Proptech panel: proptech in 2023, what lies ahead?
As funding conditions tightened and property markets adjusted to higher interest rates, Australian proptech businesses faced a different environment in 2023. In this Proptech Association Australia panel, moderator Jennifer Harrison brought together Julian Kezelman, Rebecca Cope and Angus Moore to examine the changes ahead.
The discussion covers asset technology, ESG, privacy, generative AI, housing supply and construction bottlenecks. Recorded at the start of 2023, it preserves the panel’s outlook and practical advice in its original historical context.
On the panel:
Jennifer Harrison – vice president, Proptech Association Australia (moderator)
Julian Kezelman – Taronga Ventures and RealTechX
Rebecca Cope – partner, digital economy, Ashurst
Angus Moore – economist, PropTrack
The conversation covered:
(00:03) Jennifer Harrison kicks off the year for the Proptech Association Australia and outlines the 2023 event calendar.
(02:30) Julian Kezelman joins the discussion on Taronga Ventures and property innovation.
(04:34) Julian explains how ESG is shifting from simple carbon reduction to broader waste, water, and social governance.
(09:12) Julian highlights digitalisation trends, including Trendspek using drone-captured 3D models for safe asset inspections.
(11:18) Julian discusses asset flexibility and Spacecube building a two-storey hospital in 16 hours during COVID.
(14:15) Global proptech comparison: Europe drives ESG, the US sees platform consolidation, and the Middle East surges in construction tech.
(17:15) Julian tackles the VC capital crunch, advising founders to drop growth-at-all-costs models and focus on unit economics.
(20:19) Rebecca Cope warns that data has shifted from gold to uranium following major breaches, prompting severe privacy penalties.
(24:19) Rebecca notes the Consumer Data Right is moving into action initiation, opening new doors for proptech mortgage integration.
(26:05) Legal realities of generative AI, highlighting that input data rights and IP ownership remain major compliance minefields.
(32:00) Rebecca outlines investor due diligence red flags, emphasising privacy by design and clean contractor IP assignments.
(33:45) Angus Moore contrasts the historic 2021 price boom with 2022 rate hikes and a cooling housing market.
(38:04) Angus breaks down construction bottlenecks, noting detached house pipelines have swelled and build times have blown out.
(44:54) Angus examines the fixed rate mortgage cliff and the refinancing hurdles facing borrowers in 2023.
(51:58) Julian shares why Australian construction tech is uniquely positioned for global export due to our strict regulatory environment.
In their words:
“Often people think ESG and they think about climate and carbon reductions, and of course that's the central focus of our time. But indeed, the pathway towards decarbonisation of buildings is now well and truly set, from a technology and a change perspective.” – Julian Kezelman
“Data used to be seen as gold and now it's more like uranium. So it's still incredibly valuable, but you've gotta treat it in the right way, otherwise it's gonna blow up in your face.” – Rebecca Cope
“Detached houses typically take something like six to nine months. You know, obviously it depends on the house, but broadly speaking, that's blown out to over a year.” – Angus Moore
About the panel:
Julian Kezelman is innovation director at Taronga Ventures and program director at RealTechX, backing scalable property technologies across APAC. Rebecca Cope is a partner in the digital economy team at Ashurst, advising clients on complex technology, cyber, and regulatory compliance. Angus Moore is an economist at PropTrack, providing macroeconomic insights and housing market analysis across Australia.
Transcript:
This is an automated transcript of the panel, lightly edited for readability. Please excuse any errors.
Jennifer Harrison: Hello everyone, and welcome to our first proptech panel for 2023. I'm Jennifer Harrison and I'm on Wallumedegal lands in Sydney, and I'd like to pay my respect to elders past, present, and emerging. I'm also the vice president of the Proptech Association Australia. We are an industry body by proptech for proptech. If you're not a member and you're interested to become a member, you can find out on our website, which is www.proptechassociation.com.au how to become a member. And while you're there, please do sign up for the newsletter. The newsletter is the best way to be informed about the events that we have coming up over the year. This year we're excited to be working with our foundation supporter and sponsor, Stone & Chalk, to offer more in-person, face-to-face events. Starting in Melbourne on the 16th of February, we have a members' meetup, which will be sponsored by PEXA. We're also delighted that our foundation supporter, Ashurst, will be our principal supporter again of our two marquee events, and we've got the dates and venues confirmed for them as well. So our Proptech Awards will be at the Fullerton Hotel in Sydney on the 19th of July, and our proptech Forum will be at the New South Wales Teachers Federation in Surry Hills on the 19th of October. In addition to Stone & Chalk, PEXA, and Ashurst, our other sponsors that I'd like to acknowledge and thank are REWA, MRI Software, WebIT, ListOnce, and PropTrack. Now, it's the start of a new year and lots of people are setting goals. They're looking ahead to what the opportunities and challenges are that are likely to arise. So I'm really happy that for our first panel in January, we're gonna be looking ahead to 2023 and considering what proptechs need to know. We've got a fantastic panel of experts and I'd like to introduce them to you now. Our first guest is Julian Keselman, who is innovation director at Turonga Ventures and program director at RealTechX. Hello, Julian. Thanks for being with us today. How are you?
Julian Kezelman: I'm doing well, Jen. Thanks for the opportunity to join.
Jennifer Harrison: And where are you joining us from?
Julian Kezelman: Oh, I'm joining from our offices down here in Barangaroo. So, uh, we've got a lovely, uh, showcase space of some of our technologies that we invest into, so would, uh, would love to host some of your, um, association members here at some point. It would be great.
Jennifer Harrison: That'd be great. Thank you. Yes. Um, our second guest today is Rebecca Cope. Rebecca is a partner in the digital economy team at Ashurst, who are one of our very valued foundation supporters and sponsors. Hello, Rebecca. Thank you for joining us. How are you today?
Rebecca Cope: Yeah. Well, thank you, Jennifer. Thanks for having me, everyone.
Jennifer Harrison: And where are you joining us from?
Rebecca Cope: Uh, so I'm joining you from Sydney as well. Um, and our offices are up in Martin Place.
Jennifer Harrison: And our third guest on the panel is Angus Moore, who's an economist at PropTrack, one of our other very valued sponsors at the Proptech Association. Hello, Angus. How are you today?
Angus Moore: I'm very well. Thank you so much for having me on today.
Jennifer Harrison: And where are you joining us from?
Angus Moore: I'm rounding out the Sydney crew. So I'm, uh, working from home, as you can maybe tell from my background, but I'm in Petersham in Sydney, in the inner west.
