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A new online real estate tool from a Swiss start-up not only shows you advertised properties, but every home in the country. The tool is not intended for spying, but privacy advocates still find it questionable.
Users not only see properties advertised for sale, but also those where the owner has not yet shown any interest in selling.
20 minutes/Simon Glauser
According to Property Captain CEO Myriam Reinle, many homeowners are considering selling.
Property Captain
A Swiss start-up shows the price of all homes in Switzerland.
There you will also find objects that are not advertised for sale.
That doesn’t sit well with homeowners.
Data protectionists also find it questionable.
The real estate market is booming. Since Corona, prices have gone through the roof. Your own home should be beautiful in the home office, but at the latest in quarantine. The supply of free houses and apartments has dried up accordingly.
The Swiss start-up Property Captain promises a remedy with its real estate platform of the same name. Interested parties have not only been able to find 170,000 advertised properties there since this weekend. For the first time in Switzerland, you can also bid on any single-family and terraced house in the country, the company says.
Intended for “serious buyers” only
Interested parties with the necessary change can also find the villa of tennis star Roger Federer, including an estimated value, on the online map. The program asks about the financial resources and offers filter options such as proximity to public transport or the motorway and displays suitable objects.
You can also see what the houses in your own residential area cost. According to Property Captain CEO Myriam Reinle, the tool is not intended to spy on your neighbors. “We want to offer support for people who are seriously interested in buying,” says Reinle to 20 minutes. Data protection plays a major role (see box).
If you are interested in a house, you have to register and state your financial situation. Interested parties can filter the properties that match their information and needs or have them displayed on a map. If they want to buy and if the financial means are available, the owner will receive an offer for the property from Property Captain. Only if there is interest is there a match and the two parties can get in touch with each other and, if desired, consult the expertise of a broker. If successful, Property Captain charges a fee of 0.5 percent of the purchase price, which is usually paid by the buyer.
In this way, the owners find out how much their house could be worth. Many live in a property that no longer actually meets their needs. One in six owners is toying with the idea of selling their home in the next few years in order to buy something more suitable.
That’s why Property Captain CEO Myriam Reinle believes this opportunity will help homeowners find the right time to sell their home. If they don’t agree with the offer, they can have their property blocked or state that they would only consider selling above a certain price, as Reinle says to 20 minutes.
“This aggressive behavior is not okay”
The tool is not well received by the homeowners’ association in Zurich. “At the moment everyone wants to have something to do with real estate because the market is booming, but such an aggressive approach is not okay,” says a spokesman for 20 minutes.
He would be annoyed if his house ended up on a foreign platform without his consent. It’s almost as bad as realtors trawling through obituaries looking for new contacts. “Your own house is something emotional, I would go to the ceiling and certainly not want to have anything to do with them,” says the spokesman for HEV Zurich.
Privacy advocates demand anonymity
The federal data protection officers also find some things questionable, such as the anonymity of home ownership. So it is usually relatively easy to establish a personal reference, as a spokeswoman says on request.
Questions also arose as to how the platform obtained the owners’ contact information in order to make a purchase offer. In addition, the affected homeowners would have to be informed about the processing of their personal data. This is the only way they could exercise their right to object.
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