Property Technology (PropTech) is quickly transforming the global real estate industry, driving innovation and spurring trends across new residential and commercial developments.
The global PropTech market was valued at $36.55 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $88.37 billion by 2032, illustrating the growing relevance of smart technologies in real estate.
With staples of PropTech like online marketplaces, management solutions and smart home technologies come an increasing reliance on remote-access capabilities. Cloud technologies drive innovation in the PropTech market, but traditional systems are struggling to keep pace.
The answer, in many experts’ minds, lies in hybrid cloud infrastructure, solutions that Gartner forecasts 90% of organizations will adopt by 2027. To paint a clear image of the future, this post explores novel hybrid cloud tools, the rise of PropTech and emerging real estate trends.
The role of hybrid cloud in PropTech innovation
Hybrid cloud architectures are computing environments that combine on-premises (physical) network infrastructure with off-premises, public cloud networks. The main draw to using this type of cloud installation is to share digital management workloads across multiple platforms.
In the case of real estate, hybrid cloud infrastructure allows property owners, managers and security teams to handle sensitive data in a closed system while managing day-to-day tasks remotely in easily-accessible platforms, helping to balance safety and efficiency responsibly.
Hybrid cloud drives PropTech innovation by drawing secure lines between private and public data, enabling service providers to develop intuitive and compliant tools. For example, smart property security systems rely on hybrid cloud platforms to safeguard user credentials while providing management remote-access to feeds; similar principles apply to all PropTech tools.
3 PropTech trends to watch in 2026 and beyond
The rise of hybrid cloud infrastructure in the real estate industry has directly enabled smart PropTech solutions to take root. By providing real estate professionals a reliable way to both access networks remotely and safeguard sensitive data, innovative tools can be developed.
With this in mind, below are some current and emerging PropTech trends to keep an eye on.
1. Multi-site property security management
5-years post-pandemic, the commercial real estate market seems to be bouncing back, with the World Economic Forum indicating 2025 and beyond will represent a new era of recovery.
For those investing in commercial real estate, including multi-unit residential developments, the ability to manage building technologies across multiple sites from a single platform offers significant benefits. However, legacy cloud technologies introduce exploitable vulnerabilities.
To safely manage key PropTech solutions like access control, video security and emergency alarm systems remotely over multiple buildings, the future likely lies in hybrid cloud systems.
Emerging trends and wider property security technologies suggest unified systems and remote management will rise in popularity, acting to enhance user experiences.
2. Smart home technologies attract buyers
While some experts think the commercial property market is bouncing back, the residential real estate market has more of a mixed outlook, displaying both positive and negative signs.
Existing home sales have increased by almost 1% in recent months, but the housing market still has significantly more sellers than buyers, influencing novel trends to attract home sales.
Advertising PropTech front-and-center continues to show promise in attracting buyers from a contextually small pool. In 2022, 82% of renters considered smart home technology a priority feature, while recent data suggests over 75% of US citizens will use such PropTech by 2028.
To run this tech safely and reliably, hybrid cloud architecture will be essential, suggesting the utilization and advertising of PropTech to attract buyers will be reliant on hybrid cloud growth.
3. Automated rental property management
AI and machine learning-powered automation is revolutionising almost all modern industries, with 74% of organizations seeing investments in such systems meet or exceed expectations.
The real estate industry is no different, with the ability for automation to eliminate repetitive tasks and streamline operations proving invaluable to owners of rental property businesses.
Even across small-scale portfolios, the utilization of PropTech such as cloud-based property management software provides almost immeasurable benefits, empowering property owners and managers to maintain compliances, run screenings and collect payments with little input.
Hybrid cloud architecture is particularly important to this practice due to the highly-sensitive nature of rental property data. For the benefits of remote management to be realised, those running operations must ensure client data is secure while everyday insights are accessible.
Final word
As the US real estate market looks towards a brighter future, smart technologies and remote management systems will prove ever-important. For such solutions to continue driving new trends and growth, professionals must retain focus on hybrid cloud and PropTech innovation.
Emma Williams is the founder and CEO of Seene.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of HousingWire’s editorial department and its owners.
To contact the editor responsible for this piece: [email protected].
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