Jennifer Harrison: Wonderful. Okay. Julian, let's come to you first. Uh, most people in proptech know the RealTechX Innovation Program. It's very prestigious, and I know m- all of the previous cohorts speak amazingly about what value they got from it. The current program has an ESG focus, and the themes of sustainability and ESG are very prominent globally. They're definitely going to continue to get corporate and institutional attention in 2023. My questions are: How does focusing on ESG drive the way we do innovation in the built environment? And I suppose another way to think about that is, what comes into sharper focus when we take an ESG lens, and what goes out of focus? And can you answer that with some examples, please?
Julian Kezelman: Yeah, happy to. And thank you for your comments about the RealTechX Innovation Program. It's really, uh, what we like to do at Turonga Ventures to try and give back to the Australian proptech ecosystem, uh, and, and try and catalyze as much growth for, for the companies that we support as we can. Um, so ESG impact, which has been strategically placed above my shoulder, is the, the current thematic of the program and is really driven by the desire of our corporate partners to the program to keep moving the needle on their own ESG performance. So, uh, domestically, the groups, uh, that are part of the program are groups like ISPT, Dexus, uh, and Vicinity Centres, and there's also a number of, uh, international groups that have portfolios here in Australia. And so what we've seen is a strong focus in ESG by many of these major commercial REITs and owners, uh, to improve, um, the, their outcomes over the last 10 years. And in fact, a lot of the, the low-hanging fruit, uh, within the ESG space has already been captured. And so, you know, often people think ESG and they think about, uh, climate, uh, and carbon reductions, and of course that's the central focus of our time. Uh, but indeed, you know, the pathway towards decarbonization of buildings is now well and truly set, uh, from a technology and a change perspective. And there's a whole spectrum of other ESG concerns that, uh, that both our owners and also, uh, emerging proptechs should really be thinking about- So the things that come into sharper focus are really drilling down on the different subcomponents of ESG, uh, and, and looking at where can we make improvements around how, uh, assets are being responsibly managed into the future. So from an environmental component, be, you know, beyond carbon, it's things like improving, uh, waste footprint, it's improving water, uh, and it's improving the internal environments where, where we occupy within our assets. And when it comes down to, to social, I think it's really, uh, brings into sharper focus, uh, a concern for all the different stakeholders in the value chain, not just the occupiers and investors, but really thinking about the employee experience or the community experience, or indeed all of the livelihoods of the people that, that, um, deliver operating services to the built environment. So our cleaners, uh, and, and all of the people staffing our, our retail, um, assets. And so it's thinking about w-what is their experience and how do we start to measure the impact of the initiatives that we put in place, uh, upon them. I think what really, you know, comes i-into focus for the proptechs, so speaking to your members, um, is thinking about ESG in how you run your own businesses, right? So what is responsible good governance when you're building a fast, uh, growing company? How do you start off building your own business with, uh, diversity and inclusion in mind, and building those early teams? And, and even measuring your own sustainability footprint so you can, uh, work with, you know, large owners with credibility and say, you know, "We've cleaned our house from an ESG perspective," um, b-before coming to support you with your own ESG outcomes. And maybe just to round out, you know, I think what comes out of focus is the, the traditional, um, you know, business case around implementing proptechs within major real estate portfolios that's been, uh, unabashedly, uh, ROI-driven. And of course, that doesn't tell the whole story. And so I think thinking about the full suite of outcomes, not just the financial, but how it impacts, um, all of the different stakeholders and, of course, you know, the environment in which we exist is, um, is, is, I think, um, you know, a, a much more holistic way of thinking about the true business case and value case of, of bringing ESG technologies forwards.
Jennifer Harrison: Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate your comments there on h-um, how, you know, proptechs can kind of get their house in order. 'Cause I know some proptechs have a very clear mission in that the problem they're solving is an environmental problem or it is a social problem. Other proptechs, their mission isn't explicitly an ESG mission, but increasingly as they're going out for funding or entering for awards or seeking to go into acceleration programs, ESG keeps coming up, and sometimes they struggle to know how to, you know, how to put some bullet points down on that. Um, outside of ESG, what else are you keeping an eye on in proptech innovation? Are there some big technology and real estate industry trends that you're tracking, and why? And again, it would be great if you could include some specific examples.
Julian Kezelman: Yeah, happy to. So, so there are some, you know, long-term macro trends that are, that are coming through the industry and have been for about a decade now, and, and the most fundamental is, uh, digitization and digitalisation of, of processes. Uh, and, you know, that's a very long, uh, change process and transformation within the traditional real estate sector. And I think where we're at now is that there's been substantial inroads made into, uh, digitization and digitalisation, and now the question is: Well, how do we use that data for, um, you know, true, uh, evidence-led decision-making, so da-data-driven decision-making? And I think some of the examples, you know, we can point to from our own portfolio are a company like Trendspek. So, uh, if you're unfamiliar with Trendspek, people on the call, what they provide is, uh, um, drone-captured imagery of the exterior of an asset. Uh, but it's not actually the drones that, that... is their technology. It's using the photos that have been captured by the drones to create a, uh, full 3D model of the asset so that it can then be inspected for, uh, asset, uh, management and repairs & maintenance and better capital planning. So it means no longer do you need to send somebody up to the roof of a, um, industrial asset to look for cracks and corrosion and, uh, and roof deflection. Um, you get a full 3D model, uh, which is safer and provides, um, millions of data points rather than those that can be simply captured on a, on a clipboard.
Jennifer Harrison: Mm.
Julian Kezelman: So, yeah.
Jennifer Harrison: I was gonna say, look, not that... I think, I think I'm right in saying the single biggest cause of death in, in the real estate industry is a fall from height, whether that's in repairs & maintenance or construction. And if we don't have to put humans in harm's way because we can harness technology, then to me that, that seems like a no-brainer.
Julian Kezelman: I think that's exactly right. Wherever we can find ways to, to obviate those risks and at the same time provide a much richer insight into, you know, the asset condition or operations, that, that's the real advantage that technology can provide. Um, maybe just to touch on one other major thematic, uh, which, you know, all major real estate owners are grappling with at the moment is asset flexibility, uh, and not having stranded assets. Uh, so, you know, what are we gonna do, um, with respect to, um, reinventing the utility that offices provide, uh, and the continual evolution of, of, um, of retail spaces? Uh, and those are not easy challenges to solve. Uh, you know, there's substantial capital considerations when, when it comes to that. So some of the technologies we've been looking at are, how do we, uh, prototype effectively new forms of utility without making those major capital commitments? And another great Australian company that we've invested into called Spacecube- Out of Melbourne provides, uh, flat pack construction, uh, but for semi-permanent infrastructure. So, uh, it's not your traditional DFMA, um, to, to build up a building, it's to build something which is temporary. And, you know, the kinds of use cases that, that they're making are, um, temporary hospitals for when a, uh, a ward is being upgraded and you need to provide continuous care. You basically just build a hospital in a car park that sits adjacent and can continue to supply that. And I think these kinds of concepts where they can be iteratively updated and rotated, give asset owners an opportunity to, to experiment with that asset flexibility, uh, and think about new form factors for, for assets into the future.
