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. 2d ago

    News Roundup 09/10/26: AI-first Portals, M&A Updates and Product Talk

    In this week's news roundup, three AI-first portals launch in the UK and Australia, 360Latam and SeLoger both buy niche players, and we ask whether the industry talks too much about product. Chapters: 00:00 Intro 02:03 The Rise Of AI-First Portals 04:31 How Do You Market An AI Portal To Wary Consumers? 11:50 What Do The New Challenger Portals Really Want? 18:13 360Latam Acquires Casas y Más 19:59 SeLoger Acquires Ouest-France Immo 21:04 Why Big Portals Are Buying Niche Players 24:06 PPW Madrid 2026 & Startup Day 28:26 Do Portals Talk Too Much About Product? 35:26 Do We Actually Use Real Estate Portals? 39:26 Speed To Market For Renters 42:01 Wrap The Rise Of AI-First Portals Three AI-first portals have launched in the past month. In the UK there's Mal McCallion's MyPorta, which says it has more properties than Rightmove and is free to list forever. In Australia there's SohoAI, which is free to list and has virtual staging, a chat interface, mortgage calculations and market charts built in. There's also a new buyer-focused AI platform for commercial property. With public feeling towards AI turning cautious, Harvey asks how you market a portal built on the technology consumers are wary of. Simon asks what the business model is and what problem is being solved. He thinks incumbents will cherry-pick the best AI features, and explains why buying a home is an emotional search rather than a transactional one. Challenger Portals: Shrinking Moats Or Lower Barriers? SohoAI founder Jonathan Lui says AI has already shrunk the moats around the biggest portals. Ed disagrees: the moat is brand and traffic, and what AI has shrunk is the barrier to entry. Simon goes through the three moats (listings, brand and audience, billing relationships) and explains why only the listings moat has really weakened. M&A: 360Latam And SeLoger Go Niche 360Latam, owner of InfoCasas, has acquired Uruguayan platform Casas y Más, which built a strong audience on social media alongside its portal. In France, SeLoger has bought Ouest-France Immo, the regional market leader in western France, with 1.3 million monthly unique visitors and 3.5 million leads a year. Simon explains why portals are really a series of local games, and why small add-on acquisitions are cheap right now. Do We Talk Too Much About Product? Ed tests a theory from his PPW Madrid presentation: of all the levers a portal can pull, the industry over-indexes on product, even though no challenger has ever overtaken an incumbent on product alone. Simon and Harvey explain why product dominates the conversation. Then the team admits how often they actually use portals themselves, and why, in a tight rental market like Madrid, speed to market matters more than bells and whistles. The PPW Conference is in Madrid from 28 to 30 October, with Startup Day on 27 October. Get your tickets at ppweurope.com. 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/

  2. Oct 2

    News Roundup 02/10/26: Zillow In Court, REA Backs Distilled, Hemnet's Free Tier & Rightmove Activist

    In this week's news roundup, Ed, Harvey and Simon cover four big stories from four big companies: Zillow's latest legal setback, REA Group's return to Europe, Hemnet's free-to-list pivot and an activist investor at Rightmove. This episode is brought to you by Fusion 4 Ventures. Zillow loses its dismissal bid A judge has rejected Zillow's motion to dismiss the Dupuis class action, brought on behalf of agents in its Preferred and Flex programmes, so the case now moves into discovery. The suit alleges Zillow pressured agents to sell Zillow Home Loans products at the risk of being dropped from its programmes. REA Group buys into Distilled REA Group has agreed to take a 35% stake in Distilled, owner of Daft.ie and PropertyPal. Simon explains why a minority stake in a vendor-paid advertising market makes sense, and what it could mean for Hemnet. Plus: Daft's Marcus Hartwall moves to Hemnet as chief commercial officer. Hemnet goes free to list With challenger Booli showing far more listings, Hemnet is introducing free-to-list tiers and aggregating listings from agency websites to reach full market coverage. The team discuss Hemnet's average revenue per listing and Similarweb data showing Booli now ahead on traffic. An activist at Rightmove US activist investor Sachem Head has taken a 6% stake in Rightmove, whose shares have fallen around 40% in the last year. PPW Europe 2026 is less than a month away. Get your tickets: www.ppweurope.com Presented by: • Edmund Keith: LinkedIn • Harvey Hancock: LinkedIn • Simon Baker: LinkedIn

  3. Sep 29

    Are Portals Becoming Someone Else’s Lunch?, with Malcolm Myers

    Harvey Hancock hosts Simon Baker and Malcolm Myers for a wide-ranging conversation about portals, AI, agents, M&A and brokerage, ahead of Malcolm's keynote presentation at the upcoming PPW Conference in Madrid. 0:00 Intros and PPW teasers 02:25 the four challenges facing property portals 03:50 business models problems vs perception problems 13:09 Relevance as the lifeblood 16:55 Brokerage and Rollups 26:47 Consolidation in Europe? 31:47 where should portal budgets go next? 34:58 lead quality and operational efficiency 36:07 Malcolm’s case for AI enablement and automated back offices 44:53 unique listings and content as differentiators 49:30 Closing remarks

