Exploring the Future of Commercial Real Estate: Insights from RETCON 2025

Key Takeaways on PropTech, Market Trends, and Investment Strategies from the Leading Industry Conference

I attended the Real Estate Technology Conference (RETCON), held in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand from March 10-12. The conference brought together commercial real estate professionals to explore cutting-edge technology and investment strategies. Key discussions covered PropTech solutions, market trends, and asset management.

Throughout the event, I networked with industry leaders from both startups and established companies, gaining valuable insights into innovative products and emerging trends shaping the future of the real estate market. In this post, I will share key highlights from the talks and the companies I had the chance to engage with.

Entrance of the conference at MGM Grand

Notable Talk Overview

Keynote Fireside with Zoom CEO - Eric Yuan

I found the fireside chat with Zoom CEO Eric Yuan particularly interesting. Many real estate businesses use Zoom to communicate within teams and with stakeholders. During the pandemic, Zoom experienced a significant surge in demand, becoming essential for virtual communication. However, as the pandemic subsided, usage declined noticeably. Rather than being fazed, Yuan saw this as an opportunity to expand Zoom’s product offerings, introducing tools like Zoom Team Chat and Zoom Workplace to build a more comprehensive communication platform. Embracing change while maintaining simplicity was a core theme of his talk.

Looking ahead, Zoom is focusing on AI integration to boost team efficiency, with innovations like the AI Companion — designed to automate tasks and improve workflows. Yuan believes that harnessing AI’s potential could drive productivity to new heights, even suggesting a future where a four-day workweek becomes possible as AI handles mundane tasks. While this is an optimistic view, I’m personally skeptical about whether a four-day workweek is feasible in the U.S. Historically, technological advancements — like the internet boom — have increased productivity, but often led to more work, not less.

Interestingly, Yuan shared a fun fact - he listens to Wu-Tang Clan’s music for motivation!

Why Simple Wins? - Lisa Bodell

This was probably the most impactful talk I attended at the conference, as it challenged conventional thinking about how we structure our work lives. The central theme of the talk was eliminating unnecessary complexity in the workplace. She emphasized that if a meeting isn’t truly necessary, it should be canceled. Bodell argued that simplifying processes, decisions, and even work environments can dramatically increase productivity and focus.

She made a compelling case that many companies are bogged down by layers of complexity, which lead to inefficiencies, frustration, and burnout. According to her, cutting through this complexity and focusing on what truly matters can free up resources and foster a more dynamic, creative atmosphere. Her ideas were practical, actionable, and delivered with a refreshing, no-nonsense attitude.

Her approach encourages people to rethink what’s truly essential and eliminate the rest—something that can have a profound effect on both individual productivity and organizational culture.

Smart, Sustainable, and Connected Buildings – Delta Electronics

Delta Electronics provides sustainable energy solutions with a unified platform of smart, energy-saving technologies for intelligent buildings, focusing on enhancing efficiency and air quality through their innovative HVAC systems.(more below in Notable Company Overview)

One interesting insight I gained was about communication within smart systems, a topic I hadn’t explored deeply before, as I was mostly familiar with API integration. Below is a breakdown of the different communication levels in smart systems:

1. Hardware Level: Communication occurs through direct device interaction, such as sensors collecting data or actuators controlling physical actions.

2. API (Software) Level: Software interfaces enable seamless data exchange and integration between different systems or applications.

3. Network Level: Devices communicate over networks like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or 5G, enabling remote data transmission and interaction.

4. Application Level: User interfaces and applications interact with the system, providing control and presenting meaningful data to users.

5. Cloud Level: Data is sent to cloud servers for storage, processing, and analytics, allowing for advanced insights and processing.

6. Middleware Level: This layer bridges hardware, software, and applications, ensuring compatibility and smooth communication between components.

7. Data Level: Raw data is captured, processed, and exchanged in standardized formats, ensuring accurate communication across the system.