Jennifer Harrison: I really like that. It's almost like the concept of a pop-up, of, of like a pop-up or, or something like that. But, but one other thing I know, know traditional construction isn't fast, and it's extremely wasteful in terms of, you know, what gets chucked out, um, and, and taken to landfills. So I, I love the idea of playing with concepts of doing things faster and more flexibly.
Julian Kezelman: Yeah. I mean, just, just to put some data to, to your point. So Spacecube built a two-storey hospital for Monash, uh, in 16 hours. Uh, so that was in the early days of COVID when people didn't know how much, uh, respiratory ward capacity that they would need. So they erected this in 16 hours, um, put the services in over the next six days, uh, and then recycled 90% of the form factor. That hospital is now a community center elsewhere.
Jennifer Harrison: That's fantastic. Do you see any major differences across the globe in how proptech is evolving and maturing in different geographies?
Julian Kezelman: Absolutely. Uh, so, you know, we are fortunate enough to have a, a global, uh, investor base and also a global portfolio as well. Uh, and so, you know, we've seen those relative differences come through both in the demand side and also the supply side. Uh, I had an opportunity to, to go to, uh, Europe and the Middle East, uh, towards, um, uh, the end of last year and, and see, you know, what were the major drivers there. And, you know, Europe absolutely is being driven by ESG, uh, and that, you know, comes right from a macro government level, but also from, you know, the very responsible capital providers. So all the major Dutch pension funds and the sovereign funds in the Nordics are really pushing, uh, ESG down onto their managers, which is then cascading all the way through down to, uh, the technologies that we're seeing in that space. So we really see, um, you know, Europe is, is leading from an ESG perspective. What I think is, you know, interesting and, and, and we're seeing quite a lot of in the US, and this is also a bit of a sign of the times for the market, is consolidation, uh, within, within the proptech space. So, you know, as, um, capital markets for, for early-stage venture companies have tightened up, uh, we're starting to see those proptechs that have been around for longer now, um, with strong enough balance sheets and, and strong enough capital behind them starting to acquire and, and, and build out broader platforms. And, you know, a really good example of that in the US is a company Measurabl, uh, which provides, you know, ESG data for commercial real estate owners now, now buying smart buildings, uh, platforms to, to integrate right down into the asset level.
Jennifer Harrison: Mm.
Julian Kezelman: And I think, you know, from, from a Asia and a Middle East perspective, um, it's really being driven by, you know, urbanization and construction. So, you know, the interest in construction tech is, is at an all-time high, particularly in the Middle East. If you've been following what's happening in, in Saudi, some phenomenal projects that are being built there, uh, and they're looking to, to build in a fundamentally more advanced way than they have historically. And so, you know, we, we really see all these different pockets of drivers reflecting the, the underlying markets.
Jennifer Harrison: Mm. Are there any particular takeaways or lessons you think Aussie proptechs can learn from that?
Julian Kezelman: Yeah. So, so, you know, we're, we're based in Sydney and Singapore, so we, we look after the whole APAC region. And something, you know, even from the Singaporean companies that, that I've seen a lot of is this mentality around being multi-market from day one. So, um, rather than thinking about growing to capacity domestically and then where will I flip up to, it's about thinking about designing your product with, um, that deployability across markets, uh, right from the outset. And, you know, that, that's very true in MENA, uh, and also very true in Europe. And, you know, I think, um, we have a, a great and stable proving ground to, for Aussie proptechs to, to build up their company before thinking about, do I flip up to Asia or the US or, or Europe? Uh, but I think, you know, starting with that mentality, um, definitely from, um, pro- probably the US is, is a little bit more domestically driven, but I think all of those other major regions, uh, lead with that mentality and that, at least for us, as, as a multi-market investor, makes them much, much more attractive for capital, uh, and being able to deploy across global asset owners.
Jennifer Harrison: Mm. Okay, and final question. If you had to make a prediction, uh, what do you see as the biggest opportunity, and also what do you see as the biggest challenge lying ahead for proptechs in 2023?
Julian Kezelman: Yeah. Look, I think, uh, predictions are always risky, and particularly in the venture capital market, it's incredibly dynamic and, and yeah, for, um, for the people on the call that have been following, it, it's, it's seen a huge contraction over the last six months, and that's happened very, very quickly. And so, um, you know, the biggest challenge I think facing most proptechs today is around, um, you know, capital availability. So whereas, you know, six to 12 months, uh, there, there seemed to be an endless stream of capital, uh, coming in, uh, and also this urgency of, of venture firms to deploy, um, has, you know, really led to, you know, the belief or the assumption that we, we, you know, the next funding horizon will, will surely be- 18 months away and it won't be too much of a struggle to get to. And I think, you know, we, uh, at, at Daronga Ventures have tried not to, um, get too caught up in the, in that hype cycle and we've, you know, tried to always focus on fundamentals of, of businesses because, you know, ultimately for us, we're trying to invest in technologies to support, um, major real estate owners who, you know, wanna make sure that those companies are around for, for years to come. And so I think, you know, the challenge and the opportunity go hand in glove that, you know, capital is harder to get, and so the opportunity is really to focus back on just core business disciplines. So, you know, making sure that you're driving towards positive unit economics in your business, you know, sensible capital, um, and, and cost controls around how you hire and, and, you know, just having more accurate forecasting rather than growth at all costs. Um, because, you know, um, what, you know, we're looking for now is really good stewards of capital and, and I think that these kind of tight operating environments do help to, to sharpen founders' focuses on just building strong and resilient businesses for the long term.
Jennifer Harrison: Thank you so much for all of those comments, Julian. I have popped into the chat the link. Uh, applications for the 2023 cohort for RealTechX, uh, have been open now for a- about a week, I think. Is that, is that right?
Julian Kezelman: Yep.
Jennifer Harrison: Um, it's definitely still open, so definitely a good opportunity for people to go and find out what, um, what that's about and, um, apply.
Julian Kezelman: Thanks a lot, Jen.
