The PPW Podcast

Online Marketplaces Group
  • 4.5 (2)
  • Business
  • Updated Semiweekly

The Online Marketplaces team delve into the online real estate marketplace industry as well as the broader world of PropTech surrounding it. We bring you news, views and interviews from the industry as well as our own team's analysis of current events and trends.

  1. 6d ago

    News Roundup 14/08/26: Financials Season Continues

    Simon and Harvey catch up on some financial results around the world, with some adjacent conversations including traffic, hirings, amortization, LLM traffic, legislation changes, going public, and more... 0:00 Intros and PPW Europe update 3:00 Rightmove HY 2026 results 11:30 Scout24 H1 and Q2 2026 19:25 REA Group FY2026 results 31:00 Idealista FY2025 results 42:00 Square Yards Q1 2027

  2. Aug 7

    News Roundup, 07/08/26: Financials in the United States

    Harvey Hancock and Simon Baker break down the latest US portal results from Zillow and CoStar Group. 00:00 Intros 06:13 Zillow’s Q2 results and wider context 09:57 Zillow layoffs and the AI efficiency question 15:16 Realtor.com, Redfin, and the broader traffic trend 19:32 Turning tire kickers into qualified prospects 20:07 AI assistants as qualification and nurture tools 23:36 CoStar Group, Homes.com, and revenue mix 38:39 Depth advertising at Homes.com 43:11 Final conference reminder

  3. Jul 31

    What AI Search Means for Marketplaces, with Esteve Castells, Founder at LLM Pulse

    Ed Keith is joined by Esteve Castells — former Head of SEO at Adevinta and founder of AI search visibility platform LLM Pulse — to work through what generative search actually means for real estate marketplaces. Chapters:00:00 Intro01:53 From Adevinta's global SEO lead to founding LLM Pulse04:01 What running SEO across a portfolio that size was really like05:59 Evangelising SEO inside a business that didn't believe in it09:32 How LLM Pulse started, and what it does now11:55 Executives vs operators: who's actually taking AI search seriously13:10 Will portals lose the search phase to LLMs?16:58 The strategic case for — and against — building ChatGPT apps22:23 Real estate vs other verticals, and the unique inventory problem26:15 Domain authority is out. What replaces it?29:26 Why 96% of what an LLM sees about your niche is other brands33:54 Scraped listings, attribution, and whether to block AI crawlers37:38 Will ChatGPT pick a favoured marketplace in each country?41:54 Ed's theory: portals will lose the consideration phase45:00 What portals can actually do about disintermediation The evangelist's job never really endsEsteve joined Schibsted Marketplaces in January 2019 into an organisation with almost nobody working on SEO full time — a business that had grown on brand and TV without needing it. The hardest part of the job, he says, was never the SEO itself. It was getting resources and getting people to care. The eBay Classifieds Group acquisition brought a stronger SEO culture with it, and the team finally had a tailwind. He now sees the same cycle starting again with AI search, except this time nobody has the playbook. The disintermediation questionThe boardroom worst case is straightforward: ChatGPT serves every house on the market by going straight to the agency, and the aggregator in the middle disappears. Esteve points out that real estate is unusually exposed here because almost nobody has unique inventory — the same listing sits on the agency site, several portals and the meta-aggregators on top of them. Generalist goods marketplaces are far better protected, because they're the canonical source and they own payment and delivery. SEO and GEO are the same ingredients, a different dishEsteve's view is that SEO is the foundation for AI search, but the actions diverge. LLM Pulse data shows 96% of what an LLM sees when answering a query in your niche is about other brands, not yours — which pushes the work off your own site and onto third-party sources and PR. He also flags the brands that quietly went invisible because an IT decision blocked ChatGPT's crawler. The attribution problem, and who ChatGPT partners withCitation CTR is under 1%, so the marketplace that sourced an answer rarely gets credit for it. Esteve's research has found ChatGPT typically favours one media partner per country — Prisa in Spain — and the open question is whether that pattern extends beyond media. If it does, he argues it may favour the number two or three player rather than the incumbent, since the big marketplaces are the most hostile to partnering with OpenAI. Guest:Esteve Castells, Founder at LLM Pulse — LinkedIn Presented by:Edmund Keith — LinkedIn

  4. Jul 24

    News Roundup 24/07/26: Rightmove Retribution?, Aurum's Housing Challenge & Buyer-First Portals

    In this week's news roundup, Ed, Harvey and Simon dig into Rightmove's £1.6bn class action and the "retaliation" row, Aurum PropTech's bold plan to make housing.com profitable, and a provocative question: should portals switch sides and go buyer-first? Chapters: 00:00 Intro 00:57 Rightmove's £1.6bn Class Action & "Retaliation" Claims 12:42 Can Mature-Market Portals Keep Raising Prices? 18:00 Aurum PropTech Buys housing.com from REA India 27:24 Who Won the REA India Deal? 29:35 Ed's 18,000 Portal Claims Database 31:56 The Consideration Phase: Should Portals Go Buyer-First? 48:00 And Finally: PPW Europe, Madrid 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/

