In the Spotlight with Ben Davis

We caught up with Ben Davis, Chief Executive, Propertyheads

Related topics:  In The Spotlight
Warren Lewis
21st September 2018
Ben Davis 887

PR: How did you get into the property industry?

BD: I've been in and around property from a young age - my dad was a builder and much later on became a landlord. Some of my earliest memories are of "helping" him out on various renovation projects in the school holidays. My mum worked in the planning department at the local council. I started my career in finance, but even then I was never far from property, be it managing shopping centre investments on behalf of an asset manager, or evaluating investment into real estate funds for pension fund clients. Seeing the financial crisis coming, I took the unsual step in 2007 of investing everything I had into German property and it wasn't until 2011, that I purchased my first UK property.

Since then we have purchased, renovated and sold dozens of properties.

PR: How does PropertyHeads differ from its competition?

BD: PropertyHeads is The Property Social Network - we think it's unique. We have launched with property listings broadly similar to Rightmove and Zoopla. What differrentiates us from those traditional portals is the ability for buyers and tenants to Instant Message agents and for them to access agents' profiles and content and build relationships. Similarly agents should find our buyer and tenant leads more insightful than those provided by traditional portals because we have more data on those individuals.

Of course, a major differentiator for agents is that we provide unlimited free property listings and always will. We have also developed Deal Groups, similar to a purpose-built Facebook group for a property deal, whereby the agent can invite the buyer, seller and conveyancers into a private group with 24/7 chat wall, secure document depository and task checklist. Deal Groups will bring transparency to the conveyancing process and should reduce completion times and boost completion rates.

PR: There is a bit of a backlash going on with regards to social media in general, specifically trust issues (GDPR related), how are you dealing with this?

BD: So I think there's two (at least two) separate issues here. The first is misuse of users private information, for example Facebook granting Cambridge Analytica with access to such data. This issue simply does not apply to PropertyHeads as our users' private information will never be shared with third parties. The second issue is concerned with people's behaviour on social networks and how that impacts on people's well being in the real world. We should be relatively insulated from this issue as PropertyHeads is a platform for adults to discuss property and presumably those adults will want to put their best side across to be taken seriously by estate agents, tradesmen etc.

That being said we do have strict user guidelines and will not hesitate to ban those users that behave inappropriately.

PR: Where do you see the proptech industry in the next 3-5 years?

BD: In general the successful proptech firms, the ones that will grow to be part of the establishment in the next 3-5 years, will be those that have identified real issues and provided the quickest and or best solution. We are only really converned with property portals and recommended tradesmen websites - both of which are dominated by "old tech". For us property portals have done too little to diversify their revenue streams and are extremely vulnerable to new players such as PropertyHeads that are completely free for letting agents and estate agents.

In addition, we are seeking to exploit a number of other weaknesses in traditional portals that will be of direct benefit to the consumer.

We're offering increased visibility to the estate/letting agents and the more rapid communication that today's home movers expect. We are also using big data and AI to put the right properties in front of people. PropertyHeads will be the only place you can find tradesmen trusted by your own network.

PR: Has Brexit and the current political climate had any impact on business?

BD: None.

PR: If you could read any one headline about the property industry in the next 3 months what would it be?

BD: I think that anything that genuinely levels the playing field for the younger generation to get into property ownership. So I'm not talking about Help To Buy which has actually done the opposite. Perhaps something to do with relaxing planning rules and a comprehensive plan to get more homes built.

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