Private Equity Might Be the Best Thing to Happen to PropTech

In partnership with

• Equitable private equity: Private equity often gets a bad name, but smart firms can help PropTech companies innovate and grow.

• Shoreline showdown: Cities are redeveloping their shorelines in a way that balances climate resilience with livability.

• Taxation without valuation: Facing severe vacancies Boston landlords push back on valuations and embrace adaptive reuse opportunities.

• Office-to-residential conversion: Webinar on data-driven metrics and insights for profitable office-to-residential conversions. Sign up

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Perspectives

Private Equity Might Be the Best Thing to Happen to PropTech

Private equity has a reputation problem. Popular narratives often focus on leveraged buyouts, asset stripping, and bankruptcies like Red Lobster, Joann’s, and Party City. But there is another side to the story. Growth equity, a quieter branch of the industry, provides capital and operational guidance to established companies that are ready to expand and improve rather than contract and collapse.

This kind of investment often brings in leadership and support aimed at scaling operations, refining products, and responding to customer needs in a systematic way. With private equity’s discipline—regular check-ins, clear accountability, and experienced board oversight—companies are pushed to solve problems creatively while staying profitable. That balance between topline growth and bottom-line discipline is what differentiates growth equity from venture capital, which tends to prioritize speed and scale over stability.

For real estate and PropTech firms, that distinction is important. The industry needs innovation, but it also needs longevity, and growth equity can provide both. Rather than pushing companies toward short-term gains or risky bets, private equity’s structure often creates the resources and focus necessary for sustainable development, ensuring that the tools and services customers rely on don’t disappear when market conditions shift.

Overheard

Waterfront Redevelopments Have to Bridge Safety and Style

Cities from Seattle to Boston are reimagining their waterfronts not just as scenic amenities but as strategic infrastructure that can buffer storms and support economic life. In Seattle, a $1 billion upgrade to Elliott Bay has replaced an aging seawall with a seismic-resilient design, added a 20-acre park, pedestrian pathways, and environmental features like materials recycling and salmon habitat daylighting. Boston’s Climate Ready plan takes a similar approach, elevating parks and reinforcing shorelines with drainage systems to guard against rising tides and flooding. These projects blend resilience with livability, driven by partnerships across government, business, and philanthropy that are making both flood protection and public space improvement possible.

The core tension in these developments is between urgency and vision. Coastal cities are facing escalating threats from climate change, yet available resources and political will often lag behind the risks. The answer isn’t always massive walls or barriers but rather thoughtful urban design that doubles as protection—promenades, parks, levees, bioswales, and permeable surfaces that serve the public and help absorb incoming waters. These spaces turn hazard into opportunity, safeguarding assets while making neighborhoods more attractive and vibrant.

Waterfront redevelopment is no longer an afterthought for cities, it’s a frontline defense against sea level rise and an economic engine rolled into one. Investments that merge flood resilience with public amenities is a way to build for tomorrow’s climate without choosing between safety and vitality. Instead, the most successful developments will be those that protect people and property while enriching the cities they serve.

Office Landlords Are Challenging Their Tax Bills

Landlords in Boston, facing “crazy vacancies,” are now pushing back on commercial valuations. Some property owners are even arguing their properties are worth half of what the city assesses, a stark signal of distress in the office sector. The core issue: sky-high vacancy rates have decimated value, and holding powerless assessments means heavier tax burdens amid collapsing demand. The real problem isn’t just emptiness, it’s that owners feel stuck with property taxes that don’t reflect today’s reality.

But what if landlords treated their buildings like cities treat their waterfronts, blending resilience with amenity rather than battling value declines head-on? Adaptive reuse offers a route out. Boston has already seen successful examples: converting the old Landmark Center (a former Sears warehouse) into retail, office, entertainment, and childcare space, and transforming the Charles Street Meeting House—a historic church—into mixed-use office and retail while preserving its character. These are far from isolated; the state is funding conversions of vacant office buildings into housing, projects that would not only activate empty structures but also diversify tax streams. One Chestnut Place and 31 Milk Street are just two of the office-to-residential transformations underway with state and municipal incentives.

For office landlords, the lesson is clear: instead of fighting for valuation relief, repurposing buildings could create value in other ways. Converting obsolete space into housing, amenities, or mixed-use destinations not only meets city needs, it also broadens the revenue base, attracts new tax incentives, and aligns with market demand. In a world where empty offices are a drag, placing value on adaptability may help landlords and cities thrive again.

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Propmodo Daily is written and edited by Franco Faraudo with contributions from readers like you and the Propmodo team.

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