. My impression is very good. You went without any presentation, so it was pure personality.

I miss a couple of things like a little bit of history. What’s your team? It’s very hard to include it if you do not have this structure and to get it in the minutes.

But I think that we’ve heard about it during our first edition, so I didn’t need it. But on the competition it is needed because they do not know anything about it, of the competitors and they need to get a feeling who they’re speaking with. What’s the first experience and what’s the history of the solution that competes and why is it better than the other competitor basically.

 

Vlad

That’s the idea that the team comes with the story behind it.

 

Milan

But this we covered in the first edition of our series, so I’m happy with how you use these three minutes.

I would like to ask you a question which is quite closely related to what you have mentioned. To become a supplier of a big real estate agency, there are just four or five of them in the world.

And it’s often dream of startup to become a supplier of this agency. How hard is it to become such supplier because I know that the process is really difficult and you passed, am I right?

 

Vlad

Yes, yes, yes. Well, it’s a matter of luck. But if you define luck like preparation meeting opportunity. You do pass through a lot of questions, thousands of questions, because they do need to understand that you would be a reliable partner over time.

We all know that there are risks associated with startups. The ecosystem is in such a nature that startups are pushed to sometimes expand quite quickly.

And from time to time, this kind of expansion or chasing customers, new market, pilot projects, expanding the product, the team, sometimes they don’t end up well.

And, actually, I’m quite sure that we will see, unfortunately, a lot of companies that now in 2024, they will stop existing, maybe because too high spending, maybe because the deals are not closing fast enough, and things like this.

And obviously, the large corporations need to ensure that once they have invested the cost of adding a new product, the cost of including the product into operations, those costs would not have been for nothing.

I mean, they would need to ensure that they have a good return on their initial investment. And it’s understandable.

 

Milan

I can imagine building a brand takes time and costs. Thousands of people work on being somewhere and facing the relationship with bad partner can really harm it.

 

Vlad

With a product like ours, take into account that we are interfacing the tenant. I mentioned in one of my posts on LinkedIn lately that the tenant is the hero here. And the hero goes through a journey.

We don’t want the journey of the hero to end badly. So obviously, both the large asset managers and also the large agencies, they have to take very good care about their heroes.

So because of this, also the audit verifications to ensure that the product is stable and solid enough.

 

Milan

Yeah, I think that last time we covered the question, a very big advantage of your product is that it is widely labeled product, and real estate company can name it after itself.

But then comes also the responsibility that, okay, I will name it by myself. But then it has to be 100% reliable, and I need to have this partner really living.

And that’s why I understand why it should be secured.

 

Vlad

It’s not only a matter of branding. It’s also a matter of imposing your corporate personality, because the product, not only that it’s brandable, it’s also configurable to follow the ways of working and the processes of our partners, of the asset managers or the agency.

So yes, they do, and they are able to present them in front of their customers as a product of their own. And for us, this creates indeed a huge, huge responsibility.

 

Milan

Okay. And to go a bit deeper into what you offer, who are you connecting? My impression was that the number of interfaces your product offers covers a really impressive spectrum of real estate verticals. Because it can not serve only to asset managers, as you mentioned first, but also property, also leasing, also FM. And it gives quite a user-friendly interface also to tenant and to supplier.

 

Vlad

It sounds complicated, doesn’t it?

 

Milan

It sounds complicated, but if you make a simple graph, and you connect these three things, and you give the asset manager or the property manager, who will be the person setting up, who will get which information, because what’s unique on your platform is that it’s not done by IT expert, but by real estate experts. It’s so that the real estate expert shapes how it will work and what functions the tenant and the supplier will get, or another vertical.

 

Vlad

Yes. Well, to clarify, so we follow the tenant journey, as I mentioned before. Horizontally. So obviously following this journey, we need to cover all the stakeholders involved.

So, right in the beginning, when we can’t even call him a tenant, it’s just a prospect. He will be interacting with the brokers and he will be interacting with the leasing managers.

So, this is the first moment where we offer the necessary tools to the leasing management team to interact with both the brokers and the potential future customers in a faster and more effective way.

This will mean submitting offers in certain various forms of templates. It can be through a mail, it can be through a document, it can be through a message.

I mean, just that an offer that potentially has been approved by top management reaches its target, the target being the future tenant or the broker that will present maybe in the same time to the tenant the offer.

So now we have these players. After we move along on the tenant journey, let’s say that the tenant signs a pre-contract and has some negotiations.

Maybe you have some of the legal departments here. After this, he signs the contract, the lease agreement. You definitely have legal departments here that will also review the documents.

But everything needs to be kept in a central place because 5, 7, 10 years down the road, this information will become quite valuable.

So this is where we ensure that everything is centralized. All the discussion, all the negotiations is centralized and made available over time.

After the contract has been signed, there is a transfer between the leasing management team and the property management team.

This transfers also implies some sharing of information and sharing of documents.

If this kind of information is present only on the mail, and let’s say that big companies have turnover with personnel and one of the leasing manager leaves. He leaves with all the emails.

And if some of the documents remain, but they are in a, let’s say, OneDrive or Dropbox kind of format, they are difficult to find. It’s difficult to extract reports out of it.

It’s difficult to have notifications or pop-ups after a certain period of time. So this is also something that now we handle.

And then when we transfer the tenant, now the tenant is happy. He had got his amazing feet out. He’s moving into the building.

For him to remain happy, there needs to be some tenant engagement that needs to happen from a community or directly from the property manager.

And also there needs to be, the property management teams need to ensure that the problems are solved swiftly.

So quickly with very good communication that the suppliers, the validated suppliers do all their job.

And this is where we measure a lot of performance indicators. A lot of KPIs, the suppliers will have service level agreements that they will need to fulfill.

And also there will be value added services that will also need to be delivered correctly towards the tenant.

So following the tenant also on this path of coming regularly to work and liking the place where he is working at.

And why not? This is also something that can improve the percentage of people that come back to the office over time.

 

Milan

You mentioned that it will be stored in one place. I noticed when you showed us the platform that you were always accessing via internet and via some kind of browser.

 

Vlad

Browser, mobile app.

 

Milan

Is there a demand for even other solutions like storing it on physical server in the headquarters of real estate company or is this cloud way of storing things acceptable for all?

 

Vlad

Such a good question. I’ve seen discussions happening. I mean, right now, none of our customers use anything locally on a local server stored in a private server that they own.

But we do provide private installations for any of our customers. So, any of our customers, they will get their own installation and their own data and the data cannot mix between itself.

This being said, I do believe that it is a trend. I do believe that at some point in time, not everything will need to be and will be on the cloud because right now the cloud costs are growing sometimes even on a monthly basis.

And at some point in time, it will not be cost effective.

 

Milan

Because if I imagine the number of services and if you have large portfolio, the number of services will be exponentially higher.

And if the platform is so good that it’s very easy to record the services, to copy the agreements and set up SLAs and you want to report KPI of nearly all the services that are somehow connected with the building.

In large portfolio, this must generate a large amount of data. So it can be relevant.

 

Vlad

Yes. The amount of data generated from this kind of engagement is not that big. But we also know that now it’s a time of where a lot of certifications that are touching on sustainability and on the ESG targets, there are a lot of certification.

Parts of this imply getting large volumes of data by monitoring the location, the building in itself.

A lot of developers are installing from the get-go all sorts of sensors that are monitoring the air quality, the temperature, humidity in the room, natural light levels and things like this.

This kind of information generates volumes of data. And this is the type of information that in my view can attend.

And in the future, it also will be stored locally and managed and aggregated locally.

And what it will be presented outside through the Internet and on the cloud, it will be only the type of data that will generate decision making on the spot.

It’s something that you need right now, right there, and you need to have it access directly on your mobile.

So if you wanted to have it on your mobile phone, yes, it needs to go through the cloud.

But otherwise, if it’s a type of analysis that you will do on a monthly basis, maybe in this case, it can work with local PC, local servers.

Local area network.

 

Milan

You know that I’m a bit deeper in FM matters and we quite often meet with computer-aided facility management, but this is not computer-aided facility management.

I understand that it even supports this kind of software in a way that a large real estate portfolio gets another view on it.

 

Vlad

Yeah, so facility management services is definitely a critical component into managing the building in the right way.

But it does not manage anything related to portfolios or to, let’s say…

It’s very concrete, very special, and it relates to every building. Every building can have different…

For me, from time to time, it’s like going to the university exam and grading your paper by yourself.

This is what happens. For me, the property management teams or the asset management teams, they should have a helicopter view over their whole portfolio.

And they should have tools by themselves to have data aggregated in one place and to monitor everything that is happening at portfolio level.

From the moment where you have 15, 20, 25 buildings, you will not work with only one facility management company. You will have many of them.

And it becomes very challenging into monitoring the performance of each facility management company.

And the CAFM softwares are not built for that. They are built for specific tasks, operational tasks that ensure a proper maintenance of the spaces and of the building.

 

Milan

Thank you, thank you. This is a very interesting view, although I cannot fully agree with the statement that the need for a number of FM companies can be always present.

I can imagine that there can be a big integrated contract. And for some companies, this is the solution. Even global ones, that they have one integrated provider.

But I meet on the market both solutions, that there is a number of FM providers and there it is even more needed to have one check for all of them.

 

Vlad

Yeah, but listen, even if it’s one company, because I do get this, you have very large companies that can sign a group deal, but you will still have different teams and not all the teams perform the same. And you need the view on each building separately. How is it performing? What kind of services are there? Which do well, which do worse?

So I think it makes sense to see it like this.

 

Milan

Okay. Thank you – thank you very much. It’s in many respects enlightening me. I think that you are second, third day here in Slovakia.

 

Vlad

Third day, yes.

 

Milan

You started with the sentence that Bratislava is amazing.

 

Vlad

It is. I’ve never been to Bratislava.

 

Milan

How do you enjoy being here? What did you like the most? I don’t know, because I was grilling you since Wednesday.

 

Vlad

Yeah.

 

Milan

Yesterday we had even I took you on one brand new conference that I really liked.

