In China, even buildings are spying on how people shop, cook and steal

Fintech is changing the way people borrow, invest and pay for things. But there’s another type of technology -- most noticeably in China -- that’s altering the way urban dwellers interact with their living and shopping environments.

It’s property technology, or proptech -- the use of new technologies like big data and machine learning to help individuals and companies buy, sell and manage real estate.

According to Jones Lang LaSalle Inc., investment into proptech startups from 2013 to 2017 totaled $7.8 billion, with China accounting for about 36% of that. In 2018, that figure came to almost $20 billion, data from market