  5. Jul 17

    News Roundup: REA Exits India, CoStar's New CFO & The Battle for Consideration

    In this week's news roundup, Ed and Simon Baker unpack REA Group's exit from India, a big CFO move at CoStar, Dubizzle's push into rental protection, and why the real portal-vs-LLM fight is about consideration, not search.Chapters:00:00 Intro00:50 REA Group Sells Housing.com to Aurum PropTech20:19 CoStar Group's New CFO: Robin Rossman23:50 Dubizzle Group Invests in Takeem29:59 Portals vs LLMs: The Battle for ConsiderationREA Group Sells Housing.comREA India has signed a binding agreement to sell housing.com to Aurum PropTech for roughly A$68m — in Aurum shares, not cash — lifting REA's stake in Aurum from 5.5% to 24.9%. The expected loss on divestment is around A$110m, and India moves to a discontinued operation.Simon, a former REA Group CEO, argues the exit was always coming and puts it in the context of REA's long history of cross-border entries and exits. Ed digs into whether a traffic lead alone can ever pay in a market like India — housing.com hit 1.3x its nearest competitor, short of the 2x threshold former CEO Dhruv Agarwala said was needed for revenue to compound.CoStar Group's New CFORobin Rossman moves from MD of CoStar Group Europe to replace Chris Lown as CFO. Simon knows Rossman well and rates the mix of financial and operational experience — and doesn't rule out a long-term succession plan.Dubizzle Group Invests in TakeemDubizzle Group has taken a strategic stake in UAE rental protection platform Takeem, making Bayut and Dubizzle the exclusive portals for its rental guarantee product.Ed asks whether a portal should be carrying balance-sheet risk; Simon argues the pain points in emerging markets are simply different.Portals vs LLMs: The Battle for ConsiderationOff the back of Ed's article, the pair debate whether portals can build a genuinely neutral consideration engine when agents pay the bills — and Simon delivers a soundbite on whether portals can overcome the loyalty problem.Presented by:• Edmund Keith — https://www.linkedin.com/in/edmund-keith/• Simon Baker — https://www.linkedin.com/in/stbaker/

  6. Jul 10

    News Roundup, 10/07/26: Baltic Classifieds' Buyback, REA vs Domain & OMYHOME's $1 Delisting

    Ed, Harvey and Simon break down the week's biggest stories from the world of real estate portals: a Baltic classifieds giant borrowing to buy back its own shares, the escalating legal fight between REA Group and Domain over their marketing claims, and OMYHOME's unusual delisting back to its own founders for a single dollar. Plus, is the market overestimating AI's short-term threat to portals?In this episode:• Baltic Classifieds Group borrows ~€118m to buy back its undervalued shares (on 78% margins)• REA Group and Domain trade lawsuits over the "nine in ten" and Matterport marketing claims• Simon's confession about a certain "four times more views" claim from 2002• OMYHOME sold to its founders for $1, wiping ~$20m of debt• Enterprise vs consumer AI adoption, and why portals' AI-referral traffic is still under 1%Chapters:00:00 Welcome00:24 Baltic Classifieds Group: borrowing to buy back shares08:30 REA Group vs Domain: the marketing claims lawsuits20:55 Simon's "very expensive selfie" confession23:50 OMYHOME sold to its own founders for $127:55 Enterprise vs consumer AI adoption in real estate41:51 PPW Europe 2026 — Madrid, 28–30 OctoberHosted 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/

  7. Jul 3

    News Roundup 03/07/26: CoStar Group, Square Yards, Zillow + Google, Consideration Phase

    Ed, Harvey and Simon get together for an overdue rundown of the latest news in portals and proptech.0:00 Intros0:39 CoStar board member renewals and activist investors.15:00 CoStar Investment in Wikicasa18:27 Square Yards Fundraise27:10 Zillow + Google Gemini, and the Consideration Phase

  8. Jun 16

    Evolving Zumper from Lead Delivery to Leasing Outcomes, with Shawn Mullahy, CEO at Zumper

    Shawn Mullahy, newly appointed CEO at Zumper, joins Harvey for a conversation about taking over from Founder, Anthemos Georgiades, and moving towards a new business and revenue model that fills houses faster. 00:00 Intros and Zumper changes 04:35 Zumper's strategic shift under new leadership 10:08 AI Integration and Future Business Model 17:02 Challenges in Lead Attribution and Customer Engagement 22:01 Investor Perspectives on AI Innovation 30:13 Transition from CRO to CEO and Team Dynamics 36:00 Future Trends in Rental Markets and Closing Thoughts

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Ratings & Reviews

4.5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

The Online Marketplaces team delve into the online real estate marketplace industry as well as the broader world of PropTech surrounding it. We bring you news, views and interviews from the industry as well as our own team's analysis of current events and trends.

Information

  • Creator
    Online Marketplaces Group
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    144
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Online Marketplaces Group
  • Show Website
    The PPW Podcast

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