Jennifer Harrison: Okay. Rebecca, let's talk first of all about data. Now, a few years ago, data was the new oil, and then in 2022 we had a couple of high-profile data breaches, most obviously Optus and Medibank. But in the property space we had a data breach at Harcourts in Melbourne. As a result, we have the federal government talking about higher penalties, and New South Wales minister Victor Dominello has started to shine a spotlight on the kind of data that is collected by real estate agents and landlords. Um, what challenges do you think proptechs can expect to face from a legal and regulatory perspective in the coming year?
Rebecca Cope: Thanks, Jen. Yeah, so you're absolutely right. There's been a, definitely a change in the public perception of how data's managed and what the risk is about giving your personal information to an entity, including, you know, those active in the proptech market. Um, I'm gonna steal a, uh, analogy that one of my colleagues used, which was, you know, data used to be seen as gold and now it's more like uranium. So it's still incredibly valuable, but you've gotta treat it in the right way, otherwise it's gonna blow up in your face. So I think what we've seen, um, as a result of the media attention and the political attention that were paid to the two big data breaches last year, as well as, as you mentioned, the, um, the Harcourts incident, there is a raft of new legislation heading our way on the privacy front. Um, the higher penalties were already instituted quite quickly last year by the federal government. So if you are subject to the Privacy Act, you're now facing maximum penalties of the greater of $50 million, three times the benefit of the value that you might derive from your breach, or 30%, uh, of turnover. So it can be quite, uh, a large penalty hanging over, um, those potential breaches. I think the, um, approach that Minister Dominello was flagging for the rental market, um, is really being driven by the fact that the Privacy Act really kicks in when you've got $3 million or more of revenue. So it does mean that a lot of the smaller businesses are not subject to the Privacy Act. And of course, in the real estate area, there are quite a lot of smaller businesses who may not be meeting that, um, turnover threshold, but who get access to a lot of pr- um, personal information through the, the rental application process. So as I understand it, the idea of that regulation would be to fill that hole, um, and it would either be consistent with the Privacy Act, um, requirements or sort of apply to you when you're not also subject, uh, to the Privacy Act. So I think we're, we're gonna see more stringent regulations coming our way. We're gonna see way more active regulators in this space. Um, so the OAIC has already been out there doing quite a lot, and they are quite busy. They have received additional, uh, commonwealth funding to help them on that front. And, um, my experience, uh, being on the, the legal side of a few of those large, um, data breach matters last year is that, um, it's not just the information, um, commissioner who's gonna be interested in data breaches. So any other regulatory body that you may be, um, a part, or sorry, you may be subject to, is likely to wanna come, uh, and have a peek around as well if, uh, if you're in the data breach territory. So it's, it's gonna be very important, I think, for, um, people who are dealing with data, in particular personal information, to really be across what all of your compliance obligations are, um, and where those questions might be coming from if, if there is, um, an incident. A couple of other themes, uh, related to data, but not specific to sort of the cyber data breach risk. Um, I think AI regulation is an interesting one. Um, we saw the EU take, uh, quite a number of steps forward last year, uh, in that respect. And my, my personal sort of prediction, I know you were asking Julian for his earlier on, um, is that basically I think that AI regulation is likely to be treated the same way as the GDPR was when it first came in. So the GDPR, that's the data, uh, protection regulation over in the EU, a lot of, um, companies who operate internationally have just taken that as a baseline and now it's sort of basically applied because y- you know, if you're designing a product that's gonna be used across multiple jurisdictions, a lot of those products are designed, um, to have those GDPR requirements in mind. And I think, uh, the AI regulation is likely to become something quite similar. So although it wouldn't apply directly to Australians, I think it's probably gonna end up applying, um, by default. Uh, and the final thing I just want to flag on the data side of things, um, is the consumer data right. So-
Jennifer Harrison: Yeah
Rebecca Cope: ... it's been around for a little while now. It's, uh, the banks are well across it. The energy companies are going through the pain at the moment, and telco's just about to jump in. Um, but the really interesting development that they're, uh, making in the banking sector at the moment is they're moving into a new phase, um, called action initiation. So basically what that means is instead of just getting read access to data, you can actually get write access, which I think is gonna really open up, um, a new category of innovation. And it's possibly something that the proptech market will be involved in as well because it enables them to participate in things like mortgages and, and that sort of thing. So yeah, I think there's, there's some, uh, interesting opportunities arising out of, uh, data and its regulation, but also a lot of challenges.
Jennifer Harrison: Yeah. And just, you mentioned the consumer data right there. I think there are some really interesting intersections between, you know, banking and real estate and insurance, and something like the consumer data right gives us a, a, a place where we can explore some of those, uh, um, crossovers more, more directly.
Rebecca Cope: Yeah.
Jennifer Harrison: Um, you were talking just a little bit there about AI.
Rebecca Cope: Yeah.
Jennifer Harrison: And I know ChatGPT and other generative tools, they're the new cool toys. Lots of people are generating, you know, haikus and-
Rebecca Cope: Yeah.
Jennifer Harrison: ... um, blogs and things like that, and sharing the output on social media. But f- And it's, it's very cool tech, but from a legal perspective, what are the issues that people need to be aware of there in terms of, you know, IP protection, infringement, privacy, and other matters?
Rebecca Cope: Yeah. So, um, maybe just firstly, like, ChatGPT, it is cool. It's getting a lot of attention. Um, I know maybe a lot of people on the call today may have played around with it. It's quite interesting. Um, I would say, though, it's not really a sea change, at least not from a legal perspective, in terms of, uh, how, you know, laws have been applying to AI and AI adjacent to technology previously. So, you know, it, it is a generative AI tool, but it is trained on the data that it's fed, like most AI tools are. Um, and it's also, um, you know, it's natural language processing technology, which we have had around for quite a while. Um, people might remember Microsoft's attempt quite a few years ago now of Tay the chatbot, who, uh, learned via Twitter and then immediately became racist and sexist. Um, so it's kind of a-
Jennifer Harrison: It learned to swear pretty quickly.
Rebecca Cope: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jennifer Harrison: It took something like 10, 12 minutes in, it was getting into expletives.
