PETALING JAYA: For many, the journey of property ownership can be a daunting experience, especially when there is a need to renovate and navigate the legal framework surrounding it.
“BuildEasy aims to reshape the future of property ownership, as it should not be a nightmare or scary affair as what it currently is for many,” said its founder and CEO Tan Yong Meng.
The startup has expanded into providing a holistic approach to property buyers particularly foreigners by incorporating technological solutions such as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), holograms and projection mapping to create a user experience for the prospective buyers to its latest venture, PropEasy.
“Our role is to bring the property to the prospective buyers who’s residing overseas... by letting them visualise it via VR and AR, as well as allowing them to choose the interior of the home before making a purchase” he told SunBiz.
Tan, who is also the co-founder of PropEasy, shared that the property agency startup started three months ago after he noticed that many foreign homeowners in Malaysia have the difficulty in finding contractors for interior design and renovation works.
This inspired him to take on the whole range of the property cycle, starting with property purchase, interior design, renovation, as well as other processes such as helping out foreigners with their Malaysia My Second Home applications and even locating the right schools for their children.
Tan explained that the purchase process involves multiple steps, from identifying the right developer and a reliable servicing agent as well as finding the right designers and contractors for interior design and renovation works.
“In the whole cycle, there are numerous parties and vendors that a buyer needs to contend with but with our process, we simplify the process as the buyer only needs to deal with BuildEasy and PropEasy as one entity,” he said.
PropEasy co-founder Jansen Loke explained that it filters the development that would suit a customer’s preferred price range as well as all the relevant information regarding the property including prices in the surrounding developments as well as drone views from the unit.
“With all the information available there’s no need for a prospective buyer to guess, on whether they need to make a trip to Malaysia or not,” he said.
In addition, Loke noted that the startup will deploy an artificial intelligence (AI) filtering process to better serve its customers.
The duo believes that incorporating technology to provide the best personalised service is the way forward for property agencies.
“This is what we call the new age property agency model,” said Tan.
Currently the startup markets property developments in Malaysia and Vietnam to prospective buyers in South Korea, Japan, China, Hong Kong and Indonesia.
Tan said BuildEasy aims to be Southeast Asia’s leading property platform for anyone who wants to purchase a property in the region, such as Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia and the Philippines.
“These are the countries that we are looking to expand and set up operations bases. Furthermore, we are also looking at expanding our country access to bring more foreigners from different countries into the region.”
