EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

PropLink offers customers the possibility to significantly increase convenience and success rates in the pursuit of buying, selling or renting real estate without an agent. The unique set-up of the platform includes in-depth filtering paired with a very selective matching process, thereby providing decisive advantages for commission-free transactions compared to well-established property platforms, such as willhaben.at and immobilienscout24.at. The platform is calibrated for perfect usability on all devices and features a time-saving swipe mechanism for the property search on-the-go. We monetize our unique value proposition via a small flat fee for listing the properties on our platform.

Goal

We created PropLink with the established goal to achieve agent-like convenience in the property transaction process without paying the price of an agent.
Agent commissions for both counterparties in the property transaction process amount to 3% of the transaction price in the case of selling and 2 gross rents in the case of renting. The agent offers convenience in exchange for the high commission. Many inquiries combined with low success rates convince property owners to engage an agent. Therefore, we think the current process on established property platforms is highly inefficient for people inclined to sell their property themselves and that there is a market for our product.

Methodology

We used the lean start-up method to design a property platform to rent, buy and sell a property commission-free. Quantitative data demonstrated that 62% of transactions fail due to an inefficient matching process which then leads to dead-deal costs. Furthermore, to confirm our hypothesis of the inefficient transaction process on established real estate platforms, we conducted surveys with participants from a mixed variety of backgrounds.

Results

The results from the surveys confirmed our assumption. Agent commissions constitute a significant pain-point for 73% of the survey participants. Based on that we created PropLink. PropLink combines many convincing advantages for private property offerings compared to other property platforms such as detailed filtering possibilities, reduced exposure and verified users and offers an additional innovative swipe solution. Thereby, PropLink is able to create a convenience level similar to professional agents but only charges a fraction of the commission.

Cooperation Partner

• PropLink

Contact Person

• roman_zott@hotmail.com
  kim.viktoria.vagedes@gmail.com

Student Team

• Kim Viktoria Vagedes
  Roman Zott