Rebecca Cope: Exactly. Exactly. So a version of that technology has been around for a while. I understand ChatGPT, um, has got a, a moderation element to it to try and prevent that sort of thing from happening, although apparently there's been some successful workarounds, um, already tried to put in place. So, um, but from a, a legal perspective, there's a few things that we need to think about when we're talking about AI, and the first one is really about that learning phase. So AI needs to ingest data in order to learn, in order to learn. Um, but if you're the one who's using the AI, you really need to make sure that you've got the rights that you need to have in order to use the data in that way. So in particular, you've gotta be really careful around any regulated data, so any personal information. You know, do, uh, the people who've provided that information know that it's being used in this way? Have they provided their consent for it to be used in that way? And even, uh, data that might not be regulated, but perhaps that you've, uh, obtained under a contract, you know, making sure that you've got the right, um, to use that data in the way that you're intending to use it. Um, and, and also working out what the IP arrangements might be in relation to the outputs, um, of your, your AI machine. Um, I think the, on the IP side of things, there's a couple of ways in which you can try and, um, protect AI creations. So obviously at the moment, um, an AI is not classified as a legal person, so although there have been a number of attempts to get the AI, uh, a right to own its, its output, um, those haven't quite gotten up as yet. So generally it's still going to be the creators of the AI that will own the output. But again, you've gotta be careful with the input. So for example, you've got all these AIs that are drawing on existing images, for example, and then, you know, squishing them together to create something funny. Um, you've gotta make sure that the content that's going in, you've got the license rights in respect of how you're using that content and how it's, it's sort of generating that output. Um, and in terms of protecting your AI, sorry, your IP in AI, um, generally it's gonna fall into either patent or copyright law. Um, but basically the best way to sort of protect your IP in AI is actually trade secrets. So just making sure that you've got all of your confidentiality agreements in place. Make sure that you've got all of your IP transfers in place and so that the contractors who worked on it have given their IP to the, the company rather than, um, taking it with them when they go. Um, and just, yes, making sure that you, you design it in such a way that it's not very obvious how to reverse engineer, uh, what you've done from the outside. Um, and just a couple of other things to keep an eye out for, uh, if you're using open source code, uh, in trying to create the AI, just keeping an eye out for, like, copy left terms in that source code, which may require you to then share your IP, um, as a result. Uh, and yeah, otherwise, just making sure everything that goes in, you've got the rights to, to use.
Jennifer Harrison: Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's, uh, certainly going to be, uh, an interesting space to, to keep, to keep watching and keep being mindful of. And a- as Julian foreshadowed, the capital raising environment now i- is a bit different.
Rebecca Cope: Mm-hmm.
Jennifer Harrison: And I'm just wondering, at Ashurst, since you're involved as lawyers documenting a lot of capital raising transactions and also a lot of M&A deals-
Rebecca Cope: Mm-hmm
Jennifer Harrison: ... what are you seeing? In due diligence that's coming up when prop techs are raising capital or doing M&A, is there anything prop techs should be aware of and seeking to head off in terms of potential roadblocks?
Rebecca Cope: Yeah, absolutely. So, I think conveniently that builds on the answers to my, the last two questions. Um, so essentially, uh, you know, I was talking about data, uh, being uranium. A lot of the time investors are really making sure- really wanting to make sure that you have your compliance, um, house in order. So, uh, there is often a focus on privacy and seeing whether or not the, um, the tech has been set up, uh, with privacy by design in mind. So even though your startup may not be subject to the Privacy Act at the time that you start, because you might not have met that $3 million threshold as yet, um, a lot of the time prospective investors are investing because they want you to make more than $3 million and they want to make sure that what you've designed is something that can be used at that scale. Uh, so quite often, uh, even if there's not a current compliance risk, we will be asked to look into, well, what if they were subject to the Privacy Act, what does that look like? Um, and similarly when we're talking about data flows, you know, if, if there is a data pool that's being used, we often get asked to look into the contracts that might sit behind how that data was collected, and just making sure that, uh, you know, the value that investors see in your, um, product or in your technology is actually your value and, and is something that you either own or have the right license, right, in respect of, um, such that you, that you can extract value from your company moving forward. Um, also just on the compliance side, sometimes like, uh, spam and direct marketing issues come up as well, so investors are always sort of interested to know if you've had any complaints, um, or it's just if please explain notices on that front. And the second big category is really your IP ownership. Um, so to the extent that you're creating something novel, uh, in a technology, we really do a lot of investigation around who owns the IP. Well, what IP is there for starters? Who owns the IP? Um, quite often when you're looking at the smaller startups, that's about looking at, um, perhaps founders who've been contributing their IP to the creation of a technology and, you know, where does that IP sit now. Is it still with the individual? Is it in a company? Is there any sort of cleaning up that might need to happen there to make sure that it, once again, that value is, is in the entity that's being invested in. Um, and also looking obviously at any contractors who may have contributed and making sure that they've got the right, um, assignment provisions in their contracts as well.
Jennifer Harrison: Well, good stuff. Thank you very much, Rebecca. And I've just shared in the chat, Ashurst, uh, posted on their blog a couple of weeks ago a very interesting blog about tech and connectivity predictions for 2023. Um, I've just put the link to that in the chat. Um, I got a lot out of it. I'd recommend other people to go and take a look at.
Rebecca Cope: Thanks.
Jennifer Harrison: Angus, let's have a little bit of a talk about what's happening out there in the world of economics. We've, um, come out of an interesting 2022, and, uh, I'll pop into the chat in just a minute. PropTrack have published the December listings report. Um, coming out of 2022 and going into 2023, can you just briefly catch us up with what's been happening coming out of 2022, and what are the big things we need to be aware of going into 2023?
Angus Moore: Yeah, it's, it's a great question, and I might actually wind back even a year further and just kind of-
Jennifer Harrison: Okay
Angus Moore: ... put us in frame of where we were in 2021. 'Cause it's, it was a pretty stark year in property markets. We saw prices across 2021 grow at the third fastest rate across that one year in 140 years. So basically, as long as we have records of prices in Australia, it was the third fastest, and the fastest since basically 1990. So it was a extremely brisk year that was accompanied by low interest rates and extremely hot property market conditions. You know, spring in 2021, uh, was very, very busy. That flowed through into the start of 2022. We still saw pretty strong market conditions through early 2022, then the RBA started raising interest rates and, you know, we had the third fastest price growth in 140 years in 2021. In 2022, we saw some of the sharpest increase in mortgage rates we've seen since the 1990s, if not longer, depending on how you measure. Again, it's surprisingly hard to measure things further back in time. What that's meant is we've seen the market cool pretty quickly. Activity and prices have both really come off across the back half of 2022. Prices nationally are down 4.3%, according to the PropTrack Home Price Index. They're off by more than that in Sydney and Melbourne. Places like Adelaide and Brisbane are holding up a little bit better, but, but even there we're seeing prices fall as well. So what that means is that going into 2023, we've got a pretty cool market at the moment, and we're probably expecting that to continue for at least a little while. We're expecting prices will continue to decline through much of 2023, in part because while we've seen prices down 4.3%, that really hasn't fully reflected the impact of those big increas- interest rate increases we saw last year, and in fact, we'll probably see more of those this year.
