ARCE 2026 Speaker Spotlight: Princess Ncuthe on How a Phone, AI and a Personal Brand Let Young African Agents Compete on a Bigger Stage

Princess Ncuthe applied to more than 200 estate agencies in Cape Town before one gave her an internship. She was 18, fresh out of school, and entering one of the most traditional industries in the country. Her way in was an iPhone and TikTok: house-tour videos that built a personal brand, and then a client base, before the industry had quite decided whether that was allowed.

Today she is a real estate professional with eXp Realty South Africa — the cloud-based brokerage that was licensed by the Property Practitioners Regulatory Authority in December 2020 and passed 1,000 agents within three years — and a leader within eXp Young Professionals in South Africa, supporting eXp International’s Young Professionals network. From 14 to 16 October she takes that story to Accra, where the Africa Real Estate Conference & Expo (ARCE 2026) runs at The Palms Convention Center under the theme “Policy, PropTech and Sustainability”, with more than 2,000 delegates expected. Her session, “PropTech and the Future of Real Estate Across Africa”, is about what happens when an individual agent with a phone, an internet connection and the right AI tools can do what used to need a marketing department.

Ahead of the conference, Property News Africa — the event’s Official Digital Media Partner — asked her to walk through a real AI workflow, to be candid about what AI cannot do when the data is thin, and to describe what a strong personal brand looks like for an African agent in 2026. Her answers, lightly edited for length, are below.

In conversation with Princess Ncuthe

Tell us about your path into real estate and your roles with eXp Realty South Africa and eXp International’s Young Professionals network. What made you focus on the technology side of the business?

I started my real estate journey at 18, shortly after finishing high school. I applied to more than 200 agencies in Cape Town before finally getting my first opportunity through an internship. I quickly realised that as a young person entering a very traditional industry, I had to find a different way to make myself visible. I started creating house-tour content on TikTok, using nothing more than my iPhone and the skills I already had with social media. That eventually helped me build my own personal brand and client base.

Today I’m a real estate professional with eXp Realty South Africa, while also serving in leadership within eXp Young Professionals and supporting eXp International’s Young Professionals network. I’ve also become involved in international content and initiatives within eXp, which has given me a much broader view of how technology and digital communication are changing the industry.

My interest in technology really comes from necessity. I’m not a developer or a traditional tech expert. I’m an agent who started asking, “How can I do this faster, better and more creatively?” AI, automation and simple no-code tools have made it possible for an individual agent to create things that previously required a whole team, a developer or expensive software.

You’ve mentioned “vibe coding” and AI tools that let agents build personalised seller reports. Can you walk us through a real example — what goes in, what the client receives, and how long it takes compared with the old way?

One example is creating a personalised seller report. Traditionally, an agent might pull comparable properties, look at asking prices, recent sales where available, days on market and other local information, then manually put all of that into a presentation or report. It can take several hours, particularly if you want the report to be personalised and visually polished.

With AI and simple “vibe coding” tools, I can structure the information, analyse the available data and create a client-facing report around that specific property. The input can include the property’s location, size, bedrooms, bathrooms, asking price, comparable listings, available market data and the property’s unique features. The output is a much more personalised conversation with the seller: here is where your property sits within the market, here is what buyers are seeing, here are the comparable properties and here are the factors that could influence positioning.

The important point is that AI isn’t replacing the agent’s judgement. It helps me get from raw information to something useful for the client much faster. What could previously take a few hours of research and formatting can potentially become a much quicker process, allowing the agent to spend more time actually advising the client.

Much of the data an agent needs in Africa is patchy, informal or behind a paywall. What are the limits of AI-generated market insight when the underlying data is thin, and how do you avoid presenting a confident-looking report that is actually built on guesswork?

This is one of the most important conversations we need to have about AI in African real estate. AI can only be as reliable as the information it is working with. A beautifully designed report doesn’t automatically mean the underlying information is accurate.

I see AI as a research and analysis assistant rather than an authority. I still need to verify important information, understand where the data came from, distinguish between asking prices and actual transaction data, and be transparent when there isn’t enough information to make a strong conclusion. If the data is limited, the report should say that.

