Proptech, or property technology, refers to the use of various technology including digital tools and platform-based economic models in the real estate industry. Landlords often use these technologies to surveil and target residents, compromising their privacy and security. The widespread use of proptech raises significant concerns about the potential for abuse and the erosion of tenant rights, as these tools can be used to monitor and control tenants more aggressively — possibly exacerbating existing racial, gendered, and class-based housing injustice. 

Real Estate Tech, Retech, Realtech, or Commercial Real Estate (CRE) Tech.

These terms all refer to the same overarching concept of technology transforming the real estate industry, but they might emphasize different areas. 

While convenient, smart locks and keyless entry can also track when tenants enter and leave, raising privacy concerns. In some cases, landlords use this data to monitor tenant behavior or enforce stricter lease terms.

Biometric heatmapping and facial recognition systems use sensors and cameras to track and identify people within buildings based on body heat and facial features. The software can be less accurate for people of color, leading to false accusations or restricted access. These systems also collect highly personal data, often without explicit consent, posing a risk to privacy and data security, and creating an atmosphere of distrust. 

Increased camera use can make tenants feel safer, but it can also create an environment of constant monitoring, leading to discomfort and concerns about who has access to the footage. A lack of privacy can lead to a heightened sense of vulnerability, making tenants more compliant and less likely to challenge unfair practices, including potential evictions.

Automated rent collection systems can simplify payments but might also come with additional fees or penalties for late payments, leading to higher overall costs for tenants.

Proptech data can be used to analyze market trends and tenant behavior to justify rent increases, potentially making housing less affordable, especially in areas experiencing gentrification.

Surveillance technology can significantly undermine tenant organizing efforts by creating an environment of fear, control, and mistrust.

• Increased Monitoring: Proptech tools like cameras, smart locks, and data analytics can monitor tenants' movements and activities, deterring them from meeting or communicating openly about organizing efforts.

• Data Collection and Targeting: Landlords can use data gathered through proptech to identify and target tenants who are involved in organizing or resisting rent increases, potentially leading to eviction threats or other forms of intimidation.

• Privacy Invasion: The pervasive use of surveillance technology can create a chilling effect, where tenants feel too watched to engage in collective action, fearing retaliation or breaches of their personal privacy.

• Control Over Communications: Landlords might control or monitor digital platforms provided for tenant communication, making it harder for organizers to coordinate without being observed or censored.

• Intimidation Through Technology: Advanced technologies like facial recognition or biometric access can be used to track and identify organizers, leading to selective enforcement of rules or other punitive measures that discourage activism.

ConTech (construction technology) and FinTech (financial technology) are related to PropTech as they both use technology to improve processes in their respective industries, construction and finance, which are integral parts of the real estate ecosystem.

Property Management Software streamlines tasks like rent collection and maintenance, Blockchain secures transactions and records, Artificial Intelligence (AI) provides data analysis for decision-making, Internet of Things (IoT) connects smart devices in buildings for better monitoring and automation, and Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) allow virtual property tours and enhanced visualizations for potential buyers and tenants.

• Automation: Smart real estate like Amazon Go, similar automation is taking place in office buildings

• Mortgage and Lending: Blend, Ethos, States Title

• Real Estate Brokerage: Opendoor, Harbor, Appear Here, VTS

• Rental and Hotel: AirBnB, Lyric

• Facilities and Property Management: VTS, Enertiv, Wiredscore, Eden

• Construction: Honest Buildings

• Insurance: Hippo

• Legal: Notarize

In the 2000s, several notable real estate marketplaces and portals emerged, revolutionizing the industry by making property information more accessible online. Examples include Zillow, which launched in 2006 and provided comprehensive property listings and valuation estimates, and Realtor.com, which offered a vast database of properties for sale and rent. Another key player was Trulia, founded in 2005, which focused on delivering user-friendly property search tools and local information to help buyers make informed decisions. This digital shift radically altered property transactions, often prioritizing efficiency and convenience over the privacy and security of users, and fundamentally changing the landscape of the real estate market. As a result, the foundation was laid for the current surge in proptech innovations. 

In the post-COVID-19 era, technocapitalism—a system where technological advancements are intertwined with capitalist ventures—has particularly driven the rapid rise of proptech, especially in property management and tenant surveillance. During the early months of the COVID-19 Pandemic, tech companies began finding ways to turn the crisis into opportunities for profit — presenting surveillance and tracking technologies as solutions for contact tracing and disease detection. Several articles produced by members of the organization the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project trace how the COVID-19 Pandemic exacerbated racialized housing injustice, particularly through the deployment of surveillance technologies that were initially used to aid in public health monitoring. In the article Landlord Technology in COVID-19 Times the authors Erin McElroy & Wonyoung So write, “In the realm of housing, landlords and property managers deploy these technologies to surveil tenants and the unhoused, not only to detect disease, facilitate automatic entry and rental payment, and prevent package theft, but also to create data banks on those unable to pay rent.”  

Unfortunately, it can be anywhere. See the widespread deployment of landlord surveillance technology by clicking on the Landlord Tech Watch map.

The Anti-Eviction Mapping Project is working on a Tenant Surveillance Survey — if your landlord has installed online payments, CCTV cameras, or digital locks let the organization know.

Proptech proliferates in tech ecosystem cities like San Francisco and NYC due to the high demand for rental housing and the drive for landlords to maximize profits through efficiency and data collection. 

• SF Landlord Tech Report – 2023. 

• Automating Gentrification: Landlord Technologies and Housing Justice Organizing in NYC Homes– 2022

Landlord Tech Watch

"Tenants in the Atlantic Plaza Towers apartment complex in New York’s Brownsville neighborhood were fighting to prevent their landlord, Nelson Management Group, from installing facial recognition technology to open the front door to their buildings, calling it an intrusion of their privacy. This week, they succeeded—the group reversed the decision."

Continue reading here.

Organize floor leaders to knock on others doors to inform tenants of surveillance implementation →

Organize general attendance meeting with tenants to discuss landlord surveillance →

Have local legal service attend meeting and accompany in confronting landlord →

Spur media attention →

Pressure Landlord to give public acknowledgement →

2023 Tenant Data Privacy Act passed to halt surveillance implementation.

Continue to remain diligent and organized.

Proptech software company RealPage is facing a lawsuit by the Justice Department for rental market collusion, a violation of federal antitrust laws. The six largest corporate American landlords (Essex, Camden, Equity, UDR, MAA, Avalon Bay) have allegedly conspired to keep rent prices artificially high by utilizing Realpages software. The U.S. of Public Affairs explained: “The complaint alleges that RealPage contracts with competing landlords who agree to share with RealPage nonpublic, competitively sensitive information about their apartment rental rates and other lease terms to train and run RealPage’s algorithmic pricing software. This software then generates recommendations, including on apartment rental pricing and other terms, for participating landlords based on their and their rivals’ competitively sensitive information. The complaint further alleges that in a free market, these landlords would otherwise be competing independently to attract renters based on pricing, discounts, concessions, lease terms, and other dimensions of apartment leasing. RealPage also uses this scheme and its substantial data trove to maintain a monopoly in the market for commercial revenue management software. The complaint seeks to end RealPage’s illegal conduct and restore competition for the benefit of renters in states across the country.”