The Straits Times, 23 January 2024
Real estate agency Propseller leveraged its proprietary app to help customers make better decisions when buying and selling homes.
Back in 2020, Propseller was five days away from running out of cash when last-minute funding threw the real estate agency a lifeline.
The start-up property agency’s outlook went from a revenue of a few hundred thousand dollars a month in 2019 to virtually nothing during the circuit breaker, which began in April 2020.
“Our revenue went to zero overnight” says Propseller Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Adrien Jorge.
Just before the start of the lockdown, Propseller frantically set up virtual home tours for their listings as the only alternative to in-person viewings. This enabled the company to maintain operations, close some deals entirely virtually and survive during the circuit breaker.
Then things started to change for the better.
“It was a boomerang effect. At first Covid was really tough on us then consumers started their journeys online not only for small-ticket items such as electronics or food delivery but also for big-ticket items such as retirement planning and selling a home,” says Mr Jorge.
During this period, the company attracted US$1.2 million (S$1.6 million) in seed funding in October 2020, just four days before the company was running out of cash. The funding not only secured their survival but helped them accelerate their growth.
In 2021, Propseller’s revenue increased by 553 per cent to S$4.8 million, which was enough proof for it to secure another investment of US$12 million (S$15.8 million) in August 2022, in a funding round led by Vertex Ventures, Temasek Holdings’ venture capital arm.
“Many investors shared our belief that in the future, real estate consumers are going to be served by a brand who brings under one roof highly trained staff, technology and data” says Mr Jorge.
Central to Propseller’s model is its proprietary tech platform that gives customers and staff access to valuable data and insights – such as a property’s days on market, number of enquiries, viewings, offers versus comparable listings, as well as viewer feedback – to help them make more informed decisions.
For Propseller, these metrics feed into a growing analytics platform that enables its team to provide better advice to customers and help them achieve better outcomes. “Our platform recommends corrective actions for listings the same way a doctor recommends medications. Those recommendations are based on what worked and what did not work for more than 2,500 property transactions. Our vision is to make real estate go from art to science,” says Mr Jorge.
Serving customers better
Unlike most real estate agencies in Singapore with self-employed agents who are registered with them, Propseller employs in-house salaried property agents. They are backed by a centralised team for marketing, video production, customer services, technology and data science. Mr Jorge explains: “Our clients are dealing with the brand, and our agents become an extension of the brand, as opposed to running their own little business.”
With comprehensive support from the company and a lot more empirical data available to them, Propseller’s agents are able to better serve customers, for example, by adjusting prices according to live market response for the best results faster. Mr Jorge says: “We’ve made the agent more of an adviser in an important transaction. It’s a highly trained co-pilot bringing consumers the data-driven advice they need to deliver results.”
From 2019 to 2022, Propseller’s transactions rose by 383 per cent from when the company made S$6.97 million in revenue with 830 transactions.
This resulted in the company getting ranked in the Fastest Growing Companies 2024 list compiled by The Straits Times and Statista.
The company has also launched a web app, Propseller Buy, in the fourth quarter of 2023, offering a 360-degree service to customers looking to move from one home to another, as they buy and sell.
Eyeing a one-stop-shop solution for consumers, the company is also exploring FinTech as it aims to circle the sell-and-buy loop.
“2024 will be a year of scaling by bringing Propseller services to more property sellers and buyers. Towards this goal, we plan to hire 100 people across all functions this year,” says Mr Jorge.
Camille Jacques 