I liked it as well. I mean, the subjects were very interesting.

 

Vlad

I mean, one idea that I got from that is that residential investment will surpass commercial investment over the next period of time, which I also believe it to be true.

So, yes. And now coming back to Bratislava. I don’t know why I’ve been to the big capitals around it.

So I’ve been to Vienna a couple of times, to Prague a couple of times, to Budapest a few times. I’ve never been to Bratislava.

And what I find in Bratislava is to be a mix of all of these capitals, but with its own identity.

So you will definitely remember that you’ve been to Bratislava because it’s not a copy-paste city and it gets bits and parts.

I mean, you can definitely get bits from what you see in Prague, definitely parts that you see in Vienna, definitely parts that you see in Budapest.

So especially this is my perspective. Also, amazing specialty coffee. I’ve tried, I think, five places I like the coffee.

And I actually bought two bags of specialty coffee that I will prepare myself at home. I’m quite passionate about it.

 

Milan

Thank you for mentioning this. Bratislava is a special city because the original, it was called Prešpork.

But the original inhabitants here, they used to speak three languages. They used to speak Slovak, Hungarian and German because Austrians speak German.

And it’s due to the unique locality. It’s on the borders of three countries.

And the Czech Republic is closer due to another reason that we were one state for a very long time. So it’s understandable.

And what you notice is really, I did not see it in this way, but you reminded me.

I think you need to come from outside to be able to, and everybody will have its own perception of it. That’s quite clear.

So once more, Vlad, very, very much. Thank you for coming. I think that spending time with you was very good.

 

Vlad

Thank you. And by the way, your hospitality is amazing and I highly appreciate it. So thank you for that.

 

Milan

Thank you very much.

Podcast 🎙 s Vítkom Souralom a Flatzone.

💡  Nehnuteľnosti lepšie je náš webinárový a podcastový formát pripravovaný PropTech Slovakia a našimi spolupracujúcimi partnermi zo Slovenska a zo zahraničia.  Každá epizóda je venovaná aktuálnym výzvam sveta nehnuteľností a nášmu zdieľaniu tipov, riešení a skúseností s tým, ako ich zvládať. Tretia epizóda je venovaná rezidenčným nehnuteľnostiam: 🔦 “ Stavať byty na Slovensku? Áno, ale za koľko, kde a kedy?”.

Milan Bogár, zakladateľ PropTech Slovakia hovoril na túto tému s Vítom Souralom, projektovým manažérom Flatzone.  Flatzone je najväčší poskytovateľ dátových riešení pre analýzy rezidenčného trhu nehnuteľností v Čechách. Výborne slúži skoro všetkým českým developerom, ale aj bankám, investorom, konzultačným spoločnostiam, dokonca aj médiám a koncovým užívateľom. V súčasnosti vstupuje Flatzone po niekoľkoročnej príprava aj na Slovensko. Tu si môžete vypočuť alebo pozrieť náš podcast o tom.

• podcast

O bytoch na Slovensku, hlavne o tom

– za koľko ich najlepšie predávať a nakupovať,

– kde ich stavať a

– kedy robiť s nimi správne investičné rozhodnutia?

sme sa rozprávali s Vítom Souralom zo spoločnosti Flatzone, ktorá sa zameriava na umožňovanie dátami podložených rozhodnutí pre developerov, banky, investičné spoločnosti, média, ale aj konečných zákazníkov.

Kapitoly pre jednoduchšie nájdenie toho, čo hľadáte:

00:00 Úvod

02:04 Icebreaker

03:58 Cesta Vítka Sourala k realitnej profesii a technológiám

6:28 Ako vznikol Flatzone a komu všetkému začal postupne dobre slúžiť

11:24 Získavanie dôvery

13:21 Unikátnosť Flatzone v. konkurencia

16:30 Kto všetko sú zákazníci Flatzone

20:46 Ukážka Flatzone (ako to funguje) a aj kedy vstup investora do nájemného bývania

28:53 Šírka možnosti využívanie Flatzone kdekoľvek na Slovensku

34:24 Plány Flatzone

35:57 Predstavenie na Slovensku – edukačné podujatie z Realpadom

(Vážený návštevník, toto je kompletný prepis nášho webinára a podcastu urobený s AI Whisper. Whisper je veľmi dobrý, ale nie dokonalý nástroj a my sme sa odvážili urobiť len veľmi rýchlu ľudskú kontrolu nad jeho prácou. Každopádne, ak nájdete nejaké medzery, chyby atď., nenechajte sa nimi rušiť. Ak si želáte opravy alebo ďalšie vysvetlenia, môžete nás alebo ktoréhokoľvek z našich účastníkov kontaktovať prostredníctvom našich profilov na LinkedIn)

Milan: Príjemný pekný deň všetkým prajem. Toto je náš webinár a zároveň podcast, ktorý voláme „Nehnuteľnosti lepšie“, alebo v angličtine „Real Estate Better“, podľa toho, či ho pripravujeme pre zahraničný alebo domáci trh. Pripravujeme ho s PropTech Slovakia, čo je naša platforma na mapovanie riešení pre realitný trh a nehnuteľnosti vo všetkých fázach životného cyklu a pripravujeme ho s našimi partnermi doma a v zahraničí, s ktorými zdieľame vlastne typy, skúsenosti a riešenia na aktuálne výzvy zo sveta nehnuteľnosti.

Tou dnešnou výzvou, ktorou sa budeme dneska zaoberať, sú rezidenčné nehnuteľnosti. Ako veľmi dobre vieme, naša krajina dlhodobo trpí veľmi zlým pomerom počtu bytov na obyvateľa. Potrebujeme skrátka bytovú výstavbu ako soľ. Je to jednak nová výstavba, ktorá tu značne zaostáva a takisto obnova toho existujúceho bytového fondu, ktorý je zastaralý.

A preto dneska sa budeme baviť hlavne o rezidenčných nehnuteľnostiach, ale nie len z hľadiska stagnujúceho predaja a prenájmu, ale aj z hľadiska správneho nastavenia ceny, výberu lokality a teda robenia správnych investičných rozhodnutí.

A preto som veľmi rád, že naše pozvanie vlastne prijal mladý, talentovaný profesionál Vít Soural zo spoločnosti FlatZone, ktorá zatiaľ pôsobila iba v Čechách, no vyvinula veľmi dobré riešenie práve na správne stanovanie ceny, na výber lokality, na robenie investičných rozhodnutí a budem veľmi rád, keď sa budeme dneska o tomto riešení môcť viac pobaviť.

Dobrý deň, Vít.

Vít: Dobrý den, Milane. Moc dekuji za pozvání!

2:04 Icebreaker

Milan: My sa veľmi tešíme! Inak musím povedať na úvod taká icebreaker poznámka alebo otázka: Či ešte stále spievate? Lebo fakt, že pred pár rokmi som vás zaregistroval v jednej talentovej súťaži. Boli ste tam s hitom Get Lucky, ale v takej českej verzii.(Smiech)

Vít: (Smích) Jo, jo. Pořád zpívám. Pořád zpívám. To je dobrá poznámka. Dobrej research. Opravdu jsem byl v týdletý soutěži Hlas Česko-Slovenska. A to už je fakt dávno. To už bude tak deset let. No a teďka máme ještě pořád kapelu, tak pořád se ještě té hudbě nějak věnujeme.

Milan: Super, super. 2012.

Vít: 2012? Ty brďo! No, toto letí.

Milan: Viem, že vtedy ste to zaspievali a postavil sa, vlastne chvíľku to trvalo. Bola tam ešte Dara Rollins, bol tam Michal David, bol tam Mike Spirit, vlastným menom Michal Dušička.

Vít: (Úsměv) Michal Dušička.

Milan: A oni tak váhali a potom Michal David vlastne to spustil a Mike Spirit sa vzápätí pridal. (Smiech)

Vít: Jo, to byl to nějaký super pocit náhodou. Jak se ti dva porotci o mě přeli. Kdo si mě vezme? To bylo takové vtipné. Já myslím, že to už na tom záznamu ani není. Já jsem jim potom, jak jsem byl ještě v tu dobu takový drzej, tak jsem jim řekl: Tak se nehádejte. Tak to bylo vtipný. Noo.

Milan: Super. Ja som držal palce, lebo je fakt je dobre, keď vidí človek talent a spievať viete. No a ako ste potom prišli k tým realitám, ak sa môžeme spýtať?

03:58 Cesta Víta Sourala k realitnej  profesii a technológiám

Vít: Tak ono to bylo takový přirozený. Já sem v těch realitách vyrůstal už úplně od malička.

Já sem z rodiny developmentu. Můj táta, tak si založil před, už to bude skoro 30 let, tak si založil developerskou společnost tady v Český republice. Jmenuje se Trigema. Je to jedna teďka z největších  developerských společností tady v Česku. A tak sem v tom vyrůstal. Místo toho, abych chodil, já nevím, po kroužkách, nebo tak, tak sem chodil po stavbách.

Milan: Ste mali doma krúžok.

Vít: Přesně tak. No a potom  jsem se postupně tomu začal věnovat i nejdřív  z marketingového hlediska. Pak jsem šel studovat do Anglie. Nejdřív business management, potom na magistra nemovitostí a plánovaní. A bylo to fakt takové přirozené, že jsem se nadchnul jednak i pro  nemovitosti, tak i vlastně technologie. A toto jsem se potom snažil nějak skloubit dohromady. A díky tomu vlastně i vznikl ten projekt, ve kterém teďka pracuji a který to docela hezky snoubí. Jsou to data z nemovitostního trhu. A jednak jsme pořád i v tom developmentu, ale jednak jsme pořád i v těch technologiích a v těch startupech, kde je možný využívat spoustu kreativity a pořád vymýšlet něco nového.

Milan: To je super, lebo my sa vlastne v tom technologickom svete, v proptechovom svete, veľmi často stretávame s firmami, ktoré o tých realitách veľa nevedia a tomu realitnému svetu sa strašne zle počúva. Oni fungujú úplne inak. Ale to je super, že u vás sa to snúbi s tými realitami a v podstate z realít ste vychádzali a potom ste začali až narábať s technológiami a s tým, ako môžu tým realitám pomôcť. Takže to je super.

