For three decades realestate.com.au has connected Australians to their property dream, and importantly, to our customers who make these dreams a reality.
Looking back on 2025, it will be marked as a genuine inflection point for technology.
Advances in tech always ebb and flow, but this year we have seen the pace of change accelerate and it’s an incredibly exciting time for our industry.
We love to hear from the industry
Spending time with our customers is one of the best parts of my role. Bringing 1,500 of our customers from across the country together at Ready25 in Sydney in August was an absolute highlight, and I also enjoyed connecting with many of you at roadshows, office tours and many other customer events.
Our customers are central to our thinking as we reshape the property experience of the future.
Listening and seeking feedback on our roadmap and service delivery is pivotal to REA’s success and our focus is on helping you win more business and supporting you to transact faster.
We’re also delivering more data and insights to drive profitability and efficiency for your businesses. This year we evolved our service model to include more support staff and speciality teams.
The evolved model has resulted in more customers than ever before having a proactive relationship manager and we have significantly increased customer contact rates.
The more we hear from customers the better, and our Property Panel initiative helps streamline this feedback. It first launched five years ago and in 2025 we had more than 1,000 Property Panel members.
Thanks to their insights, we explored 60 different topics such as immersive technology to visualise listings better, AI tooling to help enable faster transactions, and our self-service platform, Ignite.
These insights help inform our approach to innovation investment, training, support and product enhancements as we head into 2026.
All customers are welcome to join the Property Panel at any time, information can be found on our Customer Marketing Centre.
More value, choice and flexibility
With those insights, we made it our mission in 2025 to deliver more value, choice and flexibility to our customers than ever before.
Backing up this choice and flexibility, we delivered a suite of exciting customer products, tools and services.
This included enhancements to our high-performance listing solution Luxe, new Audience Maximiser packages, rich data-driven prospecting tools such as Market Monitor, AI-led initiatives such as our predicted serious buyer metric, and smart summaries for leads and properties.
Engaging Australia’s buyers, sellers and renters
We know our customers value our leading audience over any other benefit with more than 13 million Australians now visiting realestate.com.au¹.
The scale of our audience is important, but it’s the deep engagement and trust of these buyers, sellers and renters that underpins the value we deliver.
Buyer demand on realestate.com.au reached record levels this spring and we delivered the highest number of monthly buyer enquiries to our customers in three and a half years.
Our personalised property owner experiences on realestate.com.au are also a growing source of customer value.
More than one in three properties are tracked by their owner on our platform, and this is a key driver of seller leads which have significantly increased in both volume and conversion rate.
In Rent, over 65% of agencies across the country are using Rent Apps within Ignite supporting a seamless process for tenants, landlords and property managers.
The property experience of the future is focused on deep engagement with immersive experiences and AI-led personalisation.
We’re excited for what’s to come as we extend our capability, deliver on changing consumer behaviours and expectations and partner with global tech businesses to accelerate innovation.
Partnering on what matters
As we move into the break to spend quality time with loved ones, the end of the year offers a time to reflect on where we’ve made a genuine difference.
In partnership with the industry, in 2025 we were so proud to launch The Home for All Foundation in support of those experiencing homelessness.
Guided by an Advisory Committee made up of a diverse group of leaders and chaired by LJ Hooker’s CEO Christine Mikhael, the Foundation channels the industry’s reach and influence to drive deeper awareness, raise impactful funds and build long-term change.
The inaugural fundraising campaign, A Night Without Home, exceeded its $1million fundraising target in October.
Alongside the Committee, I’m looking forward to sharing how these funds will be directed in early 2026 and what’s next for the Foundation.
Thank you to all who participated and supported the cause. We will continue to campaign for those experiencing homelessness as we need to help find everyone a place to call home.
Beyond the issue of homelessness, which connects us all, we know our customers are out there in their local communities doing incredible work every day.
We see the impact they have and we’re here to support that. REA’s community grants are an always on initiative and customers are welcome to apply for a $1,500 grant at any time.
The submission process is incredibly easy, and in 2025 we distributed 50 grants supporting community initiatives close to the heart of our customers.
AI-driven innovation
With our new CEO Cameron McIntyre on board, and as we look ahead to 2026, REA will not just be adapting to change, we will be leading it and partnering with customers to enable better experiences.
We have an exciting product pipeline, with a focus on unlocking the potential AI creates to reshape what’s possible now and into the future.
While REA’s use of AI has rapidly increased in recent years, we have been harnessing the power of machine learning for over a decade.
Through our AI-powered products, services, tools and experiences we’re not just changing the way the world experiences property, we are here to help our customers feel future-ready and to help propel your businesses forward.
The next phase of innovation will not just enhance the property experience, it will redefine it.
Our focus is simple – to work alongside our customers to harness evolving technology and to support faster transactions and growth with smarter insights, seamless workflows and deeper connections to buyers, sellers and renters.
Together we will embrace the unknown and the exciting opportunities new technology will bring.
¹ Ipsos iris Online Audience Measurement Service, Oct 2025, P14+, PC/laptop/smartphone/tablets, text only, Brand Group, Realestate.com.au, Audience (000’s).
