Vincent Vallois MRICS, Co-Founder of Online Real Assets – CEE Partner of Spaceflow tenant experience application – sees the market from a new perspective. Online Real Assets has just launched Spaceflow in Hungary and they see great potential and momentum for a space-as-service transition of the commercial real estate market.
- What are the most important trends on the Budapest office market?
- Right now, community building is getting high attention. ImmoFinanz and CPI started the process several years ago in Budapest, but now the tools are here to give the chance to all office buildings to develop an immersive tenant retention strategy using proptech tools. JLL Sparks - the PropTech incubator of JLL - invested in 2 startups in the field of community building already, CBRE has launched Host.
- What are the most important differences between Budapest and Western Europe?
- The trend points towards services and not rent anymore. Real estate companies are redefining themselves as service providers: they want to create a community, experience centres and not only offices for rent as it used to be. It is about the emotions you can create. HB Reavis was one of the first who did that in CEE and they created a new trend. Spaceflow is all about this new trend and fits right into it.
- You say that losing a single tenant means €1,1 million loss. How can the Spaceflow application help to avoid this?
- Well, everyone knows that it’s cheaper to retain clients than to acquire new ones in any industry, right? It is the same when we are talking about offices: I mean you have a tenant leaving the property, causing vacancy; you need budget to be given for fit out and for agent commission, so those costs add up pretty fast.
- Occupation rate is as low as never before. Tenants are struggling for free spaces. Why is Spaceflow important now?
- Low vacancy doesn’t mean that services have to be less, but rather more. Spaceflow provides opportunities for everyone who is looking for an upgrade for their office. A few from our features that we provide: concierge services, information about nearby amenities and easy access, special discounts for all tenants and their family. In general, we are already helping landlords’ digital transition through our online products, allowing them to build a brand and attract their future tenants. The Spaceflow technology combined with our community builder team will improve tenant relationships and build deeper connections between people, their workplace and their neighbourhood.
- Do you think that proptech solutions are getting more important in general? What is the cause of this?
- While other companies with tenant experience typically offer solutions for single buildings customized to every asset, which is a costly process which can take months to initiate, Spaceflow emphasizes the plug & play concept, which means the interface easy to use and efficient in scaling the service to any portfolio size. Thanks to that, it can serve traditional offices, as well as co-working or co-living projects. I think companies in the CRE industry will have to change their approach in the near future because the market will change completely. Landlords need to shift to a space-as-service perspective regarding their buildings. The services of Spaceflow are definitely changing the way we deal with tenants; meanwhile some other proptech companies revolutionize other aspects of the industry. Given these trends the question is not if, but more likely when you need proptech tools. It’s closer than you would think.
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