Asia lacks dominant platform for residential property management

Processes like rent collection and repair tracking still lack tech solutions.

The biggest untapped opportunity in proptech isn’t planning, it’s residential property management.

“I want to see one great winner in property management software, especially for small, mid-size residential assets,” said Satoshi Murakami, director and head of APAC at MetaProp, in an interview with Real Estate Asia at the Global Property Expo in Singapore.

“Rent collection, inspection and repair tracking and tenant communications—nowadays, still in this era, people like using a phone or a spreadsheet or emails,” Murakami added. “But if someone built a one-stop platform that anyone in Asia can use, they'll be huge.”

While the management side remains underdeveloped, Murakami said there’s been rapid progress in real estate planning, particularly through AI-powered tools aimed at offsetting labour shortages.

“The labour shortage becomes a big, big issue all over the world, even in Japan, the United States, Asia or anywhere,” he said.

He pointed out how automation is streamlining workflows and freeing up developers’ time. “That creates extra time to plan and find another good land, something like that,” Murakami added. “I see a lot of AI-powered solutions which save a lot of processes. So I think we will see more and more solutions like that.”

Murakami sees AI reshaping planning, but says the real opportunity lies in property management, where a unified platform has yet to emerge.