  4. Sep 25

    News Roundup 25/09/26: Idealista Signs Orpi In France, Compass See It First & Portal Shake-Up

    In this week's news roundup, Idealista lands its first big agency partner in France, Compass puts serious marketing money behind its exclusive listings, and a wave of leadership changes sweeps through the portal world. Chapters: 00:00 Intro 04:09 Idealista Signs Orpi In France 15:43 Compass Launches See It First 27:27 Portal Leadership Shake-Up 37:13 Do Portal Leaders Need Portal Experience? Idealista Signs Orpi In France Barely a month after hiring a former Leboncoin executive to run France, Idealista has signed its first major partnership there with Orpi, a cooperative of 1,250 agencies. Simon Baker explains how Idealista built its position in Portugal and Italy, how long it could take to start charging French agents, and why smaller, lower funded players should be the most worried. Compass Launches See It First Compass has rebuilt its website and launched See It First, a brand for listings marketed only on Compass, backed by millions of dollars of consumer advertising. The team looks at the thin margins behind Compass's $11bn in revenue, why unique listings are the only real moat, and who should be worried: smaller brokerages first, then Zillow, Homes.com and Realtor.com. Portal Leadership Shake-Up A new president at Homes.com, a new head of real estate at Swiss Marketplace Group, a new MD at ImmoScout24, Rich Hayes leaving Zoopla, board changes at Rightmove and a new CEO at Boligportal, all in about ten days. Is it panic, fatigue or coincidence? Plus why the Homes.com search took two years, and whether you need to have run a portal to run one. 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. Sep 22

    The Portal That Takes the Buyer's Side, With Maxim Bours, Co-Founder & CEO of Huispedia

    Maxim Bours co-founded Huispedia in 2018, after he and co-founder Ramon, both then working in IT at KLM, each tried to buy a house and found a Dutch market where listings were well served but decision-making was not. Eight years on, the company calls itself a data intelligence platform rather than a portal. It carries agents' listings for free, takes no advertising money from agents, and charges consumers a subscription instead. That model is why it can do something almost no listings site does. Huispedia sits on the buyer's side. It tells people when an asking price has been set deliberately low as a bidding tactic, and its coach will advise you not to view a house, or not to bid at all. Ed has been arguing for months that portals need to move towards the buyer. Huispedia is already there, and this conversation is about what that costs and what it makes possible. Simon Baker works through the mechanics: where the listings come from, how an automated valuation model builds a flywheel the way Zillow and Zoopla once did, what churn looks like when a buyer becomes an owner, and why a portal whose revenue depends on selling leads to agents cannot follow Huispedia without biting the hand that feeds it. Chapters:00:00 Intro01:43 Founding Huispedia in 201803:32 What makes the Dutch housing market an outlier05:54 Free listings, subscriptions and why Huispedia isn't a portal07:59 Inside Huispedia Plus and the personal coach12:01 Where the listings come from, and the valuation flywheel18:27 Renovation scenarios and the data they unlock21:34 What Huispedia does with the data it collects25:18 Freemium conversion and hitting the paywall27:15 Churn when a buyer becomes an owner31:49 Why aren't Dutch agents complaining?36:24 Should portals become independent buyer advisers?39:47 Why lead-generation portals can't follow43:44 Lessons from eight years on the buyer's side

  6. Sep 18

    News Roundup 18/09/26: REA Vs ACCC, Zillow Vs MRED, Hemnet's Buyback & Schibsted Vs Schibsted

