Proptech Colab

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Proptech Colab

PropTech Colab brings together Australia and New Zealand’s property technology community to connect, collaborate and grow.

Through research, dialogue and shared insight, we’re building a stronger, smarter proptech ecosystem.

10/09/2026

What actually breaks when proptech meets a property business's data?

Not the algorithms. In the Proptech Pulse 2026, 49% of ANZ proptech leaders named missing or incomplete data the biggest data challenge they meet across customers - well clear of legacy systems limiting access (28%) and inconsistent data formats (17%). Cost and licensing for third-party data (14%) and customers lacking the time to clean their data (13%) round out the list (n = 146).

It is a useful reality check in an AI-saturated year. A model is only as good as the data flowing into it, and the sector's own diagnosis is that the data is often simply not there - not badly formatted, not locked away. Missing. Little wonder 76% say common industry data standards would make adoption easier across Australia and New Zealand.

Builders and operators: what is the one field, record or data set you wish arrived complete from every customer?

09/09/2026

When a property business says "it's too expensive", is that actually why the deal stalls?

In the Proptech Pulse 2026, budget constraints were named a top adoption blocker by 25% of ANZ proptech leaders, unclear ROI by 18%, and tool fatigue - customers already juggling too many systems - by 14%. All real. And every one of them trails the human blocker at the top of the list: getting an organisation to change how it works.

The report calls adoption "two problems braided together" - proving the change is worth funding, and proving it will actually land. Which suggests the price conversation is often an evidence conversation in disguise. A discount doesn't fix a rollout nobody believes in, and another login doesn't help a team already drowning in tools.

If you sell tech into agencies and property businesses: what's the objection you hear most - and how often is it the real one?

Proptech Pulse 2026 · n = 146

08/09/2026

What actually convinces a property business to adopt new tech?

Not the feature list. In the Proptech Pulse 2026, 55% of ANZ proptech leaders said a pilot or trial that demonstrates value is the single biggest confidence-builder for adoption - the top answer across 146 respondents.

It makes sense when you think about how agencies buy. The risk is rarely that the software does not work - it is that the team will not change how they operate to use it. A well-run pilot answers exactly that question, in the customer's own workflow, with their own data.

So here is the question for anyone building or selling proptech: is your pilot a scoped proof with a finish line, or a free trial with hope attached?

07/09/2026

70% of ANZ proptech leaders know governments are moving toward residential energy-performance ratings at the point of sale or rent. Just 3% have built support for energy-efficiency data into their product (Proptech Pulse 2026, n = 146).

That is the widest awareness-action gap in the whole report. And unlike AML/CTF, there is no compliance deadline to wait for here - the demand is market-led, driven by cost of living, electrification, and what buyers and renters increasingly expect to see about a property's running cost and comfort. Regulation is following the market, not creating it.

Which means the usual posture - watch the policy, build when the rule lands - risks missing the shift until it surfaces as a last-minute scramble.

Builders and operators: is energy data anywhere on your roadmap, or is it still in the watching pile?

06/09/2026

Here is a stat that says a lot about how this sector sees itself: 27% of ANZ proptech leaders picked greater collaboration between proptech companies as one of the actions that would most accelerate adoption - just behind stronger integration marketplaces at 32% (Proptech Pulse 2026, n = 146).

In other words, more than a quarter of the industry believes the fastest way forward is working with the companies they are supposedly competing against. Not more features, not more funding - partnerships.

So as the new week starts: who in the ANZ proptech ecosystem should you be talking to this week? The integration you keep putting off, the adjacent product your customers already use, the peer building the other half of your workflow?

Name them below - or better, message them on Monday.

05/09/2026

Where do customers actually want automation? Not where the hype says.

The top answers in the Proptech Pulse 2026: workflow routing and reminders (36%), reporting and insights (35%) and compliance checks that flag items for review (29%). Data entry and validation sits close behind at 25% (n = 146).

It is a strikingly unglamorous list - and that is the point. The demand is for relief from repetitive work and assurance nothing gets missed, not for software that makes the decisions on its own.