Jennifer Harrison: Mm. Yeah. So coming on to interest rates, what is your house view on what the RBA is likely to do in 2023?
Angus Moore: Yeah. It's, it's certainly the question on everyone's mind and, uh, you know, as, as has been alluded, there's no way to be wrong quicker than to make a prediction about interest rates, or a prediction about anything in property, I suppose, but, but interest rates in particular perhaps. Um, we're expecting there'll be probably two more interest rate rises across sort of the first half of this year. The exact timing probably doesn't matter too much and will depend a bit on the flow of data that the RBA is looking at. But we think there'll probably be another two. That's broadly speaking what's being priced in in markets at the moment. But a lot of it's really gonna depend on what happens to inflation. Looks like 2022 was probably the worst of inflation, and things will probably get better this year. We're gonna have data out tomorrow on what happened in the December quarter, so I can be wrong in record time, less than 24 hours, which I guess goes hand in hand with being an economist. But, uh- If we see inflation pressures start to ease, and there are some promising signs there. You know, certainly in the US, inflation looks like it's coming off. There are some signs in domestic data here in Australia that we might be kind of behind the worst of it in the late last year. If that's the case, we'll probably not see a lot more out of the RBA, one or two. But if inflation's a bit more entrenched, we might have to see more interest rate increases.
Jennifer Harrison: Mm. So what does that mean for, um, say, property developers, and also, you know, construction? 'Cause construction have been faced with global supply chain shortages, a very tight labor market, skill shortages. Their cost of funding is going up as well. We've got this massive pipeline of homes we know we have to build, 'cause we've got a national housing shortage and rental crisis. The government announced in the budget last week, or sorry, last year, a target of building a million new homes from 2024. And I know a lot of superannuation funds, because they're that patient capital with that long-term, um, horizon, they're looking a lot now at build to rent. I'm just curious, how are we gonna build all of this housing?
Angus Moore: It's a great question.
Jennifer Harrison: And what are the, you know, what are, what are the challenges from an economic perspective that are gonna have to be, you know, overcome to do that?
Angus Moore: Yeah. The, I mean, there's a lot of challenges for the construction sector at the moment. And again, you know, maybe to put it into some context, it's useful to wind back a couple years. You know, we saw a huge surge in approvals and commencements of detached houses through 2020 and 2021, in part just due to low interest rates. You know, we know that residential construction is one of the sectors most responsive to low interest rates in terms of economic activity, so that was, you know, broadly as expected and, in part, what the RBA was hoping to achieve. But it was also due to HomeBuilder, which made building detached hou- houses very attractive. What that meant is we had this huge surge in the number of homes that started to be constructed, but we actually haven't been finishing them at a pace any quicker than we were pre-pandemic. And what that means is that the number of homes under construction's gone from something like 50 to 60,000 pre-pandemic, detached houses, I should say, under construction at any given time, to more than 100,000 today. So there's this huge increase of work that's yet to be completed, and a big part of why that's happened is that it's just taking longer to build detached houses. Detached houses typically take something like six to nine months. You know, obviously it depends on the house, but broadly speaking, that's blown out to over a year. And, you know, there's a variety of reasons for that. Lost days due to sickness is part of it. Supply chains is a really big part of it. It's been hard to get raw materials, and we can talk about that in a second as well. But also, weather's been a part of it in, in Sydney and Brisbane as well, which is, you know, maybe a bit less of a, a, an economic driven, uh, factor. What that means is that we're just not completing those homes, and so that build time has blown out, and the pipeline has, has increased a lot. Part of that, and, you know, a- as I mentioned before, part of that is that we've seen massive increase in cost for builders. So to build a detached house, it costs something like 20% more than it did a year ago, and that's across a broad range of inputs from, you know, timber to steel to electrical appliances. So it's just become very challenging to, to build a home at the moment.
Jennifer Harrison: Hmm. Yeah, no, I, um, I know just in my own little suburb of Sydney, uh, I live in a, a, a suburb where most of the original houses were built in the 1960s, so most people like to do a knockdown rebuild at some, at some point. Uh, I know just anecdotally, just down the street from me, there's a house where they demolished in January last year, and as of today, they have a concrete slab and a timber frame, and that is all they have. They have no walls. They have no roof. And that family has been paying rent and a mortgage now for over a year, and their resilience and ability to continue to do that, uh, I think they're starting to get a little bit worried, and... 'Cause I just know anecdotally, I, I, it seems there's lots of construction sites, right? So the construction is starting, but yeah, it, it, it's not finishing. So, um, what, what do we... Do we need more immigration? Do we need more policies? Do we need to get people out of, out of, maybe out of tech and into the trades? How do we combat some of this?
Angus Moore: Yeah, it's, that's a very difficult question. Um, you know, part of it will fade. You know, those supply chain disruptions are temporary, and, you know, there are signs that that's probably behind us or at least the worst of it is behind us. You know, if you look at indexes of global shipping costs, those were extremely high through a lot of last year, and they've come, not all the way back, but back to more normal levels today. So some of that will dissipate. You know, likewise, weather is hopefully, I really hope, Sydney summer this year, for those in Sydney, has been pretty terrible. Hopefully that's behind us as well for a variety of reasons, but it will help construction as well. In terms of the labor force, you know, it is just very difficult to get labor at the moment. The unemployment rate's sitting around multi-decade lows, um, and has been there for months. And so it's just extremely difficult to get labor of really any type. You know, this is not unique to the construction sector. I'm sure the tech sector is feeling the pinch as much.
Jennifer Harrison: Yeah, tech, tech sector is, you know, if you're a software developer, um, you know, that's, yeah, I mean, I, I even know y- y- it's right, it's right across the board. You know, people who need, um, they need salespeople, they need marketing people, they need...
Angus Moore: Yeah. So migration will help with that to some extent, you know, bringing a little bit extra labor supply in. But the evidence is that in aggregate it probably doesn't make a massive difference, 'cause of course, you know, those new migrants also spend money and create demand for jobs, and those two things, broadly speaking, offset. You know, it's a controversial literature, but broadly speaking, that's where the consensus is. So part of it is just that we will see the unemployment rate come up a bit over the next 12 to 18 months as the RBA slows the economy. You know, that's why they're raising interest rates. They're trying to take, uh, take a bit of the heat out of the economy. That will help to some extent with labor availability, but it is just very challenging across the board at the moment.
Jennifer Harrison: Mm. And what do you see happening outside of residential? Uh, what about the retail space and the commercial space? What are some of the things that are gonna be impacting those sectors of real estate?
