What an AI crash in US could mean for Proptech globally
The coming AI reckoning should not frighten proptech, it should help focus it
Thought leadership by Andrew Stanton CEO Proptech-PR
‘The warning signs are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. The Times has highlighted growing concern that the extraordinary boom in artificial intelligence is beginning to resemble the dotcom bubble, with investors increasingly concentrated in a relatively small number of technology companies and vast sums being committed to an industry whose future returns remain uncertain. The comparison should matter to proptech because property technology has enthusiastically embraced the AI narrative. The question is not whether AI will transform property – it almost certainly will – but what happens to the hundreds of companies whose valuations, funding and commercial propositions have become dependent upon it.
A correction in AI markets would not necessarily mean the end of AI. Quite the opposite. The dotcom crash did not kill the internet. It killed the assumption that every company associated with the internet was automatically valuable. Amazon survived. Google emerged stronger. Thousands of other businesses disappeared. The same distinction is likely to emerge in AI. The technology will continue to develop, but investors will become considerably more demanding about which businesses are actually creating value.
That could produce a particularly interesting shake-out in proptech.
Over the past few years, it has become remarkably easy for an established property software company to reposition itself as an “AI platform”. Add a large language model, introduce an AI assistant, automate a few workflows and suddenly an established product can be presented as something fundamentally new. At the same time, a new generation of AI-native proptech businesses has emerged promising to automate valuation, property descriptions, lead generation, customer service, compliance, sales progression and almost every other repetitive activity within the property transaction.
The problem is that an AI demonstration is not necessarily a business.
If capital becomes more expensive and investors become less willing to finance future promises, proptech companies will increasingly have to demonstrate something much less fashionable: revenue, margins, retention and measurable customer value. The question from investors and property companies will move from “How much AI are you using?” to “What does your technology actually do for my business?”
That is a healthy question. It could also expose a significant weakness in parts of the proptech market. Some companies have built propositions around access to AI models rather than proprietary data, distribution, workflow integration or genuinely differentiated technology. If the underlying AI capability is available to everyone, it becomes difficult to defend a business simply because it has incorporated AI into its product.
Andrew Stanton CEO Proptech-PR
The imminent interest rate hike is going to be a real reckoner for property
When interest rates rise again, Britain’s housing market will discover what it is really worth
Thought Leadership by Andrew Stanton CEO Proptech-PR
For more than a decade, Britain’s housing market has operated with one powerful assumption: money will remain relatively cheap. Even when interest rates rose sharply after 2021, the market was protected for a time by fixed-rate mortgages, accumulated housing wealth and a chronic shortage of homes. But that protection is not permanent. If interest rates rise again — or simply remain higher for longer than buyers have become accustomed to the impact on the house-selling market could be considerably greater than the headline fall in house prices suggests.
The Bank of England’s Bank Rate currently stands at 3.75%, but the debate is already shifting from when rates will fall to whether renewed inflationary pressures could keep them higher. Three members of the Monetary Policy Committee voted for a rate increase at its July meeting. At the same time, UK house-price growth is slowing: the latest ONS figures show average UK prices at £272,000 in June 2026, up just 2.0% year-on-year, with prices rising only 0.1% during the month.
The important point is that the housing market does not need a dramatic crash for the consequences to be severe.
It simply needs affordability to deteriorate. Because a rise of one or two percentage points in mortgage rates can fundamentally change what a household can afford to borrow. A buyer who could previously stretch to £400,000 may suddenly find that the same monthly payment supports a substantially smaller loan. That creates a problem which the housing market has traditionally dealt with by doing something surprisingly primitive: sellers reduce their expectations.
But this time the adjustment may happen differently. Instead of a sudden collapse in nominal house prices, we are likely to see a prolonged period in which properties take longer to sell, asking prices become increasingly detached from achieved prices and buyers become much more selective. The headline valuation of the housing stock may remain relatively stable while the actual market value — the price at which a motivated buyer can complete a transaction — quietly falls.
This distinction matters enormously to proptech.
For years, much of the technology surrounding residential property has been designed around a high-volume transaction model. Portals generate value from listings and audiences. Estate agents generate revenue from instructions and completions. Mortgage platforms depend upon applications. Conveyancing technology depends upon transactions. Valuation technology depends upon sufficient market activity to generate meaningful comparable evidence. A higher-rate environment attacks the volume assumption at the heart of all of this.
The first casualty will probably be transactions rather than prices. Buyers who can afford to move will hesitate. Sellers who do not absolutely need to move will stay put. Homeowners with attractive legacy mortgage rates will have another reason not to refinance or relocate. And those contemplating downsizing, upsizing or moving for work will increasingly calculate the cost of moving against the benefit of moving.
The result could be a housing market with plenty of people who would like to sell — but very few who are prepared to accept what buyers are willing to pay. That is a very different market from the one in which much of today’s proptech infrastructure was built. It also creates an uncomfortable question about property valuation.
Andrew Stanton CEO Proptech-PR
The Stack partners with infinitSpace in Amsterdam AI Hub
infinitSpace to be new operating partner providing technology and operational infrastructure
The Stack, Amsterdam’s new home for AI founders and builders, has selected infinitSpace as its Workspace Operating Partner ahead of its opening in September. The partnership will provide the technology and operational infrastructure behind The Stack’s workspace, while The Stack’s team focuses on building its AI community, programme, and network.
Co-founded by Dutch AI entrepreneurs Lennard Zwart, Maarten Stolk, and Philip Gast, together with Techleap and seven Founding Partners, The Stack is being developed as a dedicated home for AI companies and builders. Constantijn van Oranje, Techleap’s Special Envoy, is closely involved in the initiative and is one of its initiators on behalf of Techleap.
The Stack aims to strengthen the Dutch and European AI ecosystem by bringing together AI companies, talent, capital, knowledge institutions, and corporate partners in one physical location. The Stack will have its soft opening in September 2026 at Jacob Bontiusplaats 9 in Amsterdam’s Oostenburg district, with the first phase comprising approximately 4,500 square metres of offices, shared workspaces, development areas, and a purpose-built event space. The site is planned to expand to approximately 12,000 square metres by 2029.
infinitSpace will provide the workspace technology, commercial operations, member experience, reporting, supplier coordination, hospitality standards, and day-to-day operational management behind The Stack. The partnership allows The Stack to retain ownership of its brand, strategic direction, community, and programme, while relying on a specialist operator for its workspace infrastructure.
“We are creating a physical home for the AI ecosystem in The Netherlands and Europe, and the experience of being here needs to be as thoughtful and ambitious as the companies we want to attract. infinitSpace brings the operational expertise and infrastructure that allows us to focus on what makes The Stack different: the highly curated community, the programme and the connections that help AI companies grow,” says Esther Bisschop, Founding Director of The Stack (Pictured).
Andrew Stanton CEO Proptech-PR
