By Michele Lerner

Buying or selling an apartment building or strip mall from your phone or laptop sounds much more complicated than shopping for clothes online, but with the commercial real estate (CRE) industry’s shift to digital underway, transactions are becoming swifter and simpler for everyone involved.

Property technology, or proptech, the industry’s term for online platforms offering data analysis, property management and accounting tools, simplifies and expedites transactions while preserving the essential relationships among stakeholders, says Steven Jacobs, president of Ten-X, an auction-based CRE exchange.

Explore four ways proptech is making deals more frictionless and fruitful for buyers, brokers and sellers.