PropertyQuants

Bringing quantitative investment strategies to global real estate

Photo Credit © Warren Poh

About Us

PropertyQuants was founded by a team of PhD ex-quant traders with a track record of successfully deploying automated trading models in global financial markets.

We're bringing the quantitative revolution to real estate investing. Property investing today is often based on incomplete and inadequate information. Analysis, forecasts, and decisions are not rigorously produced, and are sometimes driven by emotion, untested assumptions, and rules of thumb. Portfolio considerations in real estate are often ignored.

We work to improve real estate decision making. It can and should be evidence-based, data-driven, and systematic instead. We are leading the way forward by applying quantitative finance and data science methods to global real estate, helping investors beat the market.

Our Approach

Comprehensive Global Real Estate Database

Our technology automatically ingests a wide range of relevant real estate (and related) data series around the world – all cleaned, standardized, and normalized within appropriate local contexts. We include diverse data series covering not just transaction prices, but also neighborhood level demographics and migration patterns, macroeconomic factors, and more. Data are converted to proprietary numerical scores where appropriate (e.g., school quality score, commute time score, etc.).

Real Estate Data Science Platform

We’re building a flexible and customizable research platform that combines cloud-based database technologies, geographic information systems, machine learning / artificial intelligence / data science tools, and quantitative / systematic investment methodologies. This allows us to provide personalized answers to top-down questions, powered by a utility function approach to trade-offs over multiple decision criteria.

Advanced Analytics, Portfolio Analysis, and Systematic Investment Predictions

Our platform also serves up statistically rigorous analytics (e.g., neighbourhood price indices produced by hedonic regression). It enables users with little to no prior statistics or programming training to perform sophisticated analyses (e.g., correlation analysis, regression analysis, event history analysis, t-test). The portfolio analytics feature will allow users to quantitatively measure portfolio performance, including risk and return trade-offs.

Current Data Coverage

7 cities
180 public data sources
317 commercial data sources
800 datasets

Our Team

PropertyQuants Nelson Lau

Nelson Lau

PhD, CFA
CEO
Nelson Lau has a PhD in Decision Sciences from INSEAD, is a CFA Charterholder, and completed his undergraduate work at Columbia University, double majoring in Economics and Mathematics-Statistics. He started his career as a trader/researcher at R G Niederhoffer Capital Management, an award-winning hedge fund deploying medium and low frequency strategies to global markets, completed a stint at GIC, and also spent significant time as lead trader at KCG, a leading global high frequency trading firm focusing on Asian markets.
PropertyQuants Xingzhi Cheng

Xingzhi Cheng

PhD
CTO
Xingzhi Cheng has a PhD in Statistical Physics from the National University of Singapore (NUS) and a B.S. in Computer Science from Peking University. He was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Santa Fe Institute and NUS. Xingzhi was technical lead at 2 successful startups – Appublisher and M-DAQ - before moving to quantitative trading, where he has 5 years of experience as a researcher, trader, and quantitative developer.
PropertyQuants Patrick Sim

Patrick Sim

CFA, CAIA, FRM
Front End Development Partner & Advisor
Patrick is cofounder of RobustTechHouse, an IT development company with a demonstrable history of success partnering with tech-driven startups to accelerate product development and build their businesses. He is a serial entrepreneur, was a private equity professional at CapAsia (2012-2017), and a hedge fund trader at Orbis (2009-2012). After starting his career as a Singapore Police Force Overseas Scholar, Patrick worked in several high profile roles in government and public service (2001-2007). Patrick has an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and did his undergraduate work at the University of Cambridge, earning a Master of Engineering with First Class Honors in Electronics and Information Sciences.
PropertyQuants Advisor

Kevin Kow

Advisor
Kevin Kow joined NWP Retail in March 2019 as the Chief Investment Officer and is responsible for acquisitions of real estate investments and capital market functions. Prior to joining NWP Retail, Mr. Kow worked at CLSA Real Estate (2017 - 2019) and Morgan Stanley (2006 - 2017), where he served as Head of Singapore and was responsible for acquisitions and asset management activities across Singapore and Southeast Asia in both roles. Mr. Kow has experience across Asia Pacific, including in Singapore, Southeast Asia, Australia and Greater China. He has been involved in transactions across various asset classes, including investments into operational assets, developments sites, retail fund management platforms and public securities. Mr. Kow also worked for Morgan Stanley’s Investment Banking Division, in the Real Estate group (2006-2008). Mr. Kow was awarded Bachelor of Science cum laude in Biomedical Engineering from Columbia University, New York.
PropertyQuants Advisor

