Recorded live on stage at Property Portal Watch Madrid 2026, Edmund Keith, Harvey Hancock and Simon Baker take stock of two and a half days of talks in front of more than 460 delegates from around 50 countries.

Chapters:
00:00 Intro: live from the PPW Madrid 2026 stage
01:20 Key takeaways: AI starts delivering real results
03:56 Is the industry worried enough?
05:23 Are we talking enough about business models?
09:21 Favourite presentations
12:31 Has AI raised the standard of presentations?
14:59 Pitch club winner
15:53 Thanks to the sponsors and PPW Bangkok 2027

AI is starting to show real results
With AI now through full product cycles, the conversation has moved on from language features to internal efficiency, user behaviour and perception models. The team also look at how fast new products now ship, from an app built during the conference to IMMOunited launching a full marketplace in Austria in under six months.

Is the industry worried enough?
Fear feels lower than at the last two conferences, but the panel argues the real risk is not one seismic shift. It is death by a thousand cuts, with agentic search chipping away at the core business.

Business models over technology
Consumer monetisation, pay-per-use buyer's agent AI, the end of above-inflation price rises flagged by Jefferies analyst Giles Thorne, the move towards end-to-end transaction platforms, and why mortgage businesses that buy portals tend to do better than portals that move into mortgages.

Favourite talks
Shout-outs for Sarah Wood of realestate.co.nz on brand, marketing and culture, Tilen Pigac's opening poem, Malcolm Myers' scene-setting keynote and Lukas Rose of ProperBird. Plus a theory: has AI raised the standard of conference presentations?

Pitch club and what's next
The team congratulate pitch club winner Rumi, thank the sponsors and announce PPW Bangkok on 2 to 4 March 2027 at the Carlton Hotel.

Presented by:
• Edmund Keith: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edmund-keith/
• Harvey Hancock: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harvey-hancock/
• Simon Baker: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stbaker/

In our last news roundup before PPW Madrid, Hemnet's shares jump despite falling numbers, Compass sues California's biggest MLS, Zillow launches inside Claude, HouseCanary adds a brokerage to Google's listings program while in Chapter 11, and Jitty tests paid reports for home buyers.

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:20 Hemnet Q3: Numbers Down, Shares Up
03:09 The Inside Game And The Outside Game
07:48 Compass Sues CRMLS
10:42 MLS vs Broker: Who Controls The Listings?
13:36 Zillow Launches A Claude Integration
14:51 Ed Tests Zillow In Claude
17:41 Simon's Live Test
23:40 Can A Portal Be A Trusted Companion?
28:08 PPW Madrid 2026
29:37 HouseCanary, Google Listings And Side
32:41 Who Is Paying Who?
36:10 Is HouseCanary A Threat To Portals?
38:10 Jitty Tests Paid Home Buyer Reports
43:10 Will Buyers Pay For Property Reports?
47:37 Wrap

Hemnet Q3: Numbers Down, Shares Up
Hemnet's last results before its switch to a sell now, pay later model show paid listings down 30%, published listings down 13% and operating profit down around 30% year on year. Yet it beat consensus on its profit measures and the share price jumped around 10%. Simon explains the two games every listed portal plays: the internal game of operations and metrics, and the external game of managing market expectations.

Compass Sues CRMLS
Compass is suing CRMLS, the second largest MLS in the US, over rules that fine agents up to $2,500 per violation for marketing a home publicly outside the MLS, even when the seller instructed it. Compass says it will pay any fines its agents receive. Simon boils it down: this is an arm wrestle over who controls the listings, and so who holds the power.

Zillow Comes To Claude
Zillow's new Claude integration brings listings, maps, home value estimates and affordability tools into the conversation, using Zillow's own MLS-approved listing display. Ed reran the difficult queries from his January test of portal integrations in ChatGPT and found this one adds real value, admitting what Zillow's filters can't do and flagging likely busts. Simon tests it live, finds the connection step clunky, and argues that AI will be a companion in the home search, not a replacement for it, with trust as the portal's biggest asset.

HouseCanary And Google Listings
A year after Google started showing real estate listings in search via HouseCanary, the brokerage Side has joined the program, adding listings from its 600 partners in 19 states. HouseCanary is meanwhile operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Simon thinks it is playing an arbitrage game between listing sources and Google, and doubts the model is defensible.

Jitty Tests Paid Reports
AI portal Jitty is piloting £5.99 home buyer reports covering comparable sales, property condition from photo and floor plan analysis, planning history and likely extra costs. Simon explains why, in his experience, consumers rarely pay for property reports in volume, and why one-off sales make the consumer hard to monetise.

The PPW Conference is in Madrid from 28 to 30 October. Get your tickets at ppweurope.com.

Presented by:
• Edmund Keith: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edmund-keith/
• Harvey Hancock: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harvey-hancock/
• Simon Baker: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stbaker/

In this week's news roundup, we dig into Hemnet's 16.8x price rise over a decade and what it has cost the Swedish portal, ask whether vendor-paid advertising is really the advantage portals think it is, and look at why a Sydney hedge fund is shorting REA Group.

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:31 Hemnet's Tough Year
03:23 Boiling The Frog: Hemnet's 16.8x Price Rise
05:04 Booli Overtakes Hemnet On Similarweb
11:29 How Hemnet Wins Back Hearts And Minds
14:21 Is Vendor-Paid Advertising Really An Advantage?
21:23 "If You're Strong, You Have To Be Nice"
24:40 Finding The Real Buyers
27:42 When Scout24 Doubled Its Prices Overnight
31:12 Hedge Fund Shorts REA Group
36:30 Should REA Hold Back On Price Rises In A Downturn?
42:00 PPW Madrid 2026

Boiling The Frog: Hemnet's Price Rises
Hemnet's share price is down around 70% in a year, with a paused buyback, four directors leaving, an overhaul of its revenue model and redundancies. Ed's analysis on onlinemarketplaces.com finds Hemnet raised its price per listing 16.8x between 2015 and 2025, far ahead of Rightmove's price per advertiser and of house prices in Sweden or the UK. Meanwhile bank-owned aggregator Booli now beats Hemnet on Similarweb, with the caveat that Similarweb does not count app traffic, which makes up 70 to 75% of Hemnet's visits. Simon explains why every intermediary in a property deal is sharing the same pie, and what Hemnet needs to do to win back agents' hearts and minds.

Is Vendor-Paid Advertising Really An Advantage?
Ed tests a theory: agents grumble but absorb price rises because they need the leading portal to win instructions, while sellers have a breaking point. Simon explains how, once vendor-paid fees become a meaningful number, rival agents can pitch "list with me and save $10,000" by skipping the big portals, as some Australian agencies already do. Harvey asks how a listed portal balances shareholder demands with keeping agents on side, and Simon tells the story of Scout24 doubling its prices overnight around 2007, losing a quarter of its customers and winning them back over three months.

Hedge Fund Shorts REA Group
The Australian Financial Review reports that Sydney-based Bristlemoon Capital is shorting REA Group, betting the portal has underestimated the impact of a slowing Australian housing market. Simon explains why per-listing upgrade revenue leaves portals exposed to listing volumes and time on market, and what the downturn conversation in the REA boardroom looks like.

The PPW Conference is in Madrid from 28 to 30 October, with Startup Day on 27 October. Get your tickets at ppweurope.com.

Presented by:
• Edmund Keith: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edmund-keith/
• Harvey Hancock: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harvey-hancock/
• Simon Baker: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stbaker/