Last week, I had the privilege of speaking at the 2023 edition of the Property Portal Watch conference in Madrid. It's always fascinating to witness the convergence of industry giants and up-and-coming startups in one room.

The insights shared both on and off the stage can give you a glimpse into the hottest trends and burning questions that occupy everyone's minds. Here are my takeaways:

1-Convenience is the key to innovating

At such events, one of the most pressing questions is always: How are our peers innovating? In the past, the property portal industry has seen bold initiatives like iBuying, AVM services diversification, and a full-fledged dive into mortgages, all aimed at getting closer to the transaction. 

However, at this year's conference, a different trend emerged, one that screams going back to the basics and doubling down on convenience.

All major portals at the event stressed the importance of creating a one-stop destination for property seekers and eliminating friction with a personalized, optimized, and qualified user experience. 

A recurring theme was the need to earn the complete trust of seekers, which, in my view, will be the key to business innovation. This trust opens up opportunities to connect with highly qualified contacts for agents while getting deeper insights into consumer behavior for the portal.

One particular example that stood out was Scout 24 in Germany and its Mieter+ product, which streamlines the process by pre-qualifying renters and removing obstacles from their process.

A couple of years into it the numbers clearly show that convenience-oriented products have the potential for monetization. Yet, convenience isn't just a tool for new business growth; it's also vital for maintaining and expanding consumer preferences.

And in this matter, I thought that the example presented by Zoopla was intriguing. What they did was implement a travel-time search as a response to new consumer behavior that they identified, where moving became a necessity due to the increasing cost of living.

2-Everyone talks about AI, but the jury is still out on whether it will change search  behavior 

Can you have a conference nowadays without talking about AI? Obviously not

And everyone at property portal watch was abuzz with discussions about AI, particularly natural language search. This topic was a prominent thread running through many of the presentations as it has the potential to disrupt the core behavior of online searching, including property portals.

However, whether natural language search is the ultimate solution to the problem of providing a more tailored and convenient experience, remains to be proven.
The discussions were divided: some believed that natural language search would irreversibly alter how people search, while others placed their trust in metadata, confident that it could deliver a guided and personalized user experience. Regardless of which side you take, the consensus was clear: providing more assistance and guidance is the way forward.

3-Growth= tech + acquisition

Growth in the property portal industry seems to be a formula combining technology and strategic acquisitions. At least for the big groups.

The industry leaders at the conference emphasized their commitment to tech innovation and weren't shy about stating that acquiring specialized companies is the key to their growth. They're pursuing a white-label and micro-service strategy alongside scaling through consolidation and acquisitions.

On the tech side, there's a strong emphasis on creating a common, plug-and-play platform that can scale across various businesses. For major groups like AVIV, CoStar, and Dubizzle, which manage multiple property portals, this strategy is crystal clear: leverage technology by investing in services that can benefit all their brands. While it makes sense, executing this strategy comes with challenges, as many discussed their tech debt and the upfront investments required.

On the flip side of the technology equation, we see growth through acquisitions, whether by adding new portals to the portfolio or acquiring specialized companies to enhance the user experience (mortgages being one such example).

A testament to this strategy is the statement from CoStar Group's CEO, who emphasized that the business model takes a back seat when they acquire companies. The primary focus is on meeting customer needs in that specific region, with the rest being a plug-and-play operation ready for scaling. While I am not sure I fully agree with this perspective, it indeed offers an intriguing approach to growth.

4-Sharing is caring, yet many are afraid of being transparent

My final observation connects to what wasn't shared on stage, rather than what was. 

Sharing is caring, yet many seemed reluctant to be transparent. In my presentation, I chose to dig into how Hemnet achieved growth through strategic product and business development. I openly shared our product strategies and the lessons we've learned along the way. This more concrete angle sparked engaging discussions with the audience, who were eager for concrete methods to drive company growth beyond the shiny surface of success.

I believe that some hesitate to dive deep into such details because of the presence of competitors in the room. However, I firmly believe that this shouldn't be a roadblock. 

Often, what truly sets a company apart is their execution, and factors like audience dominance, a robust product development organization, and industry relationships. These for us are unique differentiators that can't be easily replicated, no matter the insights you get into our business.

The magic lies in execution, and I hope to see more people daring to share their insights in the future.