Murat Unluer

DataOps Partner & Advisor
Murat is a serial entrepreneur with more than 15 years of practical experience architecting software and data operations processes, and developing real-time, scalable, high performance systems for the financial industry. He was Director of Software Development at R G Niederhoffer Capital Management, and cofounder of PlusPlus Capital Management. Both hedge funds focused on systematic, quantitative, data-driven trading of financial markets, and Murat is excited to work with PropertyQuants to bring these approaches to the real estate industry. Currently, he heads Orion Fintech, a team of skilled developers dedicated to helping systematic investment firms and e-commerce players looking for algorithmic solutions to pricing and advertising. Murat was ranked 468 out of 1,000,000 in the Turkish Central University Math Entrance Exam, and has a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering from Ege University.
PropertyQuants Advisor

Keith Tan

Data Scientist
Keith Tan has a Bachelor of Science (Economics) from Singapore Management University, with a double major in Finance. He was in the pioneer batch of Management Associates at Singapore Economic Development Board, and eventually graduated to lead the investment facilitation for technology MNCs looking to anchor and expand operations in Singapore. He also graduated from General Assembly with a certification in Data Science.

Achievements

PropertyQuants SFA
Certified FinTech: AI & Data Analytics Provider

PropertyQuants Pte. Ltd. was certified by the Singapore FinTech Association as a provider of real estate investment data and analytics solutions including location scores, automated valuation, market indices, and forecasts.

PropertyQuants Techstars
Class of 2019, Colliers Techstars PropTech Accelerator

We were one of 10 companies selected out of hundreds of applicants to participate in this intensive three-month accelerator program hosted in Toronto. The program provides the opportunity to work with over 120 mentors, establish pilots and partnerships, and culminates in Demo Day presentations to real estate industry participants and technology investors.

PropertyQuants MAS Megatr8
Grant Recipient, MAS FSTI POC Scheme

PropertyQuants Pte. Ltd was awarded the Monetary Authority of Singapore's Financial Sector Technology and Innovation (FSTI) Proof of Concept (POC) grant on 06-Sep-2019. The FSTI POC grant provides funding support for experimentation, development and dissemination of nascent innovative technologies in the financial services sector.

Our application to the scheme was sponsored by Megatr8 Inc., a Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) in Singapore.

Read the whitepaper here

PropertyQuants shortlisted by Innoleap
Shortlist, Innoleap Call for Solutions (CFS) 2019

Innoleap CFS is organised by GovTech Singapore. It calls upon private sector companies to provide innovative solutions to problems faced by government agencies. We prototyped and presented a mobile app producing Augmented Reality / Mixed reality visualizations of cadastral boundaries, in response to a problem faced by the Singapore Land Authority.

PropertyQuants BWT Asia Awards
Finalist, Built World Technology (BWT) Asia 2019

BWT Asia is the new world-class real estate, construction and workplace technology conference where capital, founders and leaders meet. We were a finalist in the startup competition segment of the 2019 conference.

PropertyQuants and AIDF
Collaboration MOU, NUS AIDF

PropertyQuants and the National University of Singapore's Asian Institute of Digital Finance signed a Memorandum of Understanding in May 2021 to collaborate on research, thought leadership, and education.

Union Training Assistance Programme & Skills Future
SkillsFuture & NTUC UTAP Funding

PropertyQuants' courses - "Applying Data Science & Machine Learning to Real Estate" & "The No Code Course" - are SkillsFuture credits eligible and can be funded under the NTUC UTAP Program.

