Zillow tried the iBuying model only to back out after disastrous consequences. And the U.S.'s last remaining iBuyer, Opendoor, continues to face significant financial struggles.

Zoom out to Europe, and Casavo expanded (and quickly exited) international markets with its own version of iBuying model, only to pivot the entire business into a mortgage brokerage amid serious headwinds.

In short, the evidence shows that, for now, iBuying doesn't make for a successful model in the long term.

But maybe flipping properties is a more palatable alternative.

With a $15 million Series A round secured, Backflip wants to facilitate this model for real estate entrepreneurs and investors in the United States.

We caught up with CEO Josh Ernst (pictured) to find out more about housing issues in the country, "nimble loans", artificial intelligence as the backbone of investment opportunities in the future, and much more.

Here are ten questions with Backflip...

Josh Ernst, CEO at Backflip

Josh, hi. What problem does Backflip solve?

Backflip is the all-in-one real estate and financial technology platform for real estate entrepreneurs. We support entrepreneurs as they acquire and renovate single-family homes (aka flipping), reinvigorating the housing supply and their local communities.

We offer purpose-built technology and capital products to source, analyze and finance residential real estate investments.

The Backflip app—an "analyst in your pocket"—helps members pull relevant comparisons and evaluate potential investments. Additionally, you can secure project financing through Backflip.

Who is your primary audience and what can you tell us about them?

Our members are real estate entrepreneurs who typically run small businesses focused on a specific geographic area, and their work is reinvigorating the housing supply of their local communities.

When we first interact with them, they are scaling their business—anywhere from a few, to dozens of homes per year.

They are looking for tools and capital to uplevel their operations. Alternatively, they are getting started in this industry and are searching for the right community and partners to begin their journey.

How does Backflip perceive the Flipping/iBuying segment in the United States? This has been a difficult space to operate in for some time…

When value-added real estate investing leverages the right decision-making tools, a well-run business can succeed in just about any market condition.

Because our members will typically sell or refinance homes within a few months of purchasing (our average loan duration is 6 months), the differential between purchase and sale price is much more related to the value of their rehab and improvement work than to the relatively small changes in the market during a fairly short period.

Compare this to pure buy-and-hold investors, who are heavily dependent on Home Price Appreciation and borrowing conditions.

Importantly, the majority of the homes that our members invest in end up selling at an entry-level price point, and are closer to urban cores than the new home projects being built on previously undeveloped land. In other words, the houses we finance are going on the market and meeting significant untapped demand—and they sell quickly because of it.

How does Backflip make money?

Currently, Backflip makes money through our loan products. There are no membership fees or other barriers for entrepreneurs to try our technologies and community.

Instead, when they have used our tools to analyze their opportunities and are ready to purchase a home, we offer them a personalized, best-in-class loan.

You recently raised $15M in Series A funding. What learnings can you share about the fundraising process?

Our Series A raise was both exciting and educational.

The key insight was that residential real estate is severely unbalanced; there is a three million unit housing shortage, and the U.S. housing stock is also ageing, with about 50% of units over 40 years old.

While there has been a slight uptick in new constructions, it won’t come close to meeting pent-up demand for housing—this is especially true for less expensive 'entry-level' homes. That’s where our Backflip members come in, by renewing existing units to meet the demand.

As our investors see it, that picture points to a significant TAM (Total Addressable Market) today for Backflip, while the pent-up demand and ageing housing stock are attractive macro tailwinds for the business going forward.

How does Backflip use Artificial Intelligence to source and analyze investment opportunities?

We have three primary products that assist Backflip members’ value-add investing: Analyzer, My Leads, and Loans.

Analyzer is a powerful investment calculator where Backflip members can pull the latest MLS comps, edit based on their investment strategy, and assess a deal's potential profit and ROI. Our algorithmic approach allows Backflip members to leverage AI and ML while personalizing the experience for their specific needs and strategies.

Meanwhile, My Leads is an AI-powered technology that scrapes and sorts incoming opportunities from members’ deal flow pipelines. My Leads empowers you to find the perfect property by automating the detection, analysis, and filtering of potential deals that fit inside your personalized buy box, saving hours of manual work and ensuring no lucrative opportunity is missed.

Backflip says its loans are purpose-built for real estate investors. What exactly does that mean for both lenders and borrowers?

Backflip’s loans are designed to be nimble. They offer a burst of up-front funding to purchase a property, followed by regular instalments as the rehab/renovation process moves forward. They’re short-term, bridging the crucial period where our members need to post a lot of capital to ensure their project’s success. Furthermore, they’re dynamically sized and priced according to the specifics of the borrower, asset and business plan.

Our loans are also highly predictable, which means that capital markets view the debt we originate as an attractive investment vehicle.

What are you currently working on?

We’re always working on making our products and experiences better for real estate entrepreneurs. We are continuing to look at new products as well, both on the technology side and in terms of what we are bringing to the capital markets.

To name some recent developments, we recently closed an expanded warehouse facility, so we will be able to scale our loan products further, and we launched a redesign of our app in April.

How do you see the home buying/selling experience changing in the coming years, and how will you stay ahead of the curve?