Builders and operators: which repetitive job in your week would you hand to automation first?

04/09/2026

Ten agencies are spending four days inside REA Group's Melbourne HQ this month, prototyping their own ideas alongside REA's technical teams at Hackdays. It's the first time in the event's 16 years that customers have been in the room (via Elite Agent).

The line-up is the best part: Ray White Mildura next to Stockland, My Bay Realty next to LJ Ho**er United Group. And the selected ideas are pure shop floor - automated rental enquiry handling, AI-generated commercial documents, data-backed vendor pricing tools.

As Ray White Mildura's Damian Portaro put it: "For an idea developed here in Mildura to be recognised by REA Group and progressed through Hackdays is genuinely exciting."

Why it matters beyond the feel-good: the Proptech Pulse 2026 found change management is the top adoption blocker in ANZ proptech, cited by 42% of leaders (n = 146). Tools built with the practitioners who'll use them tend to skip a lot of that friction - the change management happens in the building, not after the rollout.

Question for builders and agencies alike: if you had four days with a major platform's engineering team, what would you build first?

03/09/2026

Here's a stat pairing worth a coffee break: 38% of Gen Z and 34% of Millennials now use AI to inform their financial decisions - but 69% of Australians still rate guidance from brokers, advisers and banks as more valuable than anything AI tells them (Great Southern Bank's No Place Like Home research, back in the spotlight this week via Elite Agent).

And when it comes to the final call? 56% want a financial adviser. Just 10% would turn to AI.

So the buyer walking into a spring open home has likely already asked AI the first ten questions - about borrowing power, suburbs, strategy. What they haven't done is handed it the decision. The research moved to the machine; the trust stayed with people.

Proptech leaders called this one early. In the Proptech Pulse 2026, 65% rated human oversight of automated workflows a 4 or 5 out of 5 - and not one respondent said oversight doesn't matter (n = 146). Builders and buyers agree: AI to speed things up, a human to sign things off.

Question for the practitioners: are the clients arriving at your door this spring noticeably better researched than a year ago - and has AI made your advice more valuable or less?

02/09/2026

Two months into Australia's tranche-two AML/CTF regime, here's the number worth revisiting: before the 1 July deadline even hit, 43% of ANZ proptech leaders were already actively building for the demand - versus 24% who chose to monitor and wait (Proptech Pulse 2026, n = 111). Movers outnumbered waiters nearly two to one.

And what were the movers actually shipping? Nothing exotic. The capabilities obligated customers most often ask for are identity checks for individuals, capturing and storing verification evidence, and integrations with specialist providers. The report calls them the unglamorous fundamentals - the practical building blocks of a compliance workflow.

Here's the adoption angle that's easy to miss: 71% of respondents already serve customers who are, or soon will be, obligated (n = 146). Everywhere else in the data, adoption stalls because organisations resist change. A statutory deadline is the rare force that does that change-management work for you - the customer's risk committee has to move whether they feel like it or not.

The report's warning for the wait-and-see group was that demand might arrive faster than their build cycle. Post-deadline, it's no longer arriving - it's here.

Builders: if you serve obligated customers, what was the first AML/CTF capability they asked you for - and did it match what you expected?

01/09/2026

Here's a number that changes how you should think about what a proptech company actually is: 73% of ANZ proptechs must connect to a customer's existing systems often or almost always to deliver their core value (Proptech Pulse 2026, n = 146).

The split: 45% say almost always, another 28% say often. Only a small minority operate as standalone tools.

The report puts it bluntly: "Most proptech companies are integration businesses whether or not they describe themselves that way. Connection, not creation, is where value now leaks."

In other words - most products in this sector don't deliver value until they've plugged into a CRM, a portal, trust accounting or a property management system that someone else controls. The product logic can be perfect; if the connection isn't there, the value isn't either.

For the builders reading: how many integrations did it take before your product could deliver its core value - and which one was the hardest to land?

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