Media





Feb 28, 2022   How AI is changing the property industry forever
Dec 29, 2021   Three reasons the Real Estate industry can’t live without GIS
Sep 4, 2021   Trends in Real Estate (Panel Discussion at Columbia Alumni Association AGM)
Aug 10, 2021   Understanding AI & Machine Learning for Businesses with their Benefits (Zain Jaffer Podcast Part 3)
Aug 9, 2021   How AI & Machine Learning is Helping Real Estate Businesses Clean-up & Organize their Data (Zain Jaffer Podcast Part 2)
Aug 8, 2021   The Importance of Data in Business & Strategy (Zain Jaffer Podcast Part 1)
Jun 29, 2021   How will Innovation Enable the Future of Real Estate? (Panel discussion with PropertyQuants' CEO Nelson Lau)
Jun 24, 2021   What are the benefits of Data Science, ML, & AI for real estate investors, developers, realtors, appraisers, & Proptechs? (at Unissu RE:Connect)
Jun 3, 2021   REHDA Institute Real Estate Data Analytics Conference: Applying Data Science & Machine Learning to Real Estate (includes specific discussion of opportunities for Property Developers)
May 21, 2021   Tsinghua-INSEAD Executive MBA webinar: Applied Data Science & Machine Learning - Disrupting the Real Estate Industry
Mar 24, 2021   10 Free Property Research Tools to Boost Your Chances of Buying the Right Property (featuring schoolguide.sg)
Feb 5, 2021   Promoting PropTech - Students this is where we see opportunities.
Jan 26, 2021   Course Demo - Applying Data Science & Machine Learning to Real Estate (at CRETech Business Intelligence Summit)
Jan 7, 2021   Proptech in Singapore (at Unissu RE:Connect)
Jan 7, 2021   新加坡的地产科技 (at Unissu RE:Connect)
Jan 7, 2021   How to Apply Data Science & Machine Learning to Real Estate (at Unissu RE:Connect)
Jan 7, 2021   数据科学与机器学习在房地产分析中的应用 (at Unissu RE:Connect)
Dec 4, 2020   RealTech Vietnam Event: "Fintech in Real Estate - Opportunities and Challenges" (see 47:30 for presentation by PropertyQuants' CEO Nelson Lau)
Nov 21, 2020   Webinar: Disrupting Real Estate - The Global Proptech Phenomenon
Nov 4, 2020   LMRE and PropertyQuants partner to fulfill industry demand for Real Estate Data Scientists
Nov 4, 2020   Real Estate Investment and Development: Data Visualization as a tool
Aug 3, 2020   Restart Your Career: Data Science (featuring PropertyQuants' Data Scientist Keith Tan)
Aug 3, 2020   Webinar: What's Hot in the APAC PropTech Scene?
Jun 18, 2020   5 Ways to Apply Data Science to Real Estate, also reported by
May 28, 2020   Getting your child Into a Top Primary School And Finding Your Dream Home: Here's How This Tool Can Help
May 28, 2020   Plug and Play Market Map: 50 Inspiring Startups
Jan 20, 2020   Money Mind: Nelson Lau and Yves Luethi speak about Proptech
Dec 30, 2019   Going Digital
Dec 8, 2019   Meet the Real Estate Tech Founder: Nelson Lau from PropertyQuants
Dec 4, 2019   PropertyQuants @ Colliers Techstars Proptech Accelerator 2019 Demo Day
Nov 28, 2019   PropTech: Beyond the Classified Section
Oct 2, 2019   Mapping Singapore’s “Fintech + AI” Landscape
Sep 11, 2019 Colliers Techstars announces Class of 2019
Sep 10, 2019   Colliers Proptech Accelerator attracts worldwide participants
Sep 9, 2019   Colliers Proptech Accelerator powered by Techstars Welcomes Class of 2019 Startups , also reported by
Sep 9, 2019   Announcing the 2019 Class of the Colliers Proptech Accelerator powered by Techstars
Sep 3, 2019   The profitable fintech startup that took off after pitching to Jack Ma on a cruise ship (featuring PropertyQuants' CTO Xingzhi Cheng).
Apr 4, 2019   Real Estate Innovation Network and BWT Asia host the first PropTech Contest in Southeast Asia

Contact Us

Thanks for your interest in PropertyQuants. Our team is always up for a challenge, so do reach us through the emails listed below:

For general inquiries, you can reach us at:
info@propertyquants.com

Funds

For questions related to our funds, you can reach us at:
funds@propertyquants.com

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