6:28 Ako vznikol Flatzone a komu všetkému začal postupne dobre slúžiť

Vít: Jo, to bylo fakt skvělý. Trigema s námi měla za začátku hodně velikou trpělivost, takže jsme si mohli  zkoušet spoustu experimentů, co by fungovalo a nefungovalo. Dostávali jsme spoustu spatný vazby na ten produkt, který jsme připravovali. A postupně se to dostalo do takový formy, že už teďka to v té firmě pomáhá a pomáhá to i ostatním developerům, kteří řešili úplně stejný problémy.

Milan: To je super. Mohli by ste nám povedať viac o tej ceste k tomu, kedy to začalo pomáhať, kde to začalo vlastne najviac pomáhať a koľko to trvalo? Lebo viem, že máte už tú infraštruktúru vybudovanú celkom robustne. Nie je to jednoduché  pripraviť ten model na to, aby ste riešili tie otázky, ktoré treba?

Vít: Jasně, jasně. Tak vlastně FlatZone jako takový  vzniknul v rámci marketingového oddělení Trigemy už někdy v roce 2011. Tam  kolegové z marketingu  začali sbírat normálně ručně data z ceníků developerů. Začali z toho dělat takový kvartální analýzy, který postupně začali  propagovat i do médií, aby se ten trh trošku kultivoval, aby se vědělo, co se na něm děje. Postupně se na tito kvartální analýzy nabalili i další firmy, které s Trigemou teďka spolupracují jako Central Group a Skanska Reality. No a postupně, já nevím, o pět let později, těch dát už bylo tak strašně moc, že už jsme si říkali, že je to potřeba nějak zautomatizovat, aby nám to nebralo tak strašně moc času. No, a tak jsme se na to začali dívat. S kolegama,  jsme vymysleli způsob scrapingu, kde jsme na každou tu stránku, kterou jsme do posud sbírali ručně, tak jsme na ní vytvořili takového robota, kterej ty data sbíral automaticky. No a postupně těch robotů přibývalo pořád víc a víc. Bylo potřeba kolem toho udělat i nějakou infrastrukturu. No a začínalo se to proste i dost prodražovat, protože takováto věc není úplná sranda. Takže jsme přibírali nový lidi do týmu a říkali jsme si, že máme už teď skvělé řešení. Víme z trhu, že ostatní developeři řeší úplně ty stejný problémy. Tak proč z toho neudělat projekt, kterej oddělíme jako samostatnou společnost? A začneme tyto stejné služby, které dodáváme do Trigemy, nabízet i ostatním developerům. A takto vlastně vznikla ta B2B stránka Flatzone-u. Máme ještě druhej produkt, který je přímo pro lidi, který hledají nové bydlení.

Tam je normálně vyhledávač FlatZone.cz. Ten je pro všech zdarma. Je to agregátor, něco jako na letenky Skyscanner. Na stejným principu funguje i tenhle ten vyhledávač. Takže, abych to shrnul, tak jsme vznikli takhle interně v tom developerovi. Postupně jsme se oddělili do samostatný společnosti. Teďka aktuálně už na českým trhu jsme největší poskytovatel dat pro developery. Zhruba před pár měsíci jsme expandovali na Slovensko a máme teďka velké ambice, aby se ty služby pořád zlepšovali a rozširovali ješte dál.

Milan: Super. Veľmi sa mi páči tá myšlienka  zdieľania. Prečo to nevyužiť aj pre ostatných? Nevnímali ste na začiatku problém konkurenciu? Že by to ostatní developeri vnímali negatívne? Že nebudem to kupovať od iného developera, keď sme vlastne konkurenti? Ako ste sa s týmto vysporiadali?

11:24 Získavanie dôvery

Vít: Ze začátku bylo pár developerů, který se třeba, chci říct bálo, ale neměli zase takovou velkou důvěru v to, že opravdu je to produkt na řešení problému. A ne, že je to jenom nějak proste, já nevím, mystery shopping od Trigemy.

Milan: Aby ste získavali informácie o konkurencii.

Vít: Přesně. Takže takovýhle otazníky ze začátku byly, ale tam je zásadní výhoda v tom, že všechny ty data jsou sbíraný externě. Jsou to veřejně dostupný data, který si stejně sbírá každý. Takže ta platforma slouží hlavně k tomu, aby se vám odbourala ta manuální stránka toho sběru a čištění a vyhodnocování dát. Jo, a aby ty data byly pořád ready, aby bylo k nim možný se dostat vlastně vždycky úplně ad hoc a rychle, a potom využívat ty data k vylepšování obchodních rozhodnutí. A nepracuje se s žádnýma interníma datama. Takže postupně  tahleta věc, že se pracuje s externíma datama a druhá věc, že jsme získali důvěru postupně samozřejmě od spousty developerů i některých bank a médií, tak už to vlastně vůbec není problém.

13:21 Unikátnosť Flatzone v. konkurencia

Milan: Ja sa inak musím priznať, že my ako Proptech Slovakia sme súčasťou takého väčšieho Proptech spoločenstva. Je to Európska Proptechová asociácia. Robili sme 4 ročníky takej európskej súťaže, kde sa každý rok prihlásilo okolo 200 takých inovačných spoločností, ako ste vy. A musím sa priznať, že som nevidel riešenie, ktoré by podobne  pokrývalo tie potreby, ako je to vaše. Toto si fakt cením. Ako to vnímate vy s konkurenciou? Vlastne máte tam nejakých? Niekto, kto by začal skôr, ako vy, alebo kto vás vlastne teraz nasleduje. Máte tam nejakých followerov na trhu? Vnímate to nejak?

Vít: Nějaká konkurence je, ale vždycky se mi zdá, že žádná firma na to nejde úplně stejným směrem.

Milan: Presne to mám na mysli, že sú tam spoločnosti, ktoré vlastne analyzujú trh a robia s tými dátami. Ale s tým, že to vychádza priamo z potrieb developera, z nejakého interného tímu, no tak s tým som sa ešte nestretol.

Vít: Jasný, jasný. Jako vždycky, jak říkám, někdo třeba cílí víc na realitky, takže ten produkt zase musí být úplně jiný, i když jsou to market insights a jsou to data z trhu. Někdo zase cílí jenom na naceňování nemovitostí, což třeba hodně funguje, když ten trh roste a když developeři můžou optimalizovat zisky tím, že zvedají ceny. Ale potom ve chvíli, kdy trh přestane růst, tak samozřejmě tam už je to těžké nějak optimalizovat. Jsou i třeba projekty, které se zaměřují jenom na katastrální data. Naše  sesterská společnost, Cenová mapa.org, tady v České republice,  sbírá primárně data z katastru nemovitostí. A to zase otevírá  spoustu dalších dveří. I v té kombinaci s našimi datama teďka, jak jsme se dali dohromady, tak zase otevírá spoustu nových příležitostí. Takže já myslím, že těch firem může na tom trhu existovat i víc a úplně si nekonkurovat. Samozřejmě někdy prostě nějaká konkurence, nějakej overlap je. Ale dá se to. A ne všechny projekty jsou úplně stejní.

Milan: Super. Mohli by sme si povedať aj to, kto je ten cieľový zákazník? Pre koho ten váš produkt slúži najlepšie? Povedali sme si, že developeri. Aj že je tam niečo aj pre bežného spotrebiteľa, ktorý ten byt nakupuje a chce si len zistiť, aké sú ceny v danej lokalite. Ale toto je bezplatný produkt. Takže asi tým hlavným zákazníkom toho vášho produktu je developer, spoločnosť, ktorá sa zaoberá správnym umiestnením toho svojho projektu a neskôr aj predajom. V ktorej fáze vlastne toho životného cyklu je ten váš produkt vlastne využiteľný? V ktorej viac, v ktorej menej možno?

16:30   Kto všetko sú zákazníci Flatzone

Vít: Jo, máte pravdu, že vlastně náš primární klient tak je developer, případně investiční společnost, nebo banky, finanční instituce, konzultanti dokonce i…

Milan: To je veľmi široký záber!

Vít: Jo, všichni potřebují data prostě. Takže pro všechny tyto firmy se vždycky dá něco, nějaký use case najít. Co se týče toho cyklu, toho developerského projektu, tak já bych řekl, že ty data pokrývají úplně celý ten lifecycle toho projektu. Úplně od začátku, když si ten developer dělá market research, kam začne investovat, po ten moment, kdy najde nějakou akviziční příležitost a chce si ji vyhodnotit. Jestli vlastně na ní dokáže vydělat nebo ne. Až po přípravu projektové dokumentace, protože je strašně důležité, jak se nastaví flat mix, aby všechny ty metry, které jsou v hrubé podlahové ploše, se dokázali vytěžit tak, aby to vlastně i ekonomicky dávalo smysl. Po moment, kdy projekt přijde do prodeje a samozřejmě potřeba se podívat na comparables z trhu, aby se nastavil konkurence schopný ceník a aby se nastavila případně i nějaká strategicky výhodná obchodní strategie. A potom ve finále, když už ten projekt se prodává, tak je potřeba monitorovat celý trh ohledně toho, co dělá konkurence, jak rychle prodává, za jaký ceny prodává. Aby potom  ty projekty a ty ceny a případně i ta strategie se dala hodně flexibilně a hodně rychle měnit. Takže to je vlastně primárně ze strany developerů.

Ze strany bank můžu zmínit například use case projektového financování. Obchodní oddělení, který připravují nabídky právě pro developery, tak potřebují vědět, jak ten trh vypadá, aby dokázali připravit nabídku na to, kolik jim půjčí peněz.

No a potom investiční společnosti, který spravují velká portfolio, řekněme nájemních bytů, potřebují si je pořád přeceňovat. Můžou vytáhnout nějakou cash z toho, že si refinancujou volnou equitu. Na tohle všechno jsou potřeba data. Tuto třetí možnost na Slovensku zatím ještě moc nevidíme z hlediska těch nájemních projektů, ale určitě to přijde.