Angus Moore: Yeah, it's, it's a very interesting space and, you know, one, I mean, we're seeing it in resi as well, but one where the, the kind of hangover from COVID and the, the shift that we saw in terms of the way that people live is, is still kind of having effects and will continue to have effects. So, you know, we're continuing to see retail in, um, suburban areas and large format retail do pretty well, while CBD retail remains fairly soft. There's still enormous demand for industrial, particularly warehouse, um, and it's extremely difficult to get ahold of those assets even though lots of people want them, which again, is consistent with not just COVID, but the broader trend towards e-commerce and delivery. But COVID really accelerated that. You know, estimates are it brought forward probably two to three years' worth of that transition in the space of months as a result of everyone being stuck at home, and so getting everything delivered instead. So, th- those are really gonna be the strong assets. In that high interest rate environment and, you know, with funding costs becoming particularly, uh, challenging for many investors, we are also starting to see demand, or continuing to see demand I should say, they, they, they've been pretty hot assets for a while, very stable assets like childcare and health. Um, you know, those performed very well through the pandemic. They continue to be in high demand.
Jennifer Harrison: Mm-hmm. Um, it's fascinating, Angus. We could probably talk all day. Um, I'm just going, just getting a little bit conscious of time. If you are, um, wanting to ask any of the panel a question, uh, please, you can use the Q&A function or pop a comment into the chat. Um, Angus, while I've still got you, can you talk a little bit, please, about people coming off fixed rate mortgages? 'Cause that's one of the things people have been saying, that we've been a little bit insulated maybe from the hiking phase of the RBA into last year, 'cause a lot of people had fixed rate mortgages. Obviously, as they come up for refinancing, they might, um, find that, you know, those interest rates hit their hip pocket a bit more. What are your thoughts on that?
Angus Moore: Yeah, it's gonna be a super interesting space to watch. Um, potentially for proptechs as well. Um, the big background here is that, you know, fixed rates in Australia have tended to not be a large share of new mortgage lending. Australia largely lends on a variable basis. But during the pandemic, we saw nearly one in every two new mortgages going onto fixed rates, because they were just more attractive. You know, fixed rates were actually lower than variable rates for a lot of lenders. And so people obviously took advantage of that, myself included very fortunately. Um, that's got two implications. One, as you say, we haven't, a lot of people just haven't seen their mortgage costs increase yet, so there's probably a bit more delay in the monetary policy transmission in, in terms of, you know, how far the RBA's raised and that actually flowing through to economic activity. But the other impact is that we're gonna see a lot of people looking to refinance in 2023. There's gonna be a lot of people rolling off their, um, their fixed rates in sort of the June and September quarters of this year. RBA analysis suggests it's, it's something like 1 in 20, um, fixed rates currently outstanding will be rolling off every month through the middle of this year. So there's gonna be a big... It's, it's sometimes called the fixed rate cliff, which, you know, everyone loves a good headline. I think that's maybe a little overdrawn, but the, there will be a lot of people rolling off and a lot of people looking to refinance. And the interesting part about that is that a lot of people are gonna struggle to refinance, for two reasons. For some people, prices have fallen and so their LVRs will have risen, and so they may actually struggle to meet their original 80% LVR, and may have to get LMI if they want to refinance, which is obviously pretty unattractive for a lot of people. The other thing is serviceability is gonna be really hard to, uh, to meet now. Borrowing capacities have fallen by something like a quarter. So even people that didn't borrow at their maximum may now find that they can't borrow enough to refinance if they were to do a full serviceability assessment. And that's gonna open up a lot of opportunities for kind of alternative lenders that are prepared to make those sort of serviceability exceptions. Obviously, those are things that banking regulators tend to frown upon, but, you know, my view is they're not new risk, 'cause they are existing borrowers. So, you know, it, from a system perspective, maybe not from an individual institution, but from a system perspective, that's not new risk being added to the system, it's just, uh, offering a more attractive package to that borrower. So I think there's gonna be a lot of opportunities and potentially risks in the refinancing space, and we are already seeing that. Refinancing's already really hot. We don't get a lot of data on internal refinancing, but external refinancing, like people changing banks, is about twice what it was pre-pandemic at the moment and, and that'll probably continue to increase across this year as people roll off those fixed rates.
Jennifer Harrison: Mm. Yeah, I've seen a rough rule of thumb that something like, uh, a 1% increase in interest rates decreases affordability by something like 10%.
Angus Moore: Yeah. That, that, that's a fairly good rule of thumb to use. It's, it's in that order in terms of your maximum borrowing capacity. So, you know, when banks extend a serviceability assessment on a new loan, they add, they look at your current mortgage rate and add a buffer. It used to be 2.5%, it's currently 3%. The RBA's raised interest rates by that, so, you know, we've blown through that buffer. That buffer's intended to provide a way to, to kind of look through interest, uh, increases in interest rates. Uh, it, as it turns out, that 3% wasn't sufficient for this particularly sharp hiking cycle, though. In general, it would be.
Jennifer Harrison: Mm. And Angus, a question's come up, um, on the future of work and the impact of working from home and hybrid, a hybrid workforce on CBD office buildings. Do you have any thoughts on that?
Angus Moore: Yeah, it's a great question. Um, I think the answer is we don't know, uh, which is a terrible answer, and the one that you always get from an economist, 'cause we're infuriating to ask questions of. But I think we don't know how it's gonna play out yet. Some of that shift that happened looks to be permanent. You know, I'm working from home today in a way that I didn't in 2019. So to some extent, that reduces demand for office, but there is actually more office space being used today than there was pre-pandemic. So it's not as if it's completely evaporated. It's just that we're often using it in different places and in different ways. And so how that plays out, I think is gonna be really interesting to watch. I don't have the answer though, unfortunately.
Jennifer Harrison: Mm. Um, like I said, if you do have a question for the panel, please do pop it into the Q&A, or if you've got any comments, pop it into the chat. Um, Angus, while we've still got you, I know, uh, New South Wales Government, we've got the date. New South Wales has a fixed four-year term, so we have to have an election. That's coming up at the end of March. Uh, given the housing affordability and rental crisis, that's definitely going to be, I think, a poli- on the political agenda. One thing that has been proposed is, for example, could we be more flexible on stamp duty, and would that help first-home buyers get into the market? I know you've published a blog on that recently, which I'll go and share, but I'm wondering if you could just, um, hit the highlights from that for people. What are your key takeaways after doing your analysis on that?