We envision an influx of artificial intelligence and big data technological advances that will break down many of the barriers in the residential real estate space.

Not only will buying and selling become much more straightforward, but so too will sourcing and analyzing opportunities to maximize profitability.

Some of those tools are already available to large corporate buyers. We are committed to ensuring that individual real estate entrepreneurs can access this tech, and we have invested in this future accordingly.

What isn’t the industry talking about that it should spend more time talking about?

The industry should be talking more about how grossly underbuilt entry-level homes are. In the U.S., more than 400,000 entry-level homes were being built per year in the late 1970s, falling to 55,000 units per year in the 2010s.

While demand for such homes hasn’t tapered off, builders are increasingly focused on the higher-priced segments of the market. In context, the average sales price in the U.S. of a new single-family home in 1998 was $181,900; in 2023 that figure was $514,000.

In short, the bottom, affordable, portion of the market is getting left behind. Smaller homes that were built in the 70s and 80s are showing their age and are at risk of falling out of the housing supply if they are not refurbished.

That’s where Backflip comes in.

The brainchild of former real estate agent John McCoy, the company was founded in 2020 and has been in development since then with a launch date imminent.

As the platform goes live in its first market of Portugal, we spoke to McCoy (pictured below) to find out more about the project...

What is the problem that ProprHome solves?

Trust. ProprHome is a Trustpilot-like marketplace for the real estate industry. It rewards professional engagement and the supply of verified data. Our focus is on enabling real estate professionals to verify and validate their activities, empowering them to develop consumer trust faster. 

What makes ProprHome different from other portals?

Unlike other platforms, ProprHome has been built to address various data and trust issues in today’s residential market. Whether it be trust in your real estate professional's experience or service level or trust in the offer and negotiation process, our platform is designed to facilitate verification, reward engagement, and host secure transactions. This infrastructure is at our core and differentiates us from almost any other marketplace in our vertical. 

What is ProprHome’s biggest challenge?

The sheer scale of the competition, and the ever-changing needs of the market. The real estate portal space has been owned by a handful of global players for decades. We need to be super smart in our go-to-market. We need to stay close to our stakeholders, and build community. We have a great opportunity, but we need to stay focused. 

We’ve been speaking about the future of real estate search a lot recently. As someone building a new marketplace, how do you think about it?

Marketplaces have not changed all that much over the last 20+ years. Many companies have attempted to reinvent how they operate with the introduction of an iBuyer, subscription or transaction-based model, but in essence, they’ve barely changed. Sell side provides data, which is consumed by the buy side. The marketplace makes the match and facilitates the intro. But this is about to turn on its head...

With advancements in both AI and blockchain, builders now have so many new variables to work with that can overhaul lots of the frustrating, legacy-based processes that exist today. We have the ability to enhance search, customer service, transaction efficiency, data verification and so much more. This is uncovering lots of new, untapped revenue streams for us and many others like us in the space. 

What is ProprHome currently working on?

Lots! EU regulation in the digital asset space, particularly in relation to bringing RWAs (Real World Assets) online, is starting to pick up pace.

Companies like us should not only be aware of these advancements, but we need to be building in parallel. The majority of our energy is invested here at the moment. Of course, it’s lots of fun to investigate how AI can impact the space, there are so many really interesting applications, but we believe in delivering true digitisation of the transaction.

Immersive tech is another area we are seriously looking into. I really do believe we live in a golden age for building property marketplaces!

What is the most common request from clients?

ProprHome has been developed with lots of help from the market. This process meant we had hundreds of conversations on what works, and what doesn’t work today.

If we are to review the most common request form our sell-side (agents), it would have to be the following

1. How can we understand our market better?
2. How can we understand our customers better?
3. How can we prove we are the best match for our customers' needs?

Our buy side’s (customer) needs are very different. They want efficiency, security and accountability. This can come in many forms but ultimately it comes down to data variety (sometimes pricing data isn’t the most important factor), how the data is presented and how it’s verified. Customers are more sophisticated than ever—so let’s start building this way.

You’re taking on some big companies in the market (OLX Group and Idealista). How are you going to win over agents and consumers?

Yes. This is why we are here! Taking on the Goliaths early on is a sink-or-swim strategy, but we are up for the challenge.

Both of these players have huge resources, but they have been left with total market share for a long time. This hasn’t resulted in unwavering loyalty, in fact as time passes portions of the market have become disenfranchised with the waning value on offer, but both sleeping giants are waking up to this with many new initiatives and features being introduced daily.

However, we believe in our foundation - to facilitate trust. Staying true to this position, and building community around this USP should enable us to grow into a new, agile operator utilising a combined 35+ years of industry experience.

What is one thing our readers might not know about but would probably find interesting about the Portuguese market and why did you choose Portugal for ProprHome?

Portugal has the highest density of real estate agents in Europe with just under four times the EU average per capita. Yet it only has four major urban areas and over 1,200km of coastline. As a marketplace focused on helping real estate agents become more efficient this is the perfect testbed.  

ProprHome raised a pre-seed round two years ago. How has your progress been since then and will you look to raise again soon?