Milan: Ano, tiež sme sa bavili na tej poslednej konferencii, bolo Property Forum v Bratislave, v podstate s najväčšími slovenskými developermi o tej možnosti investovať do nájomného bývania. A všetci hovorili o tom, že Slovensko vlastne len čaká na toho inštitucionálneho investora, lebo tie marže, alebo tie yield-y, ako sa hovorí v tom našom sektore, nie sú dosť vysoké na to, aby sa to zatiaľ uživilo. A to napriek tomu, že práve cena nájmov výrazne stúpla v poslednom období. A to som sa tiež chcel pýtať, že vlastne ten váš nástroj aj vie odhaliť to, že kedy už bude ten správny čas na ten vstup toho investora? Toto by bolo super, keby ste nám možno aj ukázali.

20:46 Ukážka Flatzone (ako to funguje) a aj kedy vstup  investora do nájemného bývania

Vít: Jasně, Jasně. Tak můžeme nasdílet obrazovku teďka.

Milan: Budeme hovoriť presne čo vidíme pre poslucháčov. Diváci si to budú môcť pozrieť.

Vít: Jasně, Jasně. Sdílím obrazovku teďka.

Milan: Super, vidíme to.

Vít: Já jsem se tady připravil takový report na tuto oblast, kde v centru je Nivy.

Milan: Super! Aby som povedal pre poslucháčov, že je to najvyexponovanejšia oblasť momentálne s najväčšou výstavbou. Asi nikde na Slovensku sa nestavia tak momentálne ako v bratislavských Nivách. A sú tam asi všetci najvýznamnejší slovenskí developeri. Je tam J&T, je tam Penta, je tam YIT, je tam Immocap. Takže vidíme, že tých projektov je tam skutočne veľa. Čo tam môžeme vlastne vyčítať, vďaka tomu vášmu nástroju Flatzone?

Vít: Jasně. Tak vlastně z tohohle nástroje se dají vyčíst všechny hlavní informace o všech tech segmentech v rezidenčním trhu. Jo, takže tam máme informace o tom novostavbovým – primárním trhu, o tom trhu těch starších bytů, my tomu říkáme v česku second-handy,

Milan: Staré byty…

Vít: Přesně tak, a pak i trh těch nájmů. Takže když skombinujeme všechny tyhle ty tři segmenty informací, tak se potom dokážeme na ten trh podívat hodně komplexně a dokážeme si právě že i třeba namodelovat nebo si interpretovat nějakou strategii do budoucna. Takže my jsme se bavili o tom trhu pronájmů tady v této oblasti, kde máme v centru ty Nivy. Máme tam i kousek Starého Města, máme tam i Růžinov, tak tady  je vidět z tohoto grafu, že za posledních 12 měsíců ceny pronájmů stouply z nějakých 12,3 eur na metr čtvereční, teďka na 13. Samozřejmě toto je průměr individuálního trhu. Vlastně až přijde ten institucionální trh těch nájemných projektů, tak uvidíme, že ty ceny budou úplně nikde jinde. Takže ta Bratislava nemusí úplně čekat na to, než ty individuální pronájmy se zvýšej do výšin, kde ty yield-y budou dávat smysl. Ale to, co třeba pozorujeme v Česku, tak je to, že ty institucionální projekty jsou třeba o 40-50 % ještě dražší než ten průměr individuálního segmentu.

Milan: Ale ten štandard tých služieb je tam aj o to vyšší, hej?

Vít: No, samozřejmě, máte proste mnohem víc služeb, máte recepci, máte tam facility manažera, někoho, který se vám stará o několik nedodělky. Máte tam i ten tým těch lidí, který se o vás postará vždycky, když potřebujete něco zařídit. Většinou i v těchto projektech je také i vybavení. Takže samozřejmě ta cena vyšší odpovídá i těm více službám. Není to jenom to, že developer si říká, že tak potřebujeme, aby nám to vyšlo, tak to prostě nastřelíme se stejnýma standardem o 50 %. Ale samozřejmě, aby se to vůbec nějak uchytilo, tak to ty vyšší služby musí mít. A ono, ta cílovka je sice menší, ale zase na druhou stranu pro tu cílovku teďka žádný takovýto produkt neexistuje. Takže určitě na tom trhu je i místo pro nějaký takový projekt do budoucna.

Milan: Super. Super. Čo sa týka tých cien bytov, tak veľmi sa mi páči na tom nástroji, že momentálne tá situácia je taká veľmi netransparentná. Že v podstate aj mladé rodiny, rodiny ktoré rozmýšľajú nad tým, kde vložiť peniaze, tak nevedia celkom presne, akú cenu stanoviť. Ako by im tento nástroj vedel v tomto pomôcť?

Vít: Tak můžeme se podívat na historické vývoje těch cen. Například, když se mrkneme třeba na ty novostavby, tak tady v té konkrétní lokalitě ceny nám stouply z 5 000 € na metr čtvereční, na nějakých 5 500 €. To znamená, že ty nabídkový ceny pořád stoupají. Ale když se podíváme na ceny second handů, tak je to vlastně pokles ze 4 100 € na metr čtvereční, na 3 900 €. To je samozřejmě dané tím, že ta nabídka hodně stoupla za poslední rok. No, samozřejmě hypotéky, nejistota a tak dále, a tak dále. Ale je vidět, že ty ceny novostaveb se pořád drží, pořád mají nějakou svoji hodnotu. Zajímavé je se podívat i za kolik se doopravdy ty byty prodávaly. Máte jednu věc:  ponukovou cenu, ale druhou věc máte i ty prodejní, posledně nabídkový ceny. No, tam je také vidět, že kdyš je takhle sprůměrujeme, ta cena se v podstatě poslední rok drží na stejném levelu. Takže pro lidi, kteří si chtějí koupit novou nemovitost, v podstatě nemovitosti z dlouhodobého hlediska jsou vždy dobré rozhodnutí. Je to prostě konzervativní investice, ta nemovitost jako asset roste s inflací, neznehodnocuje se. Právě že naopak. Pokud chcete bydlet v pronájmu, tak samozřejmě vám to teď vyjde víc výhodně, protože nebudete platit až tak velký ceny, jako třeba splátky hypotéky. Ale zase na druhou stranu vaše nájemní ceny se budou každým rokem zvyšovat při rent review. Takže ve finále za deset let, vy budete platit mnohem víc, než byste platili na třicetiletí hypotéce. Takže je potřeba určitě přemýšlet z dlouhodobého hlediska. Já si myslím, že je potřeba z naší strany ten trh edukovat o tomhle, protože ta finanční gramotnost z hlediska investic i na tom  retailovém trhu je relativně malá a určitě lidi by měli mnohem menší problémy, kdyby dokázali obecně pracovat se svými penězi.

Milan: To určite. Vidím tam na tom obrázku mapku. Je tam vlastne výsek tej exponovanej oblasti Bratislavy, Staré Mesto,  Ružinov,  v centre Nivy centrum. Takýto polygón, alebo takúto oblasť, takýto výsek si môžem vďaka Vášmu nástroju, alebo developer si to môže vďaka vášmu nástroju urobiť kdekoľvek v Slovenskej republike?

28:53 Šírka možnosti využívanie Flatzone kdekoľvek na Slovensku

Vít: Přesně tak. No. Já to jen takhle rychle ukážu, pro posluchače to i popíšu. Vlastně tato platforma slouží k tomu, že si můžete vyrobit jakýkoliv report na jakýkoliv segment toho rezidenčního trhu kdekoliv po Slovenské i České republice. To znamená, že projekty, nebo ty reporty, které už máte uložený, tak se k nim můžete kdekoliv zpátky dostat a podívat se na to, jaká je tam teď aktuální situace. Ono se vám ty projekty automaticky aktualizují, abyste s tím už neměli vůbec žádnou starost a žádný manuální čas. Všechno je to zautomatizované. A potom, když chcete novou lokalitu, tak si dáte jako nový report. Vyberete si nějakou lokalitu, o kterou máte zájem, takže řekněme Košice třeba.

Můžete si takhle vybrat z vyhledávače nebo si můžete  nakreslit polygon úplně kdekoliv po celé republice. Můžete to i kombinovat. Vynechávat oblasti.Upravovat různě. Je to opravdu  flexibilní. Můžete se tam nastavit filtry, takže pokud třeba nechcete analyzovat celý trh, tak analyzujete třeba jenom projekty, které mají víc než x jednotek celkově. Nebo odundáte projekty, u kterých zbývá už jenom třeba dvě jednotky. Filtrujete podle třeba developera, když si developer chce udělat analýzu konkrétního konkurenta, tak má možnost. Podle jednotlivých, jestli jsou byty, domy, počet izieb, ceny, výměry, máte tam toho fakt jako spoustu. Potom je možnost ještě i třeba nějakého manuálního zásahu. Můžete se podívat na to, jak často se vám to aktualizuje, s jakou historií dat pracujete, jak si segmentujete tu lokalitu v rámci té jedné lokality ještě na menší území. Jaký vůbec tam chcete vidět výstup, protože můžete vidět výstupy agregované nebo dokonce i surová data, vlastně položková data, s kterými potom můžete pracovat v Excelu. Takže je to komplexní nástroj, přes který se vlastně dokážete uspokojit většinu use-casů, které máte spojené s investicemi, developmentem a nebo financováním nemovitostí.

Milan: To vyzerá super zaujímavo. Bohužiaľ nebudeme mať priestor dneska rozprávať o detailoch toho, ako to funguje. Ja len pre ilustráciu poviem, že takýto polygón asi keď sa zadá, a zadajú sa tam parametre, ktoré chcem vidieť, tak ten motor, tá infraštruktúra za tým na tom chvíľku pracuje a ten report vygeneruje za nejaký čas. Nie je to hneď, ako lusknutím prstu. Ale je za tým proste nejaká logika, nejaká práca, aj toho automatu, toho robota. Koľko sa môže čakať na taký report?

