Invest-Gate wrapped up its first virtual roundtable on May 17, titled “Smart Real Estate Market Amid COVID-19,” tapping the knowledge and experience of local real estate gurus and creating a blueprint of smart solutions fit for real estate recovery and a future beyond the pandemic.

In the presence of Deputy Minister of Housing, Utilities, and Urban Communities for National Projects Khaled Abbas, the first-of-its-kind event brought together a number of real estate gurus, including Rooya Group Chairman and CEO Eng. Hisham Shoukri, Iwan Developments CEO Eng. Waleed Mokhtar, Mountain View Chairman Eng. Amr Soliman, Tatweer Misr President and CEO Dr. Ahmed Shalaby, Tabarak Developments CEO Mr. Ali El-Shorbany, and Lotus Management Chairman and CEO Mr. Amr M. Aboualam.

Roundtable Members Conclude Recommendations as Follows:

Regarding Digitization & Technological Development:

– Real estate companies should highly invest in strong networks and smart solutions as the first requirement for successful digital transformation. 

– Businesses should adapt to cutting-edge working-from-home technologies to allow the workforce to remotely operate and efficiently maintain productivity. 

– Smart solutions should be by default present at all real estate developments as information technology (IT) became a need, rather than a want, by all family members that study, work, or communicate remotely.

– Digital marketing needs to gain ground among property companies to boost virtual sales and efficiently market their projects to end-users, with deals sealed remotely via bank transfers or cheques.

– Virtual real estate sales should be handled by a third party to ensure the efficient continuity and functionality of such platforms, thereby providing more time to monitor financial transactions properly.

– Developers should maintain demand for virtual real estate services (ex: augmented reality (AR), 360° virtual panoramic tours, etc.) as it creates a digital recreation of properties, wherein speeding up the closing process and fine-tuning the number of clients.

– There needs to be a push through the emergence of escrow accounts, blockchain technologies, and other smart real estate solutions.

Regarding Crisis Times:

– Close collaboration between real estate developers, along with the housing ministry, is required in building probable recovery scenarios and discussing the winning strategies to maintain a healthy property market. 

– Real estate developers need to revisit the components of current residences and get creative with space-efficient solutions for space-challenged residential units. The pandemic made clients comprehend the need to take full advantage of areas, thereby demanding much functional, yet spacious, properties. 

– Medical developments and hospitals should be present within residential communities as a basic component, which will push eventually through real estate export.

– Site workers should follow a strict safety protocol, articulated by real estate companies and certified by the housing and health ministries, in a bid to combat infection spread. 

– Developers need to define a whole new raft of real estate products that address the changes in consumer preferences, including the provision of warehouses and logistic developments.

– With e-commerce on the rise, leisure and entertainment products should forge ahead to revive demand for retail developments. 

– Property developers and investors need to start investing in areas other than Cairo and the North Coast, and move toward Upper Egypt and the Nile Delta instead, as part of their diversified asset portfolios which should remain healthy despite uncertainties. 

– Companies should adopt technology innovations for financial inclusion, so as to pump liquidity into target markets, hence the development of the real estate market.

– Regulations and registration of real estate properties should be streamlined, together with the utilization of top-of-the-line marketing strategies, to generate more recurring revenue streams out of real estate exports. 

– Real estate companies must join forces to make collective decisions; change cannot be individual.

For the complete virtual roundtable coverage, open “Smart Real Estate Market Amid COVID-19.”