    In this week's news roundup, regulators and courts take centre stage: REA Group settles with the ACCC, a Chicago judge hands MRED and Compass a win over Zillow, Hemnet's activist investors reshape the board and pause the buyback, and Schibsted appears to be lining up to take on its own former marketplaces business in Norway. Chapters: 00:00 Intro 01:34 REA Group Signs ACCC Undertaking Over Listing Clauses 13:38 Are Regulators Cracking Down On Portal Pricing? 17:39 Zillow Loses Injunction Bid Against MRED & Compass 23:35 Who Portals Really Serve: Buyers & Sellers 29:54 Hemnet Pauses Buyback After Board Shake-up 33:20 Why Hemnet's New Board Went Local 38:03 Can Hemnet's Share Price Recover? 40:20 Schibsted Media, Polaris & Amedia Team Up To Take On Finn 48:00 Vend At PPW Madrid & Wrap REA Group Vs ACCC On 14 September Australia's competition regulator accepted a court enforceable undertaking from REA Group over contract terms that, between 2013 and 2025, required or rewarded agencies for listing all or most of their properties on realestate.com.au. From 1 January 2027 agencies can move at least 25% of eligible listings to cheaper tiers, and the undertaking runs for three years. REA stressed there was no finding of wrongdoing. Simon explains why agents such as BresicWhitney want to hold listings back for their own sites, why this is marketing fuel for CoStar-owned Domain, and why rising portal costs against falling sales volumes mean regulators from Switzerland to Sweden and Spain are taking a closer look. Zillow Vs MRED A US judge has refused Zillow a preliminary injunction in its Sherman Act case against Chicago MLS MRED and Compass, and ended the temporary order that restored Zillow's listings feed. In the court's words, transparency is not, standing alone, a goal of the antitrust laws, and opacity is not an anticompetitive effect. Harvey read all 54 pages so you don't have to (selected quotes are on onlinemarketplaces.com), and Simon takes it back to basics: the buyer and the seller are the only essential parties, and a portal that loses listings loses relevance. Hemnet Vs Buyback An extraordinary general meeting called by Vor Capital and Sprints Capital replaced most of Hemnet's board, with former REA and Rightmove executives making way for directors with deep Swedish market experience. The share buyback has been paused, with around SEK 189m already spent, as Hemnet enters what it calls a transformative phase. Simon, who has sat on boards on both sides of that debate, explains why local knowledge wins, why an 80% share price fall will take many quarters to recover from, and why "transformative" probably means an acquisition. Schibsted Vs Schibsted?! Schibsted Media, Polaris and Amedia have formed an equal three-way joint venture that looks set to take on Vend's Finn in Norwegian classifieds. Simon on why starting from zero against a dominant number one is so hard, the three-headed dog problem of media joint ventures, and why Vend should keep an eye on it without letting it become an anchor. The PPW Conference is in Madrid from 28 to 30 October. Get your tickets at ppweurope.com. 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/

  7. Sep 15

    Exploring an AI-first Vacation Rentals Marketplace, with Christian Schwarz Lausten, CEO at Landfolk

    Simon Baker and Harvey Hancock are joined by Christian Schwarz Lausten, founder and CEO at Landfolk, for a peek behind the curtain of an increasingly AI-first vacation rentals marketplace that has expanded from its native Nordics into Europe, including a proprietary AI intelligence layer called PAX... 00:00 intros 00:54 What is Landfolk? 07:25 Context, Business model and monetisation 13:31 Awareness, engagement, and bookings for the properties? 20:20 AI at Landfolk, and introducing PAX 24:42 AI goosebumps and AI Trustability 34:18 Christian's question for Simon

  8. Sep 11

    News Roundup 11/09/26: Zoopla Opens The Books, The Narrative Lever & Claims Nobody Checks

    In this week's news roundup, Zoopla breaks cover with a full set of FY2025 numbers, and that sets up a longer argument about the cheapest growth lever in the portal business: the story you tell about yourself. Chapters:00:00 Intro00:48 Zoopla Publishes Its FY2025 Financials11:56 Will Silver Lake Sell Zoopla, And To Whom?14:32 The Perception & Narrative Lever18:26 When Number Two Actually Overtakes Number One23:24 Inside The Claims Ledger: 19,300 Portal Claims32:11 Simon On Making Claims As A Portal CEO39:25 PPW Madrid Preview Zoopla Opens The BooksZoopla is no longer a public company and does not have to tell anyone anything, but it sent the market a press release anyway. Revenue of £83.2m for FY2025, down 1% year on year. Profit of £20.7m at a 16% margin. Homeowners tracking a property on the site up 39% to more than six million, and Prospect Plus seller leads converting to listings at 43%. What it did not disclose was agent or customer numbers, which is what the UK trade press led on. Simon reads a decade of roughly flat revenue as the honest picture of life as number two to Rightmove, and reckons the release is Silver Lake, eight years and around £2bn in, telling the market it is profitable and open to offers. His guess on the buyer: another PE firm rather than CoStar, Idealista or REA Group. The Narrative Growth LeverPaul Whitehead's comments to Harvey about customer perception set up the bigger question. Of the levers a portal CEO can actually pull, listings are hardest to move, traffic and product cost real money, and product has never once decided market leadership. Simon half agrees, and offers the two cases where number one genuinely fell: Casa losing Italy to Immobiliare, and Realtor.com losing the US to Zillow's Zestimate. Both needed the leader to slip at the same moment the challenger did something unusual. Claims Nobody Is CheckingWith 19,300 portal claims now in the OMP claims ledger, the question becomes who makes claims and why. Simon splits it four ways, leaders against attackers and listed against unlisted, and explains why he refused to make forward financial claims as a CEO, how survey-backed marketing claims really get made, and what to make of REA Group's disputed nine out of ten line. PPW Madrid PreviewThe conference runs 28 to 30 October. Around 300 of 500 places are already gone, Malcolm Myers and Mike DelPrete are on the strategic track, and more headline portal speakers are still to be announced. Tickets at ppweurope.com. Presented by:• Edmund Keith: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edmund-keith/• Simon Baker: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stbaker/

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Ratings & Reviews

4.5
out of 5
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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
    158
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Online Marketplaces Group
  • Show Website
    The PPW Podcast

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