Notable Companies Overview

Although I didn’t get to speak with all the company representatives, several stood out to me, including both established companies and innovative startups:

• Zeitview: Formerly known as DroneBase, is a Santa Monica-based company specializing in advanced inspection software that delivers fast, accurate insights and improves asset performance across sectors like energy, infrastructure, and real estate. A standout product is their Property Condition Visualization, which enables real estate professionals to detect properties in poor condition by analyzing inspection imagery and anomaly data. By training models on the edge, directly on the drone’s hardware, Zeitview ensures faster processing, real-time insights, and efficient data transmission, reducing reliance on centralized servers. Their AI-powered models, likely based on convolutional neural networks, not only detect current anomalies and maintenance needs but also forecast potential future issues, empowering data-driven, proactive decision-making.

• Blue Orange: Blue Orange Digital is a data science and machine learning consulting firm specializing in modern data warehousing to power AI solutions, helping companies harness data-driven insights for informed decision-making. With expertise in Data & AI Strategy, Engineering, Analytics, and GenAI, they drive innovation through cutting-edge technologies, further strengthened by Oliver Wyman's 2022 minority investment to enhance data and advanced analytics capabilities.

• StreamLoan: A B2B SaaS platform reinventing the residential real estate purchase and financing process. By merging real estate transactions and mortgage financing into a seamless, digital experience, StreamLoan reduces friction and enhances collaboration across all parties involved. The platform fosters transparency and simplicity, transforming the journey to homeownership into a fast, rewarding, and enjoyable experience.

• Delta Electronics: Headquartered in Taiwan, Delta Electronics has established itself as a leader in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives. The company was the first in Taiwan to issue a Corporate Social Responsibility report in 2005 and has been listed on the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices for 14 consecutive years. Delta emphasizes sustainable energy solutions, offering a unified platform of smart and energy-saving technologies for intelligent buildings. Their HVAC solutions are designed to detect temperature and humidity changes, utilizing outdoor fresh air for ventilation to enhance energy efficiency and indoor air quality. Notably, Delta's Americas headquarters in Fremont, California, achieved LEED Zero Energy certification, showcasing their commitment to green building practices.

• Rello: Rello is revolutionizing the residential rental market by streamlining the leasing process with cutting-edge FinTech solutions. Their platform integrates all aspects of rental management into a single interface, connecting renters' bank accounts to create comprehensive renter profiles. This system recommends suitable properties to improve efficiency and reduce delinquency. For property managers, Rello offers seamless tenant screening, lease generation, payment processing, and e-signature capabilities, enhancing operational efficiency.

• Datum: Developed by Forbury, Datum is a commercial real estate appraisal software designed for capital transactions. It enables rapid analysis of cash flows using Capitalisation of Net Income and Discounted Cashflow (DCF) valuation methods, catering to office and industrial asset classes. Key features include forecasting up to 20-year monthly cash flows, analyzing various lease structures, and incorporating market leasing assumptions. Datum's cloud-based engine ensures quick modeling, with an average calculation speed of 1.57 seconds, and offers robust error alerts and version controls to minimize risks.

• Fresco: Fresco (Very interesting company!) is an AI-driven platform designed to assist construction superintendents in rapidly generating comprehensive documentation. By recording videos during site inspections, superintendents can use Fresco to automatically extract relevant information and produce detailed reports, reducing documentation time from hours to minutes. The platform also integrates seamlessly with project management tools like Procore and ACC. Founded in 2024 by Arvind Veluvali and Akhil Gupta (who I met), Fresco is based in San Francisco and is part of Y Combinator's 2024 cohort.

My Thoughts

Overall, it was a great conference with the opportunity to connect with key industry figures—people like CTOs, COOs, and CEOs from various companies—who would typically be hard to reach. It was exciting to have them just a text away/approach face to face away. I also noticed that many companies and individuals had a clear agenda to collaborate, sell their products, and identify potential synergies.

Interestingly, my impression was that the real estate industry, once not a tech-driven sector, is now embracing data-driven solutions. While many large real estate companies that have been around for decades are gradually adopting this change, I noticed numerous innovative startups and PropTech companies working to integrate their products into the industry. A key challenge for most companies is building robust data pipelines and unifying data sources to transition their existing systems into data-driven solutions. As necessity drives efficiency, they are making significant strides in overcoming these challenges by either building proprietary systems or collaborating with PropTech solutions. Meanwhile, innovative startups like Fresco are simplifying this process and identifying inefficiencies, turning them into opportunities for improvement and innovation.