Vít: Přesně tak. Všechna tá data aktualizujeme každý deň, čož je super. Všechno ta data aktualizujeme každý den, což je super, kdyby to člověk dělal manuálně, tak nikdy není schopný tohle, co to dokázat.  Takže celá databáze se aktualizuje každý den, vždycky v noci. A potom vlastně tyto reporty se vždycky ad hoc generují na základě toho požadavku, které si nastavíte v té aplikaci. A může to trvat, podle toho, jak velká je ta lokalita, tak může trvat několik minut až dokonce třeba i několik hodin. Protože když se podíváme na starší byty, tak tam je třeba spoustu inzertních portálů, který je potřeba nejdřív dát na jedno místo. Potom zdeduplikovat, aby se stejní inzeráty neukazovali na více místech a například tohle trvá hodně, hodně času.

Milan: Hej, my máme na Slovensku 25 portálov asi.

34:24 Plány Flatzone

Vít: No, přesně tak. Takže takhle to funguje. Výhoda toho je, že žádný data nejsou předpočítaný a že vlastně si tam do té platformy můžete nacpat jakýkoliv data, podle jakýkoliv metodiky, v jakýkoliv lokalitě. Opravdu tam nejsou vůbec žádný hranice pro todlencto.

Milan: Perfektné. Vidím, že aj ten nástroj je celý preložený do Slovenčiny. Keby ste chceli ísť do Európy, hej? Do inej krajiny. Koľko trvá približne príprava na to zanalyzovanie toho trhu? Alebo ako by sme mohli očakávať tú vašu expanziu, keby ste chceli ísť do Európy? A vôbec, chcete?  Chcel som sa spýtať aké máte plány ďalšie s Flatzone…

Vít: Plány jsou určitě rozšiřovat se geograficky. A pro nás je strašně důležitý, abychom ve chvíli, kdy budeme zveřejňovat ten nástroj v nějaké další zemi, abychom měli alespoň, řekněme, rok historie těch dat už nasbíráno. To znamená, že pokud začneme sbírat data třeba ještě tento rok na nějakou další zemi, tak to znamená, že potom vlastně zveřejnění toho nástroje bude až ten další rok.

Koukáme se teďka na země, kam by bylo nejlepší expandovat. Koukáme se na sousedy, samozřejmě. Hodně nás láká Polsko. Hodně nás lákají i další země. Třeba Belgie je hodně zajímavý trh. Nebo potom i nějaké další vyspělejší trhy. Protože zase otázka je, proč to rovnou nehecnout na nějaké ty prime  markety? Takže todlecto si ještě všechno analyzujeme a určitě tento rok chceme rozhodnout, začít sbírat data a potom za rok vlastně se rozšířit.

35:57 Predstavenie na Slovensku – edukačné podujatie z Realpadom

Milan: Super. Viem, že na Slovensku vlastne chystáte Webinár, alebo nie taký Webinár, ale vlastne také prvé stretnutie, predstavenie v blízkej budúcnosti. Mohli by sme povedať, kedy to bude a na čo sa môžeme pri tom tešiť? Aký plán je vlastne s tým predstavením?

 

Vít: Určitě. Tenhle ten event plánujeme 11.5. Bude to dopoledne. Zhruba od 9.00 do 12.00 a spolu organizujeme to společně ještě s RealPadem. A to téma toho eventu bude hlavně pro developery, případně i pro projektové financování v bankách. Bude se to týkat toho, jak se vyvíjel trh primární i sekundární, i nájemní za poslední rok. Půjdeme hodně do detailu. Podíváme se i na data ta nejčerstvější za první kvartál, teďka 2023 hlavně vlastně z pohledu externích market insights dat. A potom RealPad se bude zaměřovat na to, jaké jsou teďka rozdíly mezi slovenským trhem a dalšími trhy, ve kterých operuje. To znamená Česko, to znamená, kde oni všude jsou. Bulharsko, Belgie…

Milan: Jedenásť krajín, dokonca viac ako jedenásť.

Vít: Jo, no přesně tak. Takže to by mělo být hodně zajímavé z hlediska vlastně porovnání dynamiky na tom trhu, teďka když se vlastně všechno tak trošku zastavilo. A budeme se, budeme potom diskutovat i doufujeme i s developery, jak to vlastně vidí a na co se, na co se je určitě potřeba do budoucna připravit.

Milan: Super. Tak budeme sa těšiť. Dúfam, že vám to dobre dopadne.

Vít: Díky moc!

Milan: To je na dnešný deň všetko na túto tému. A držím vám palce. Znie to veľmi zaujímavo, Veľa benefitov, myslím, že z toho môžu získať developeri, banky, investori. Takže super!

Vít: Tak moc díky, moc díky za rozhovor. Bylo to super, moc jsem se to užil. A uvidíme se zase někdy brzo.

Milan: Nápodobne. Ďakujeme veľmi pekne! A Pekný deň!

Vít: Tak jo, vám taky. Na shledanou!

 

Leasing & Sales in Energy Crises

📢 We were very much looking forward to hosting this Webinar 💻 /Podcast 🎙.

💡 It is part of larger series called “Real Estate Better” featured by PropTech Slovakia and our partners on new solutions that can serve for solving actual REAL Estate challenges : this one was focused on our February challenge: 🔦 “SALES & LEASING in times of energy crises”.

Milan Bogár, our founder and host of the webinar/podcast from PropTech Slovakia was discussing this topic with Daria Mircea and Catalin Dragutoiu from Bright Spaces, Digital twin 👯‍♀️ /VR solutions of which are applied on some of the greenest office buildings in Romania and quickly spreading to other countries in Europe. Despite their solution was not present in Slovakia yet, the discussion highlighted some specifics of the market situation in Slovakia.

As we are partner of Smart Building Collective | Certification, we were especially interested in this challenge because we used to miss two things on number of smart buildings that we worked with: 1. supporting sales/leasing technology and respective data even if there were tons of other data and technologies (maybe a reason why they were not able to deliver their whole embedded value so well) and 2. digital twins (even if we were speaking about a bit different versions of digital twins here than those used for detailed design and building operation).

Links to our podcast and webinar  from 16 February 2023  on www.youtube.com:

• podcast
• webinar

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Couple of our highlighs from the webinar/podcast:

“Practically, it’s why I am trying to help support and grow the whole ecosystem of developers, brokers, the tenants themselves to try and streamline everything and save as much resources as we can within the whole process because this is also the point of aligning to ESG policies and practices.” – Daria Mircea

” Never, in the history of economics, a situation such as today was encountered. It had singular crisis events that we overcome, but today we live in a multi-crisis situation. ….   So, how do we do our business today if we are a developer? We are facing all these challenges. What the answer is? Technology.  The traditional way of leasing an office needs to be boosted with technology because technology is actually a result of two major needs in the market. One is the need for optimization. … and, also answering more emerging needs in the market. ”  – Catalin Dragutoiu

“In traditional way of leasing offices today you go, you see the office, you see the building. Then you go, you see another, you see another, you see another, and then, three weeks pass and then you want to go again to an office building that you like and discuss again. And again, you increase the time. While, being digital means, that after you also have the in-person meeting with the potential tenant, you can send them the link to the space to review at any time that they desire in order to remind them what they have seen.”- Catalin Dragutoiu

“The workplace is a dynamic place we’re not gonna see because of the pandemic and, seeing workplace as a destination. And, that’s something that needs to adapt together with us. It’s become a live place, so you can do different alterations to it to make it more adaptable to your needs and seeing these alterations as a proposal before you actually invest the money to execute them in reality can be again very helpful.” – Daria Mircea

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Time stamps of chapter

on youtube  for more direct access to information you wish to get:

02:49 Daria’s background

04:49 Catalin’s background

09:36 The toughest macroeconomic situation ever…

11:49 How to face all these challenges

14:49 We are past big transfer files

16:13 Unique Selling Proposition.

19:16 There are so many factors to consider…

22:01 The tour through planned building highlighting all relevant benefits

25:13 Showcasing standard fitout or custom

28:33 CRM functions or CRM integration

34:25 Ideal customer

38:40 Pricing and time needed to be considered for  implementation

41:12 Why continual usage makes even more sense

43:10 More continual benefits

47:35 Plans for 2023

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Complete Transcription

(Dear visitor, this is complete transcription of our podcast (and a webinar) made by an AI Whisper. Whisper is very good, but not perfect and we dared to make just a very quick human supervision of its work. Anyway, if you find some gaps, errors, etc. do not let them disturb you. You can freely contact us or any of our podcast participants via LI profiles, should you wish corrections or further explanations)

Milan: Hi, I’m Milan Bogar and this is Real Estate Better, our webinar and podcast featured by Proptech Slovakia and its partners in Slovakia and abroad.

Each webinar we select a couple of hot real estate topics and challenges and we share tips, solutions and experiences on how to solve them.

We focus on Slovak real estate but because the best solutions are more often flowing from and out of more countries, our guests will not be just from Slovakia, especially if we completely miss some kind of solutions that we found abroad.

For February, with our partners, we have selected two challenges that are seemingly unrelated

– Sales and Leasing and Energy crisis.

Why Energy crisis?

It is a very hot challenge at the moment. The energy crisis caused a 30 to 50% increase in service charges at the moment and almost all real estate companies are talking about ESG strategies and measures to fight it.

Why Sales and Leasing?

Because it is missing in these ESG strategies and measures, and we believe it should be a strong integral part. We believe that it is able to boost and speed up solutions for all the three ESG letters.

What we have noticed is that especially in commercial real estate, leasing is still based mainly on old, often ineffective and time-consuming ways that require a lot of repeated visits by more team members of potential tenants as well as leasing team, a lot of traveling with a carbon footprint that is not insignificant.

Therefore, today we will speak about a new sales and leasing approach that could be boldly integrated into a better and more effective ESG strategy, either for one building or for a whole portfolio.

I have met them thanks to one international event last year that we had with colleagues from Spain, Germany and Bulgaria.

Their company is called Bright Spaces. They are originally from Romania, where you can see their digital twins on the web pages of some of the greenest office buildings in Bucharest. But they are quickly expanding to other countries like UK, Hungary, Sweden and even if they are not present here yet, maybe also to Slovakia.

