REA Group has opened submissions for its 2026 Hackdays event, giving customers the chance to bring their own business problems to the company’s Melbourne headquarters and work alongside its product and technology teams to solve them.
Submissions close on 24 July and require short responses to a handful of questions.
Selected customers will attend Hackdays in person from 7 to 10 September, where they’ll be matched with a tailored team of software engineers, product managers, designers, data scientists, marketers and AI specialists to work on their specific challenge.
Hackdays has run for more than a decade internally at REA, and the company says the event has sparked new ideas, encouraged quick experimentation and shipped new value over that time.
This year marks an expansion to bring customers into the full process from ideation through to a working prototype.
REA Group executive general manager – sales, Gerard Connell, said the move builds on the company’s history of customer-led product development.
“Our customers have long informed and shaped our product development through advisory groups, panels and user testing. We’re excited to extend the opportunity for customers to join the full Hackdays experience end-to-end, bringing their big ideas to life through ideation, testing and a working prototype in a matter of days,” Gerard said.
Gerard said customers were often best placed to identify where the biggest business opportunities exist, and where better tools, processes or workflows could improve outcomes and growth.
Combined with REA’s product, technology, AI and innovation capabilities, he said there was an opportunity to progress those ideas towards real solutions across the four-day event.
For agents weighing up whether to put an idea forward, Gerard’s advice is to keep it grounded and specific.
“The best hacks are usually grounded in a real, specific business problem or a genuine opportunity. Partcipants don’t need technical knowledge, just a clear articulation of the challenge and why it matters. It could be an innovative idea you’ve never had the resources to test or a workflow that keeps holding your team back. We want to hear about it.”
The selection panel will be looking for ideas that are meaningful, specific and have the potential for broader business or industry impact.
Customers can submit their idea at customer.realestate.com.au/advantage-ai/hackdays.