The human agent remains incredibly important because they bring local knowledge and context that a model may not have. Technology should help us make better-informed decisions, not create false certainty.

You’ve said an agent’s ability to communicate, educate and build trust online can matter as much as listings or market knowledge. What does a strong personal brand look like for an African agent in 2026 — and what’s the most common mistake you see on social media?

For me, a strong personal brand is simply being recognisable for something valuable. It doesn’t mean having millions of followers or making every post look perfect. It means that when someone sees your name, they understand who you are, what you know and why they should trust you.

Social media gives agents an opportunity to educate before a client ever contacts them. That could be explaining the buying process, breaking down an area, discussing market trends, showing properties or simply giving people a realistic view of what it is like to work in real estate.

The biggest mistake I see is trying too hard to look like an “agent” instead of showing up as a person. Everything becomes “JUST LISTED”, “FOR SALE” and “CALL ME TODAY”. There is nothing wrong with property marketing, but people don’t only want to see properties. They want to know the person behind them. Your digital presence can become your digital CV.

eXp operates a cloud-based brokerage model with no physical offices. How has that translated to South Africa, and what does it offer agents in other African markets where the industry is still largely informal?

The cloud-based model has been particularly interesting for me because it changes the idea of what an estate agency can look like. You aren’t necessarily limited by a physical office or a traditional geographic structure. Your network, systems, training and relationships can travel with you.

For agents in markets where the industry is more informal, technology can potentially create more structure around things like education, collaboration, documentation, marketing and access to international networks. But I don’t think technology should be presented as a magic solution. Every African market has its own regulations, infrastructure, connectivity challenges and ways of doing business.

The opportunity is to use technology to strengthen what already works locally, rather than assuming that one model can simply be copied from one country into another.

You talk about using technology to make the industry more accessible and connected across borders. What would that look like in practice for a young agent in Johannesburg, Nairobi or Accra — and what’s standing in the way?

Imagine a young agent being able to build a professional digital presence, create property marketing, analyse available market information, communicate with international buyers and collaborate with agents in other countries without needing a huge marketing budget or a large corporate infrastructure behind them.

That’s where I think the real opportunity lies. Technology can reduce some of the barriers to entry. A young agent with a phone, internet access and the right knowledge can potentially compete on a much bigger stage.

The barriers are still very real: access to reliable data, connectivity, digital literacy, regulation, affordability and simply knowing which tools to use. That’s why education is just as important as the technology itself. Giving someone access to AI without teaching them how to question the output doesn’t solve the problem.

What’s the one thing you’d like a real estate professional in the room at ARCE to do differently after your session, and who should make a point of attending?

I’d like people to leave the session thinking differently about what they are capable of building themselves.

You don’t have to wait for a large company to give you the perfect system, marketing department or technology platform. Start experimenting. Take one repetitive task in your business and ask whether technology can make it better. Take one piece of knowledge you have and turn it into content that educates your market. Start building your digital presence before you think you “need” it.

The session is relevant to anyone working in real estate who wants to understand where the industry is going, but particularly young and emerging agents, team leaders, brokers, developers and anyone interested in how technology can connect African property markets. Ultimately, I don’t think the future of African real estate is about technology replacing people. It’s about giving people better tools to do what they already do well: build relationships, understand their markets and create opportunities.

At a glance: Princess Ncuthe and eXp Realty South Africa

About Princess Ncuthe

Princess Ncuthe is a real estate professional with eXp Realty South Africa and a leader within eXp Young Professionals in South Africa, where she also supports eXp International’s Young Professionals network. She entered the industry at 18, securing her first internship in Cape Town after more than 200 applications, and built her personal brand and client base by creating house-tour content on TikTok with nothing more than a smartphone. Her involvement in international content and initiatives within eXp has shaped her focus on how AI, automation and no-code tools let individual agents produce work that once required whole teams. She speaks on technology, personal branding and the future of real estate across Africa, and is a member of the ARCE 2026 speaker line-up in Accra.

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