I am very happy that we have male and also female representative because mostly I meet with men in discussions about technologies and before we will jump on where is your most added value, I would be very pleased if you could please tell us more about your background, what is it, what you do and what is the weather in Bucharest.

02:49 Daria’s background

Daria: Thank you Milan, my name is Daria Mircea. I am an architect, I am very happy to be here as let’s say representing women in tech in the PropTech Slovakia webinar.

My experience has been also in real estate for the past six years working as a workplace architect and advising on workplace strategies and for the past year I have brought my experience to the team of Bright Spaces, because we are on a mission to drive next level marketing and leasing strategies for office buildings, but also other types of real estate like residential, commercial and logistics and trying to recreate the world that we are used to in the physical space, the world of offices, interiors and exteriors in a virtual manner.

Milan: I noticed that you worked for CBRE if I am correct?

Daria: Yes I did, I actually started my career with CBRE going from local occupancy planner to regional occupancy planner for EMEA then to workplace architect and advisory and transaction team in Romania.

Milan: Very good! Because companies like CBRE are very well versed in this leasing and selling process and you must be well aware of how does it work in practice.

Daria: Yes! Practically this is why I am trying to help support and grow the whole ecosystem of developers, brokers, the tenants themselves to try and streamline everything and save as much resources as we can within the whole process because this is also the point of aligning to ESG policies and practices.

Milan: Thank you.

04:49 Catalin’s background

Catalin: Hello, I am Catalin, Head of Sales at Brice Bases. My total general experience is in sales for the past 17 years I have been doing sales for various sectors such as finance, advertising, fast moving consumer goods and now real estate and tech, which is probably the most dynamic industry that I have been to. Because it is a merge between two major verticals of the economical context when you look at technology you have technology providers and then you have the real estate. So here in this PropTech, as it is still called today, the ecosystem that we are is a merge of basically a bridge between technology and real estate helping real estate become more streamlined as Daria said.

During my experience, during my past recent experience I have been handling sales of over 10 million euros per year. So, I am quite accustomed to international sales and big accounts management.

Milan: Thank you and how is the weather in Bucharest?

Catalin: Sunny.

Milan: Sunny here as well. Bratislava is sunny as well at the moment.

Catalin: We are waiting for the spring.

Milan: I believe we can jump to the point. I was very interested in this topic, because, you know, I am a smart building certification assessor and we certified quite interesting buildings all around Europe. And, what we have noticed, is that there are quite lack of solutions that would support these smart solutions and things even like ESG strategies and that’s why when I have seen you if I remember correctly I met you first time in November during our webinar or after our webinar that we have with colleagues from Spain, Germany and Bulgaria and I was really pleased that there is solution that focuses on digital twin and on sales what we were missing in thess smart buildings. But you explained to me that it’s a bit different digital twin than the usual understanding of what this digital twin means and it’s not like the BIM digital twin used for design phase or during the construction or the operation with many details. This is focused on showcasing and that is the reason why I was interested in the first place.

Second place is the fact that real estate is in quite complicated situation. Here in Slovakia the vacancy rates are still very high compared to the year 2018 when vacancy rate in commercial real estate was about 5%. At the moment, we are at level of 11 and we are still expecting that it will increase because there are some major developments that will be delivered this year and the competition will be even stronger. So, solutions that will ensure competitiveness towards others will be very welcome and I think that have big future. So, the second reason is that it can help in this difficult situation.

09:36 the toughest macroeconomic situation ever

Catalin: So, to jump on this second topic which is the toughest one as we know as we live a unique macro economical context. We are in a post-pandemic economic crisis. We are in an inflationary crisis caused by the surge in electricity cost, in gas cost, in the continuing here, we also have the debt, higher interest rates meaning that this has a direct impact in the rents that the developers are asking per square meters. And, also we have the carbon neutrality alignment that needs new types of materials, better ways of construction with again a higher impact in the cost. So, this is why it is hard. This is why we have vacancy rates. Because even tenants are more cautious today when renting a space. Hybrid work being a norm everywhere in the world, so, instead of looking at big chunks of buildings rented out they look at the minimum surface that we that they would need for the team that is usually coming in office. So, that’s why we still have vacancy. Also, the cost is an issue because everything that we live in creates a bigger rent cost. So, tenants being more cautious means that they will live in a smaller space.

11:49 How to face all these challenges?

So, how do we do our business today if we are a developer? We are facing all these challenges. What the answer is? Technology.  The traditional way of leasing an office needs to be boosted with technology because technology is actually a result of two major needs in the market. One is the need for optimization. Basically, reducing your internal costs, therefore having the opportunity of asking a smaller rent as a base and, also answering some emerging needs in the market. For example, if we want to change an office, we are the tenant. And we have 60% of the people working remote but we want to increase the people that come to the office to 80%. So, basically convincing more than half of the people that work remote, we need to have them engaged in the leasing process. And many people don’t have real estate experience. They don’t understand the 2D floor plan. So, when you use a digital twin for commercial purposes, yeah, you can show them: This is the building. This is how it’s going to look: the office, this is the working area, this is the leisure area, this is the recreational area. So, everything that makes you boost your productivity or makes you feel at home rather than at office in a 2D standard presentation, can be comprehended by the non-real estate person. That’s why the digital twin for commercial purposes is actually helping tenants, across the board to make a decision and even more Bing or a web-based digital twin means that it is accessible from any type of device. You can see it on your phone, on your laptop or on your tablet. So, imagine that you are a tenant that has the headquarters in Germany and wants to relocate their regional offices in a new office building instead of sending only a big pdf with 20 pages for the headquarters or the management to approve they send also the digital twin and this is how the office will look like. This is how it’s going to be furnished, these are the financials, these are … everything would be comprised in one single space we call the single point.

Milan: And how do you do it? Via link to the digital twin or you’re sending a big file via File Transfer? How can they access the digital twin?

14:49 we are past big transfer files

Daria: That’s the good part, Milan. Actually, because we are past big transfer files, past downloading all of that stuff, where you don’t know where you’ve put it. You don’t know if you’ve attached it. If you remember, there are so many emails you send and you forget the attachment. Everything is web-based. The presentation that we do, which contains both the digital twin and the brochure. And again, this is easily accessible on a web link from a tablet, from a phone, from a computer, wherever you are in the world as long as you have internet. And the good thing about it, for those who are using this, to present it so, let’s say the developers or even the brokers, is that this has analytics. So, you can have the useful information from sending this and seeing how it’s been reacted to and using this to actually adapt and improve your plan whether it is to involve more resources in a certain point or to see where it’s gone really, really well.

Milan: Thank you! So, your unique proposition, unique selling proposition as we call it during the startup pitches, but it’s nothing else than where is the most value that you add, is in this digital twin solution, yeah?

16:13 Unique Selling Proposition

Catalin: Yes! Yes, it’s the digital twin connected to data.  It’s not only the digital twin because renderings have been here for quite a while. What makes us unique is that we connect it to data. You can see the real vacancy in the building. You can filter by surface by number of people in basically finding your ideal space. The unique selling proposition is, actually, the optimization. Because think as, let’s say, in the in the process. Usually, tenants discuss with the consultant that makes a short list. And, then you go and visit the premises. Well, having the digital twins implemented means that within 30 minutes you can sort and see each office space across Bratislava that in a rainy day might be a whole day of, you know, traveling. But you do this in 30 minutes and you are able to create those special offices, the list of offices that really suit your need. And you feel like they are the ones that you should engage with. You also see the tech specs, you also see the sustainability specs, you also see the location. You understand everything about the building. So, when you engage with the actual landlord or developer, the tenant assisted by the consultant, where independently, comes more prepared to the meeting. So, yes, the presentation of the building, the presentation of the space will still take place during that in-person meeting, but it will be a smaller in time than usual and getting to the financial details, getting to the offering, understanding what would be the fitout contribution, creating the premises of negotiation a lot faster. In traditional way of leasing offices today you go, you see the office, you see the building. Then you go, you see another, you see another, you see another, and then, three weeks pass and then you want to go again to an office building that you like and discuss again. And again, you increase the time. While being digital means that after you also have the in-person meeting with the potential tenant you can send them the link to the space to review at any time that they desire in order to remind them what they have seen.

Milan: Can you show us maybe? Even if, you don’t want to present the whole time. Just a short presentation.

Daria: Sure, sure.

19:16 There are so many factors to consider…

Daria: Milan, before Catalin shows us a little bit, I actually had a flashback to one of our previous discussions, but also to something you said at the beginning here with the context in Slovakia. So, there are deliveries of new buildings. But there is still vacancy, and we know and this is a trend I think across more countries. At least from what we’ve seen. That, of course, the demand is for high quality buildings, for high quality spaces. Particularly for recent developments with sustainability as a focus. But also, of course, considering the design the way the building and the space makes you feel. And precisely because there are so many factors to consider: the tech specs, as Catalin said,  and the location, the way from home to the office, the customer journey. Because the customer is looking online now for office spaces as well as for everything. Even for homes we look for our next apartment online. We see what’s there for clothes, and so on. The customer journey needs to be curated just like for any other thing that we are interested in purchasing and every type of information needs to be thoughtfully and easily accessible in that curated place which for example can be the digital twin. And, this is not only a way of showcasing new buildings or future developments, because they’re not built yet and you cannot tour them anyway physically. But let’s think about the next wave of buildings which are class B or which are a little bit older. And, necessarily, if you showcase these with photos or even the physical tour right now, people won’t be able to see what they will look like after a refurbishment. So, with a virtual tour and the digital twin you can showcase and focus on their energy efficiency after the refurbishment. And they can become as tempting an office space as the new deliveries.

Milan: Yeah! So, refurbishment projects are another thing that can be targeted by your solution?

Catalin: Yes, of course. Of course. Obviously in a refurbishment project if it’s ongoing. If it’s actually a construction site, you cannot visit it. It’s dangerous for you. So, that’s why virtual tours are the safest way. I’m going to share my screen just to show you a bit how the digital twin looks like and what more arguments can be when you are presenting the building virtually.