Angus Moore: Yeah. C- certainly. Um, it's a very interesting area. Stamp duty is one of those taxes that, as economists, we're sort of almost duty bound to dislike for a variety of reasons, but, you know, for first-home buyers, it is a really big impost. For many first-home buyers, not all, but, but for many, saving up the 20% deposit is the constraint on getting into the housing market. And in fact, many don't meet that 80 LVR. You know, the, the vast majority don't actually make it to 80. So adding an extra 10 to $100,000 in stamp duty, depending on the cost of the home you're buying, is an enormous extra impost that adds months to years' worth of extra saving necessary. And that's why m- most states, not all, but most states have concessions for first-home buyers that help... You know, we, we kind of acknowledge that it is an enormous impost on first-home buyers and, and have ways around it. But those are, I think, at best, kind of stopgap solutions, and really a better long-term solution would be looking to reduce stamp duty broadly because it's not just first-home buyers who are affected by stamp duty, it's, it's everyone. It... The reason economists dislike it so much is it acts as a tax on moving home, and a very significant tax. You know, tens of thousands to even, you know, hundreds of thousands if you're looking at expensive homes. And that means people stay too long in homes that don't suit them. You know, they're too small, they're too big, they're not near where they work or near where, you know, their kids' schools are. And that means that we're kind of leaving money on the table in terms of both how we're using our housing stock and in terms of labor supply because people aren't living near where jobs are. So reducing stamp duty, replacing it with better forms of taxation would be a boon, not just for first-home buyers, but for kind of the housing market and housing affordability broadly.
Jennifer Harrison: Thank you so much for sharing all that. Well, I think probably... Oh, I think someone just popped a question in. Oh, for Julian. Um, I, I, I think you maybe commented on this a little bit earlier. Um, oh, okay. I think maybe the question is, do you see any particular opportunities for Aussie proptechs to export and go, go across the globe?
Julian Kezelman: Yeah, there are certain, um, spaces where, uh, Australian real estate tech, um, is, um, you know, I think leading relative to other markets. Construction tech is quite an interesting one. Um, given, you know, we're, we're such a highly regulated environment and, you know, um, particularly for the technology that's being developed for the enterprise space, um, you've got institutional clients demanding, you know, very high standards of delivery. Um, relative to other markets, uh, Australia, um, it's, it's the, the regulatory framework and requirements that actually lift the game of, of our technologies. And so, you know, I really see a lot of, um, Australian con- uh, construction tech companies as being, you know, very exportable. Uh, and I think, you know, what, what's interesting about those kinds of technologies is that, um, to my earlier point, they are often multi-market ready, uh, in terms of, um, if it's, if it's hardware, um, physics is the same here as it is anywhere else in the globe, right? So in, in some instances it's, it's, you know, more readily transportable. And so I think, you know, that, that's probably one, um, particular space where, you know, we, we have an edge. Uh, and I think, you know, from, from a market entry strategy perspective, we find a lot of our portfolio that comes out of Australia, we'll look for, um, like markets with, you know, similar, um, regulatory re- regimes or, um, or capital structures as well. So we see a lot of companies flipping up into the US, which is the tra- traditional pathway for, for all Australian technologies. Um, but you know, more so into, into the UK from a real estate technology perspective, and Singapore. Um, but before then moving, you know, using those as landing pads to move into other jurisdictions.
Jennifer Harrison: Mm. Mm. Yeah, I've got a, um, I've got a little bit of a, a personal soft spot for, for ConTech.
Julian Kezelman: Oh.
Jennifer Harrison: I'm hoping later in the year to have a panel, um, and do a bit more promotion of Con- of ConTech. Uh, and I think it's, it's... I mean, it's also gonna be very interesting I think this year to see how proptech matures in terms of what we're talking about. 'Cause in the last few years we've been talking about a lot of proptechs that serve the resi industry, and maybe it's, it's, you know, it's time now, um, to, to, to talk about some of the other proptechs, um, you know, in architecture, as you've mentioned, Julian, digital twins, uh, construction, and those intersections that, um, I, I also personally love with lending and insurance.
Julian Kezelman: Yeah.
Jennifer Harrison: But I think, I think we've come out of time, which means, um, Julian, thank you so much for joining us. Uh, could you please quickly tell people where can they go for more information about Turonga Ventures? I have put the link for Realtechx in the chat. And how can people connect? What's the best way if people want to reach out and connect with you personally?
Julian Kezelman: Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity. So, um, the, the links you provided in the chat are the right ones. So go to turongagroup.com/realtechx. Uh, and that's, um, the innovation programs platform that, that runs ESG Impact.
Angus Moore: Or otherwise, I'd be more than happy to, to connect with your members directly on LinkedIn, probably the easiest way.
Jennifer Harrison: Lovely. Um, Rebecca, well, thank you again so much for joining us today and sharing your insights.
Rebecca Cope: My pleasure.
Jennifer Harrison: Uh, what is the best way for people to find out more about Ashurst, also more about your particular team, the digital economy team, and if people would like to connect with you personally, what's the best way for them to do that?
Rebecca Cope: So yeah, again, ashurst.com should have all of your information about, um, me and my team. Um, but yeah, again, if you would like to get in contact, um, my email is on the, uh, Ashurst website, or feel free to hit me up on LinkedIn. Maybe we can try and keep the lights on next time.
Jennifer Harrison: So thank you, Rebecca, and, uh, thank you again to Ashurst for being one of our wonderful foundation supporters and sponsors. Um, Angus, uh, what is the best way for people to find out more about PropTrack and also to connect with you personally?
Angus Moore: Yeah, absolutely. Um, so thank you very much for having me and, and listening to me rant about the economy for 15 minutes. Um, so our website's proptrack.com.au. That's the best place to find all about, find out all about PropTrack. Um, you can also find all of our authored content and op-eds there if you click on the bit that says "Insights" up the top, and you can read more about my views on stamp duty or the like. Um, and we also have a Twitter, um, on, @PropTrack, um, where you can see all our articles as well. Um, and feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn is probably best as well.
Jennifer Harrison: Wonderful. Thank you so much to everyone who's joined us. Uh, I think that's been a really good brain food, really good, meaty, um, first panel to get us going for 2023. If you're not following us on LinkedIn or Instagram, please do. That's a great way to stay in touch with us and find out about our events. And as I said before, if you haven't signed up for the newsletter, if you pop over to www.proptechassociation.com.au, you don't need to be a member to sign up for the newsletter. Anyone can sign up for the newsletter. We also share the booking links and information about opportunities, um, that way. Uh, so thank you very much again to the panel. Thank you to everyone, and here's looking forward to a fabulous 2023. Keep on propteching.
