I think the biggest edge in property right now, is connection. More than capital, data and the rest.

Everyone’s busy building - but few are building together

Spend enough time in property and you start noticing something.
Most people are solving the same problems - just in isolation.

Developers are searching for reliable contractors.
Landlords are comparing systems that don’t quite fit.
Agency founders are scaling fast but burning time on manual fixes.

Different roles, same tension.
Everyone’s pushing forward, but few are sharing what’s actually working.

That’s the quiet irony of this industry.
For a business built on people and places, property can be incredibly lonely.

The conversation gap

Over the past few months, I’ve had more calls and coffees than I can count.
The same theme keeps surfacing, a mix of ambition and frustration.

People want to modernise, digitise, diversify.
But they’re often doing it behind closed doors.

There’s no central space for shared learning.
No trusted forum where operators, landlords, and builders can compare notes without an agenda.
No structure for collaboration, just scattered WhatsApp groups, webinars, and newsletters trying to fill the void.

It’s no wonder progress feels slower than it should.
Most of the industry’s learning is happening privately, not collectively.

Why this matters now

Markets move fast.
Regulations shift.
Technology evolves.

And while the headlines obsess over “AI” or “automation,” what really moves things forward is people talking to each other — openly, honestly, and often.

Because better property decisions don’t come from dashboards.
They come from conversations.
From someone saying, “Here’s how we handled that planning challenge.”
Or, “Here’s the system we used that actually worked.”

When those exchanges happen, the whole ecosystem levels up.
Knowledge compounds.
Mistakes don’t have to repeat themselves.
And progress accelerates.

That’s where the real opportunity is right now — in the gaps between us.

The next phase

I’ve been thinking a lot about what this could look like in practice.
A space — not a product — where operators and investors can ask questions, share wins, and shape how we build the next wave of PropTech.

It doesn’t need to be grand or public.
It just needs to be real.
A place for shared thinking, honest feedback, and smarter systems built by the people who actually use them.

That’s the kind of network I believe we’re missing.
And it’s something we’re quietly working towards.

The bigger picture

The truth is, property is changing too fast for any one company, investor, or platform to get it right alone.

The next phase of innovation won’t come from bigger feature lists.
It’ll come from connection — from people combining experience, data, and context to solve the problems no one can fix in isolation.

Because that’s where the real strength is: not in code, or capital, but in community thinking.

A question for you

When was the last time you solved a property problem because of a conversation — not a tool?
I’d love to hear what that looked like.

Thanks again for reading The PropTech Edit.
Feel free to subscribe, share, and forward this to someone who’s still trying to solve everything alone and might just need the right conversation instead.

Melissa Lewis
Founder & CEO, ML Property Venture