22:01 The tour through planned building highlighting all relevant benefits

Let me know you see the screen. This building itself doesn’t yet exist. It is of plan. It is going to be delivered in 2024. So, in order to create this, we only requested the floor plans, facade plans and want to renderings of the project in order to understand the textures. What we have done more we have placed here some key differentiators. And this can be rich content renderings, can be videos, sounds, images, or texts. But what’s important is that this text can be also, for example, breath of fresh air. The environmental protection agency has issued a study where the cleaner indoor air increases productivity of the team with 11 %. So, this can be used as a pitch when you are presenting your property and why your property is better than the other ones or why a tenant should pay two euros more per square meter in your office building rather than two euros less in a class B office building. Because they will be 11 % more productive. That’s why! You’re not only advertising your building, you are basically addressing the need of the tenant and the need to become more profitable also for the tenant. So, your office, your office building or office space can do that. This is a presentation web page that starts with the digital twin that can be filtered by floor, by surface, or you can see also here the number of people based on the tenant split. But continuing you also have complete building specs, sustainability features, quality of the materials used inside, place making with points of interest, an aerial shot showcasing how you enter, and exit the parking lot. As you can see this is the site. Right now, nothing is there. So, for this digital twin we only needed, as I said, the plans.

When you are basically seeing the split, you also see the position on the floor plate, but if both spaces, or all four spaces, or six spaces, it doesn’t matter how the tenants fit looks like ,you can merge them together if you want accommodating a bigger team and entering a virtual tour.

Here in the virtual tour you have the full floor with again key differentiators carefully mapped in place. For example, the Harvard business review reports says that natural light increases productivity with 2 %. So, that’s another 2 % added to the productivity of the potential tenant by moving in here and paying a bigger rent. You can start virtually walking through the space base build. So, basically this is a walk into the future because this floor is not yet there.

25:13 Showcasing standard fitout or custom

But furthermore, you can even place a fitout. This fitout is immediately generated as you can see. it is the best scenario of how to use this space. So, it is a standard fitout. We can also do a custom one if the tenant requires this, in order to sign the pre-release agreement. So, you can have also the exact demand.

Everything that you see here, walking around, interacting with the space, turning on and off the fit out, is available on any type of device as we previously mentioned. Right now, what you have, basically, done in the mind of the tenant? You have qualified him. So, he saw the building. He saw the location. He saw the impressive technical specification. He saw the space. He sees how it might be furnished. So, assisted by a broker or by himself, he can request an offer. And this request for offer can be connected to an existing CRM account or we can provide the CRM solution for the developer in order to manage the leads.

Milan: Catalin, this far up to the last point it is not only the leasing and sales journey. It’s also a journey for the customer, yeah? Who is in the deciding mode and so he can access it via the same web page?

Catalin: Yeah!

Milan:  And so, he can go back to it after a certain period of time and decide later, yeah?

Catalin: Yes, exactly. Exactly! What we have done, right now, showcasing the twin and the tour. It can be done by a broker assisting a tenant. Showcasing a space that accommodates a team of 135 people, for example, or can be done directly by the tenant. Because this digital twin will be implemented in the website of the developer or the landlord itself. It can be a complete presentation page as we have showcased or we can integrate only the digital twin with the filtering and the virtual tour. So, we don’t want to duplicate already existing information.

Milan: Yeah! And, in the last point you came to the to the dashboard that is especially devoted, I think, to the leasing staff?

Catalin: Yes!

Milan: What is not visible for the for the customer, but you are starting to speak about another point that we realize is very often missing in commercial real estate and this is CRM. There is very little landlords that own some kind of CRM solution. Is this something that is part of your solution or you can connect to the existing CRM if there is any.

28:33 Dashboard with CRM functions or CRM integration

Catalin: If the existing CRM is a cloud-based CRM such as Salesforce, HubSpot, the PipeDrive, MS Dynamics, we can link via API the digital twin to their CRM. So, there is no problem of connecting the two. If a certain solution, a CRM solution, such as the ones that I’ve mentioned earlier, is not available, we have the internal dashboard – the management dashboard as I said. We have our digital twin is for commercial purposes. It’s a digital twin connected to data. That data needs to be located somewhere, stored somewhere, and managed from somewhere. Obviously, this is what I’m going to share also this information is internal part. This is under the eyes and hands of the leasing team, of the internal leasing team of the developer. So, no public viewing. It is a restricted access with username and password. So, you cannot go and you cannot access it immediately. I’m just going to share it immediately. Let me just find where it is, okey? Here it is, okay!

So, this is the dashboard. Let me just have a bit of refresh here. This is a demo version. So, as you can see, you cannot enter without having some credentials. When you enter you, see exactly on each property that you have digitally mapped all the information regarding office, parking, … But this is dummy data, how many deals do you have right now opened in their stages. You can manage the availability. So basically, when I was filtering in the digital twin searching for an office space the result of the that query comes from here, from this stacking plan – availability. This availability can be sent directly to brokers, for the brokers that you work with or to specific email addresses. Same goes for parking and also storage.

Deals area, which is the sales funnel, here you receive after completing the form in the front-end in the digital twin you’ll receive here the new deal. And you will have exactly the information, which zone, what surface, what project, what floor, everything. Who is the one that has requested the offer. And from here just click – create offer – and you create an offer for that office space and it will move here or you can drag and drop it and start creating the offer. After you negotiate and you agree to the financial terms, you can even go to head of terms where we will digitally map the standard template of head of terms that each developer has, and they will be able obviously to select their specific head of terms.

Reporting area – this is something that is really customizable. In order to generate the fast bird’s eye view or even detailed reporting here, you administer the brokers you add broker companies and then adding individual agents for brokers. If you already have a database when implementing we will only request an excel with the brokers and the broker agents and everything will be a turnkey solution. You don’t have to manually do anything. Same goes for a tenant. Let’s say we start a project today and you have 25 % of the building for the lease. There are some tenants again. We will ask for the tenants for the tenant excel and we will pre-upload and assign for each space that will also be here clearly mentioned. Again, you have also some statistics regarding how much available space you still have, how much available space you still have, or do you still have, when contracts will expire, so on and so forth. So, this is this is basically where the leasing team works day to day. It’s again one single place today they keep in availability. Some of them keep it in a legacy software such as SAP. Others keep it in excel, the deals similar. If they don’t have a CRM like SalesForce they keep it again something similar in excel and all the information about reports on how many offers have you sent or what are the stages are hard to pile up together when discussing with the board about the evaluation of the progress in leasing.

Milan: Catalin, if we want to identify your ideal customer is it the landlord or it can be also leasing company with much broader portfolio?

34:25 Ideal customer

Catalin: The ideal customer profile, obviously, it’s the developer and slash landlord. The one that holds the building for long term. Because obviously they are the ones that need to lease as much as possible, as fast as possible. But this is not a closed environment. So, consulting agencies that have exclusivity on properties can subscribe to the service of using the digital twin and promote the building in this manner. Also, for the consulting agencies we have a specific product that is a custom 3D space planning service, which is basically the last step before signing the pre-lease agreement. The custom space planning is the actual proof of concept that the team will fit there and what you see in the virtual tour, is 80 % the concept design that will be implemented.

Milan: So,  if I am a landlord or a developer – your ideal customer, yeah, what options do I have? If I love digital twin but I have my CRM solution I can buy just this one and for only selected buildings?

Catalin: Yes, yes! We can do one pilot project so you can convince yourself that you are decreasing your lease cycle, you are generating more leads, because also the trend in the market is that more and more millennials are becoming decision makers, which are hyper connected to the internet where they want to experience everything with Internet. In connecting this digital twin to your CRM, the CRM – the management part that you see we created because we identified the fact that some of the developers don’t have anything and they want something like this. Or in in if the case if you don’t have anything but you do love only the digital twin, the digital twin will make zero sense without having the availability at least behind it. Because the result of the query is directly linked to the to the availability. So, when you are searching for an office if you don’t have a database to search in, then digital twin will return nothing. And, we can discuss about also having portfolio implementation, several buildings at once, and you can even have another cool value proposition for your tenants.

So, let’s say they are searching for a 100 to 1200 square meters office and you have that exact surface in three buildings across Bratislava, okay? The rent is the same.  The, let’s say the specific of the buildings are the same. The same quality, everything is the same, yeah? So, which one is better for the tenant?  How do you help him decide, which is better for him? Well, you can ask for the list of employees without names only the addresses and you can upload it into the software. The list of addresses and the query itself will return which office building is better placed for their employees to travel, to have a combined less time while traveling to work, thus having also a lower carbon footprint while commuting to work. So, you don’t only take care about the fact that you, as a landlord, you have to take care of the environment. The “E” from ESG. You also help the tenant make the same sustainable decision towards the environment.

Milan: Yeah! Okay, let’s say that you convinced me. What costs and how much time should I take into account, when implementing your solution and further use?

38:40 Price and time needed for implementation

Catalin: Well, the cost itself, it’s s SAS fee – Software-As-a Service subscription that is directly linked to the surface and the vacant area. So, it’s going to be a price scale, if we take into account the office building of 30 000 square meters that is completely vacant, the cost per year will be roughly 28 000 euros per year.

Milan: And the time of implementation?

Catalin:  1,5 months to 2 months.

Milan: I understand that it depends on how many fitouts do I want to show to potential customer.

Catalin: This is the standard implementation when we deliver the complete digital twin with the splits. Three, four, five, with one fitout in each combination and in each split as well as in the full floor.

And then if you wanted more fitouts. If you want three fitouts,  obviously, time will increase because we have to generate the fitouts itself. We have to render them and we have to make them web ready.  But for the first stage we deliver the digital twin with one fitout in maximum of 2 months based also on the feedback discussions. We create the digital twin for you, but it is your image, yeah? So, we need to have your approval before actually going live delivering the project to you and placing it on your website in order to start commercializing the proper.

Milan: Okay. And maybe one unpleasant: I will use your solution. I will lease the building. I will have vacancy close to zero, yes? So, the building will be full. Why is it good to have your solution further and pay each year? For more flexibility or what is the benefit?

