Startup Properly disrupts the Calgary real estate market

Though startup Properly wants to offer a new option for buying and selling houses in Calgary, the local market experts are concerned that the startup's arrival is opportunistic.

Properly, a Canadian proptech startup, is looking to change how locals in Calgary buy and sell their houses, hoping this will shake up the US real estate industry that's touching the border.

"We are in an era when transparency and convenience and choice is being offered to homeowners," says Properly CEO Anshul Ruparell. "And they have an opportunity to go through the transaction in a way that hasn't really been done before." 

Properly is what's known as an institutional buyer or "iBuyer." 

Also known as direct buyers, iBuyers use algorithms to determine the market value of a home. They can make an initial offer to buy the property directly from the homeowner within 48 hours, and the whole process can be completed in a week, with the seller setting the closing date.

Though based in Toronto, Properly is currently operating only in Calgary. 

The company's data driven model is focused on buying only detached or semi-detached homes in the city, built after 1960 and worth $250,000 to $550,000.

Properly launched last summer with $8.5 million from investors and access to credit to buy more homes. It claims to be the first to bring this model to Canada and has big plans for 2019.       

Seen as disruptive players in American real estate, iBuyers first emerged in 2015. U.S companies, such as Opendoor, Offerpad and Knock, have raised hundreds of millions of dollars in investment and are operating in over a dozen markets.

Read more here

Join us in Bangkok the 19th to the 21st of March for the Property Portal Watch Conference.