Rehda Institute's CEO Series 2025: Property portals must address widening skills gap as AI reshapes digital searches

• Chmiel pointed out that if software and other technological elements within the real estate process are merely relegated to data repositories, it will negatively impact homebuyers by hindering their access to authentic information from developers or platforms.

PETALING JAYA (Jan 23): The skills gap within the property industry is becoming critical as AI-powered searches shake up the industry in the coming years.

Juwai-IQI Holdings co-founder & chair Georg Chmiel stressed that technology adoption is not merely about investing in software and hardware but about fundamentally transforming the skills of your workforce.

Chmiel highlighted this during his presentation at the CEO Series 2025 Economy & Business Forum held last week. Organised by Rehda Institute, the training and research arm of the Real Estate and Housing Developers' Association (Rehda) Malaysia, the annual event was held at Le Meridien Hotel here this year.

According to Chmiel, most online portals in the world receive 40–50% of their traffic from Google. When a user searches for a “four-bedroom apartment near the sun”, the search results often include references to the major real estate portals in that country, directing users to their platforms for specific listings.

“In the future, as AI integration within Google's search engine deepens, Google may directly provide a selection of properties from these portals within the search results themselves. This would effectively relegate the portals to mere data repositories,” he said.

Chmiel pointed out that if software and other technological elements within the real estate process are merely relegated to data repositories, it will negatively impact homebuyers by hindering their access to authentic information from developers or platforms.

“This data stagnation will likely result in lower search engine rankings for these platforms, reducing their traffic,” he elaborated.

During the event, the Rehda Institute also conferred special certifications and awards to nine graduates of the Master of Real Estate Development (MRED) Programme, witnessed by deputy finance minister Lim Hui Ying.

MRED programme aims to develop all-round real estate leaders

The MRED programme is a collaboration between the Rehda Institute and the University of Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR), offering a Master's programme to industry personnel to accelerate their skills and knowledge. This programme is designed for the industry with extensive input from the Rehda Institute and industry experts to ensure ample applied industry insights.

"We have different categories of professionals working in the real estate industry. Property development involves many processes, and each process is handled by different professionals. We hope they could gain knowledge across all processes.

"They should be exposed to other skills, including financing and mortgaging. This will make them all-rounders, ready to take on senior property management roles and eventually become the leaders of this industry. That's why we designed the MRED course," UMLand Bhd director cum MRED guest lecturer Datuk Charlie Chia Lui Meng told EdgeProp.

Chia foresees that industry players will need to know digital marketing, new technologies in design and planning, government policies, and the latest laws governing the industry. "They don't need to do the work themselves, but they need this knowledge to effectively manage and make decisions," he elaborated.

Looking forward, Chia hopes that property professionals could expose themselves to various practices from other countries and widen their insights into different legal, design, and human management aspects.

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