41:12 Why continual usage makes sense?

Catalin:  Okey, as i mentioned, we’re a SAS. We are constantly developing new features that obviously being a SAS you will find one day a new feature coming into your platform, into your implemented platform. One could be the divestment model. So, your business model itself as you build, you lease, and then you want to sell the building. In order to sell the building, you create a divestment memorandum. You create a VDR in order to upload the, let’s say, the documents that are subjected to the to the selling of the building. So, instead of having a divestment memorandum that is 65 – 70 pages of a pdf you have again the digital twin that is now used for divestment purposes. So, you can instead of sending that huge pdf via WeTransfer to somebody, you send the digital twin to an investor in USA.

Milan: Yeah!

Catalin: So that’s why you should keep subscribing to the service itself. Obviously, if you have, if we reach the end of the SAS contract and your building is completely leased, we have a legacy model that keeps your building as a portfolio building with limited functionalities. You will not have any more the virtual tours. You’ll have some relevant information that says this building was and it has brought me these results and it can be up for sale right now.

Milan:  Yeah! Thank you! Thank you! Looking at Daria and the choice of fitouts that is available what’s your experience? Do the customers require special fitouts or is the communication with customers complicated regarding this?

43:10 More continual benefits.

Daria: This is actually, yeah, one of the reasons why I moved into this PropTech business. Because if we look at, how Catalin was presenting, imagining a building work or touring a building in reality as a shared course, it’s harder to see what it could look like furnished. So, having that one standard fitout that we agree with our client that is the best showcasing of how their interior space could be looking at as an office, is really helping people, which are different stakeholders in a tenant decision, which are maybe from HR, from finance and, so on, which are not architects themselves. So, it’s easy a little bit more difficult for them to understand and to imagine what it would look like. As you’ve seen it’s so easy to just walk through the space and see a desk here and the office there and the meeting room. And that’s the standard option. But, as Catalin said, we have the option of doing real test fits for and space planning in 3D for the later part of the process when they want to see how their exact requirements would look. And there it’s easy for us if our client has an architect that is working with. We get the 2D from them or we can even help with that. And, we create that digital tour, which can have a certain look, if we want to align to something that the tenant would like to see: like industrial,  or different styles, like modern, and so on. And, if you’ve seen the fitout from the project, that Catalin was sharing, that was actually called a green hybrid fitout, because it was focusing on sustainability. And, it had also information about the types of materials that the landlord would use to deliver that space like a carbon neutral carpet, like chairs, and different other items of furniture made from recycled materials, like very energy efficient, led or HVAC systems. So, all this information that is linked to the sustainability can also be mapped and seen in the fitout as well as on the building, which is very useful.

Milan: Yeah! Thank you! This is maybe another reason why to have your solution on a continual basis and to use it for either relocation, for modernization, for solving day-to-day business, yeah? That I have more employees in this room this month and next month I will start a new project, so, I will need to change either fitout or move the walls.

Daria: That’s right though. The workplace is a dynamic place we’re not gonna see because of the pandemic. And, seeing workplace as a destination and that’s something that needs to adapt together with us. It’s become a live place, so you can do different alterations to it to make it more adaptable to your needs and seeing these alterations as a proposal before you actually invest the money to execute them in reality can be again very helpful.

Milan: Yeah! Thank you! During our previous discussions I asked what are your plans for 2023 and I would like to see where are you at the moment. Because when I told you that that we are contemplating cooperation you said that your calendar is at the moment very tight because you have new projects and it needs to be taken into account that it may take some time. What do you plan for 2023? Is there any new team ideas or what are the projects that you would like to cater for the next year?

47:35 What are the plans for 2023

Catalin: Well, our strategy in 2023 is to further develop the presence of our office software because we also have it in residential, retail and logistics but the most mature one is the office. We ended 2022 with three countries being present: Romania, Hungary and the United Kingdom. We will end the first quarter of 2023 with an addition of three more countries. I cannot disclose them until it’s going to be out in the open. Our focus is primarily European, but in the same time we look at the emerging real estate markets that can benefit our solution. That’s why one of the recent news is that we have added a very knowledgeable real estate person to be our regional manager and handling our regional manager and handling the operation in the middle east and north Africa. That’s why even next week, Daria Bogdan – our CEO and myself, we will be in Dubai and Abu Dhabi meeting developers in in the UAE and having probably in the nearby future also some projects or portfolio implementation based on the appetite on digitalization.

Milan: It’s quite fresh news, am I right? I noticed a post on the LinkedIn last week.

Catalin: Yes. Mike is former country head Poland and Romania for MindSpace which is one of the biggest co-working spaces provider in Europe and he has a lot of real estate experience that we are hoping to learn even more from him and while also providing the tech – the technology that we have gathered until now.

Milan: Okay! Thank you very much! I think that that was exhausting. Not that I would be exhausted but I think that the theme is good covered. I don’t see any questions that we did not answer that we discussed. So, let me thank you for your availability and will to be part of this event. And, I hope that we will meet your solutions also in Slovakia. I forgot to mention that that was the thing that we are missing solutions not only in the smart building space but also in a country, that we live in. I cannot find a similar solution here at the moment so it would be very nice to have some adopters.

Catalin: We look forward for the engagement.

Daria: Thank you, Milan.  And uh even if we did not have any questions, we are always reachable and happy to talk to anyone who has questions.  Daria and Catalin at Bright Spaces, you can find us on LinkedIn and just happy to connect and chat to anyone.

Milan: Okay! Thank you very much!

Daria: Thank you, Milan, for having us!

Catalin: Thank you! Bye!

This article was firstly published on the webpage of PropTech Bulgaria.

• Which is the highest potential in PropTech in your country?

Sylvia Pavlova, PropTech Bulgaria:

75 % of Bulgarian PropTechs provide solutions for 2 out of the 5 PropTech lifecycle stages, namely, (1) Market & Transact and (2) Manage & Operate. However, there is a rising number of ConTech solutions and Smart Building solutions, e.g. Alterco that is a world leader in its segment.

Jakub Licak, Czech & Slovak PropTech Association:

Property developers: Slow and unclear permitting processes and increasing costs of construction works. Also, the legislation puts tenants in favour rendering BTR less safe to execute.
PropTechs: This depends on the segment. I’d say CEE startups still need to overcome the cultural gap and Eastern European prisma to succeed in Western Europe and the US.

Milan Bogar, PropTech Slovakia:

The most numerous group of PropTech players provide services in two real estate lifecycle stages: 1. Manage & Operate including large group of smart city players represented for example by Sensoneo, the winner of the first Europe PropTech Start-Up Award, and 2. Live & Work. This group counts over 60 out of more than 100 solutions present in our country. But we have a couple of interesting players providing their innovative services in other real estate lifecycle stages too.

1. Which are the greatest challenges before PropTechs and Property Developers in your country?

Sylvia Pavlova, PropTech Bulgaria:

Before Covid-19 times I would have said ‘lack of external funding for PropTechs’. However, the pandemics proved bootstrapped PropTechs as more resilient since they have larger cash reserves than VC-backed startups. A widely recognized hurdle is the cooperation between industry corporates and startups. While there are some examples of real estate players collaborating with tech solutions, there are only single cases in the construction industry in Bulgaria.

Jakub Licak, Czech & Slovak PropTech Association:

There’s a high demand for solutions of all types. I disagree with the conventional wisdom that Western European companies are more progressive and tech-savvy. In many cases, we see Czech and Slovak companies operating on a higher level of digitization than their western counterparts. From market intelligence, workflow management towards customer experience.

Milan Bogar, PropTech Slovakia:

In general, the biggest PropTech challenge is lack of new Investment & Financing platforms that are focused on development of real estate and lack of specialised accelerators or incubators focused on PropTech. PropTech is still relatively unknown term in Slovakia and it is our mission to change it.

3. What’s your message to PropTechs as a co-organizer of the 1st international PropTech Conference in the SEE?

Sylvia Pavlova, PropTech Bulgaria:

This Conference is one-of-its-kind. It provides direct information on near country markets and the right connections if a PropTech wants to approach for an initial market research.

Furthermore, it is a great chance for PropTechs to meet personally with Property Developers in SEE countries and create leads.

They can also take advantage and get to know what PropTech solutions are out there in the country they plan to expand to.

Jakub Licak, Czech & Slovak PropTech Association:

I can see two clear benefits for them:

1. Smart exposure to real estate developers – their potential clients.
2. Opportunity to meet other European PropTechs and create new business partnerships.

Milan Bogar, PropTech Slovakia:

I would warmly invite all PropTech companies to the 1-st international PropTech Conference in the SEE that can contribute to improvement of construction and real estate sector in SEE and want to scale up with their solutions to other countries. International co-operation, exchange of knowledge and building relationships is basic condition for improving either our built environment or coping with global climate challenges that are ahead of us in the best possible way.

We are looking forward to line-up of great speakers that will be present on this amazing event. Big thank to PropTech Bulgaria for organising the whole event and giving us chance to contribute with our co-organisation.

Although rea estate is very local phenomenon, thanks to international business co-operation, new technologies can bring in many improving features that are not limited by country borders.

1. What Property Developers to expect from the Conference?

Sylvia Pavlova, PropTech Bulgaria:

Definitely, getting access to the right international network; meeting all type of PropTech solutions; getting to know the key players outside their home country, and of course, so valuable information that they cannot get access to outside this Conference.

Jakub Licak, Czech & Slovak PropTech Association:

I believe property developers can only benefit from meeting PropTech companies:

They can learn what new technologies and solutions are available for their business.

They can network with other property developers and get valuable insights from other markets.

Milan Bogar, PropTech Slovakia:

Property developers can expect amazing event broadening their knowledge, relationships with suppliers of new technologies that can immensely improve their buildings, innovation workshops with some of the best experts in the world with many experiences from other countries. There is very impressive line-up of other well-known speakers that all developers should be looking forward to watching them.

Read the full interview with Milan Bogar here.

Read Bulgaria-as-a-PropTech-Service here.