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The Future is Now for Off the Plan

Updated: Dec 2, 2025

  • Big data, AI and automation are fuelling faster and efficient property solutions

  • Consumer behaviour and expectations have changed

  • So why are developers still behaving like it’s 2005?


If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. In 2025, we live in a world of big data, AI, automation, realtime mapping, digital twins and 3D visualisation. So it's incredible to understand how in the property development industry our tools of choice are still phone calls, email, brochure styled websites and PDFs.


There’s a danger to this approach because consumer behaviour has changed, and with it, their expectations as to what acceptable service looks like.  


Purchasing a brand new home should be one of the most exciting and positive experiences of a buyers life. It's a huge investment not just financially but emotionally. But instead, it is usually a rollercoaster ride of anxiety, stress and frustration. And much of this exists because developers, builders and project marketers are so slow to adopt “new” technology. 


Over the past 10 years, there has been a steady increase in innovation  allowing every stakeholder in an off the plan transaction save time, money and transact faster. At a time when we urgently need to get more Australians into housing, here’s how proptech solutions available now can transform the sector.


Buyers deserve to know exactly where their specific property will be located


We live in an era of Google maps where it's possible to find the fastest route to anywhere down to the minute whether driving, walking, riding an electric bike or catching public transport. So it's hard to believe that when it comes to buying off the plan, a static image showing the shape of blocks is the best most developers can do. Sure, the asphalt is still being laid on the street but there are new solutions out there that can layer new projects onto interactive mapping allowing developers to showcase not just the size, and orientation, but it's topography. Buyers expect to find out how far their new home is from where they work, local schools or the in-laws. Asking them to go back to a fixed map feels like being asked to use a street directory. 


Check out: Landnow, 


Buyers deserve to be able to see exactly what they are getting.


Buy an existing home and you get photos of every room, usually furnished and including external and views before they inspect it live. With a new home however, too many buyers must make do with a rough floor plan, a render, the memory of their visit to the display home and their imagination. In the case of apartments, buyers also need to visualise the orientation to understand sunlight and shading. With property prices in six and seven figures, that's a lot of money to pay for a leap of faith. It's also completely unnecessary. Virtual technology has been rapidly evolving over the past decade, is fast and affordable and can be seen on a mobile phone. Virtual solutions give buyers the ability to inspect properties even before they are built, creating certainty about what they are buying and building their excitement. Add drone footage and the actual views become real not imagined.



Buyers deserve to be able to shop online


Sure, a property is not a pizza. But when everything else these days can be purchased online, it's incredible to believe that some developers think expecting buyers to camp out for the right to claim their new home is acceptable in 2025. Technology now exists to allow property buyers to see, select and place blocks of land and apartments on hold, make offers and pay deposits. This makes buying a home off the plan something that can happen at any time of the day or night that is convenient for buyers and when they have their head in the game - not just on weekends when buyers need to jam a visit to a display home into an agenda that also includes kids sport, ballet, a hotlap at Woolworths, lunch with grandparents and a visit to Bunnings. 




Buyers deserve an easier way to pay the deposit


Buyers who already own property and who are downsizing or upsizing already have the assets that can guarantee payment, but freeing up the cash for the deposit so it can sit in a developers trust account for years while the build grinds on requires a similar amount of emotional fortitude to refinancing the national debt. For too many potential buyers, it’s just easier to stay put in their current home. Deposit bonds have been around for eons but their digitisation is now making them easier, faster and more transparent for both buyers and developers. They are cheaper and a lot less stressful than paying a deposit, thereby removing a significant barrier to sale. 


Check out: Downsizer, Deposit Power. 

    


Buyers deserve transparency about where they are in the transaction


There are very few transactions that require as much money or stretch out over the years as a property build. Add to that the obligations with deposits, contracts, stamp duty, decisions on fittings, mortgages, build contracts, certificates, completion stages, inspections, reports, conveyancing - it's adulting of the highest degree that warrants not just a to do list, but a shared spreadsheet between all the parties. The trouble however is that to do lists and spreadsheets need constant monitoring for when things change. And that creates a mental load of keeping track of phone calls, emails and messages. 


But tech that has been around for five years is helping track, trace and notify parties in the transaction by creating a centralised hub where documents are stored, contracts are hosted and secure payments are made. It means buyers receive visibility of all the steps they are about to go through, the work required to be ready, easy to check timelines and a clear understanding of the process involved at each stage and who is responsible. 



Buyers deserve the ease of digital signatures and contracting


The wife is closing deals interstate, the husband is working out of the Singapore office at the critical deadline, so no, they cannot come into the office to sign everything off. Nothing turns excitement of signing the deal on your forever home into the sourness of anxiety quite like holding up a multi-million dollar sale because no one can agree who has to pay the $26.50 for the DocuSign envelope. (Hint: it should NOT be the wife). Digital signature technology has been “a thing” for 20 years. It can now be accessed free inside programs like Google and Adobe. So let's stop emailing PDFs and expecting clients to take photos of 356 pages of signed contracts on their phones. (*based on a true story) 



Buyers deserve to receive the data about their home post-sale


As a developer you've hired a top-notch architect who has designed everything in CAD. Materials have been specified down to the last brick. You know serial numbers of appliances, the suppliers of the different materials and accessories, names of trades and contractors. What happens to that file after the build? Most of the time it ends up as a paperweight on someone's desk. In reality it should go to the new body corporate or strata committee as the basis of the building management plan together with warranties and instruction manuals saving future body corporates from guessing about the timing of upgrades and repairs. 




Know of any more proptechs that are transforming the off the plan space for buyers? Drop us a line at members@proptechaustralia.com.au


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