Growthpoint Properties (JSE: GRT) is preparing to bring SmartLease to market this November 2026, pioneering a digital leasing journey that supports a faster, simpler and more connected path from interest to lease conclusion for businesses in South Africa. The upcoming launch includes a programme of structured support designed to ensure clients and broker partners experience the full benefit of the platform from the outset.
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SmartLease was unveiled during Growthpoint’s Friction to Flow discussion, a highlight of last week’s Africa PropTech Forum 2026 at the African Property Investment Summit in Cape Town. Growthpoint revealed it is readying the platform for broad adoption in November 2026.
The launch marks a significant shift in the commercial real estate leasing process, replacing a fragmented sequence of administrative steps with a single digital journey designed around the client experience.
Commercial leasing has historically required clients, brokers and internal teams to navigate multiple processes, requests and approvals across the journey. SmartLease brings this journey into a digital flow that reduces that friction and creates a guided, connected experience from the first interaction. With users’ needs at the heart of the design, it lets Growthpoint move with greater pace and consistency from first enquiry through to signed lease.
Moving beyond the traditional landlord model
SmartLease sits within a broader strategic shift at Growthpoint, which is moving beyond the conventions of the traditional landlord relationship and genuinely placing the client journey at the centre of how the business operates.
This outside-in approach, which starts with what clients, brokers and internal teams need and then building systems around those needs, shapes Growthpoint’s wider digital transformation agenda.
“We are designing every interaction around how businesses and people actually expect to engage today: digitally, responsively and without unnecessary friction,” says Lauren Turner, Head of Corporate Affairs at Growthpoint Properties. “The goal is a more connected, more consistent experience across every stage of the client relationship, from first contact to occupation and beyond.”
SmartLease is a tangible expression of that ambition. The platform was built not by digitising the old process, but by redesigning the leasing journey from scratch, with specialist technology support helping to bring the vision to life.
“We appreciate that our clients live in a digital world and expect a seamless, intuitive experience from the start. With SmartLease, we’ve applied client-first thinking to the digitised journey that begins with our very first interaction together,” says Turner.
The leasing process – simpler, swifter
Timothy Irvine, Head of Asset Management, Office Portfolio at Growthpoint Properties.
Timothy Irvine, Growthpoint Properties’ Head of Asset Management: Offices, explains the platform is shaped around a clear ambition: to achieve a lease in a day. The direct goal was to overcome the frustration, time and duplication that the conventional commercial leasing cycle creates for clients and property managers alike.
To achieve this, Growthpoint set out to re-engineer leasing around the client and broker experience, while giving its own team a more scalable way to manage the journey internally.
“Businesses today value efficiency,” says Irvine. “Once they have made a decision, they want to get the deal done and get back to business, not spend weeks working through piles of paperwork or getting caught up in duplicated processes. We don’t want this either.”
Through the SmartLease platform, clients and broker partners provide the information needed for a leasing transaction through a structured digital flow. That information carries through the process, reducing duplication and unnecessary back-and-forth at every stage. The result is seamless progression, faster checks and clearer approvals, and keeping the right internal teams involved at the right points.
For Growthpoint, the result is an end-to-end leasing journey that is more visible, more manageable and better positioned to move at the client’s pace. But the value of SmartLease extends well beyond ease and speed. A better leasing experience supports stronger client relationships, more efficient internal collaboration and a more consistent broker experience across the journey.
Over time, the structured data created through the digitised journey is expected to give Growthpoint richer insight into client needs, conversion points and opportunities to improve the experience further. This proprietary data of client demand and preferences across Growthpoint’s major commercial property portfolio of retail, office, logistics and industrial properties, creates a competitive advantage.
Rollout and adoption
In November, SmartLease will be officially launched into the broader leasing ecosystem. Growthpoint is approaching the rollout by proactively preparing onboarding and support mechanisms for its teams, clients and broker partners ahead of and during the initial introduction phase.
“SmartLease is an important step in doing things differently for our clients and broker partners,” says Irvine. “We’re excited for a successful launch in November and look forward to working with SmartLease users to ensure they feel the benefit of it immediately.”