ProprHome made the decision to raise a pre-seed by way of a development grant in 2022. This has had its pros and cons, but we wanted to ensure we had something tangible before going to the market for additional funding.

Our pre-seed enabled us to build, test and iterate. This strategy has meant it has taken us a little longer to get to market than we would have liked, but this is starting to prove to be a worthy investment as we were able to validate our value and prepare to close out our seed round.

Our seed round is now in place which should enable us to develop a sustainable market share in Portugal and begin to expand into new markets. We do not envisage raising again until the summer of 2026 once our current raise has closed. 

What is one thing you think the real estate marketplace industry should be talking about more?

Blockchain BEYOND tokenising the asset.

Yes, tokenising the asset is exciting. It can make investing attainable for many who otherwise couldn’t afford it, but there are so many other problems in this vertical that can be solved or improved by the use of verified ‘transactions’. As a team we believe that the next decade will be filled with blockchain use cases that enable trust at many different stages of the value chain.

It will facilitate new ownership and right-of-use models that will expand how we own and use real estate. Coupled with AI, this can transform how we look at supply and demand, transform service quality, and ultimately transform transactions for everyone.

We caught up with CEO Troy Rushton to find out more about Realty Media Group and how the company intends to stand out in a competitive Australian market...

What is the problem that Realty solves?

Better use of time for agents and consumers.

For consumers, traditional location-based property search is time-consuming and inefficient. Consumers need to find suitable properties faster—properties that have been filtered based on their specific criteria, location, travel time lifestyle and family preferences.

Real estate agents are time-poor and face challenges in effectively and efficiently promoting their listings. They often lack the required skills and need to outsource or spend a significant amount of time on advertising and marketing themselves. This is time which could otherwise be used for more critical and productive tasks like prospecting, listing and negotiating.   

By addressing these challenges, Realty Media Group's AgentsAds.io platform aims to empower real estate agencies to make better use of their resources and time, allowing them to focus more on their core income-generating activities while still maintaining a strong online presence and effective advertising. Our property portal, Realty.com.au, improves the property search experience for consumers presenting them with properties better suited to their needs.

What is Realty’s USP and what was the inspiration behind the idea?

Our USP is Automation, powered by AI in two core areas.

The AI portal, realty.com.au, employs artificial intelligence to improve the search experience, making it more intuitive, personalised, and efficient for users. RMG uses advanced algorithms to analyse user preferences, providing more accurate and relevant property recommendations. This can streamline the property discovery process.

For agents, our AgentsAds platform offers tools and features that help agents design and deploy more successful advertising campaigns and optimise their marketing efforts. AgentsAds also expands the reach of advertising efforts, exposing agency listings to a broader audience across web, search and social. This increased visibility can lead to more inquiries and a higher likelihood of successful property transactions.

This time is given back to agents through automation and the use of AI and can be redirected towards core activities such as property transactions, client interactions, and negotiations.  

Changing established user habits is hard. How do you approach the issue of shifting how users search for homes?

Through organic reach and frequency distribution whilst on social media. We have a bottom-up approach, where users will discover us organically through their social timeline based on a specific property of interest that will typically meet their geographic interests. 

Through opt-in engagement on a single property, the user can then experience “discovery search” for the first time and with a continual re-targeting based on similar geographic properties, we will learn about their lifestyle preferences. 

Over time, through passive or active engagement, we will deliver properties that meet their interests, saving them time and we expect to develop habitual engagement. 

How does Realty generate its revenue?

Realty has 6 streams of revenue across a combination of subscription & transactional services. We offer various solutions to both Agencies and Agents with free listings distribution to social media and upgrade options, social boosts and a profile & prospect generation platform on a monthly subscription basis.

What is Realty’s biggest challenge?

Inertia. Agents are overwhelmed with PropTech solutions, so gaining mindshare is a challenge for many solution providers.  

What is Realty currently working on?

We are deep into two areas, both focused on AI. 

Firstly, adding the semantic layer to our natural language processing for Discovery Search on realty.com.au and secondly, enhancing our AI-powered automated marketing solution for Agents through our AgentAds.io offering.  

We also continue to focus on attracting more listings to the network to power our distribution search experience.

What is the most common request from clients?

Automation & frictionless integration of services to deliver time-saving solutions. 

Are there any other portals or proptech companies out there that you follow closely or which served as a guide for building Realty?

We have a realistic perspective of where we sit in the market and will actively monitor what the larger portals are offering, not for inspiration, but to ensure our products continue to be innovative and unique. 

What should we be talking about in the portal industry that we don’t talk about enough at the moment?

Data gathering, analysis, availability and use. Data is the oil that helps us understand and better serve the needs of the consumer. The opportunity that AI-powered customization can deliver to the homeseeker journey.

How do you see the market evolving and what will you be doing to be ahead of the curve?

We have a firm belief that the market will evolve through the continued application of AI-powered technologies, particularly, frictionless solutions that deliver time savings for all parties in the buying, selling and renting journey. 

Agents will become increasingly more empowered and focused on building their personal brand and the search experience will become more personalized for Homeseekers to find the ideal property faster.

Viewit wants to set a new standard in the portal space by harnessing the power and potential of video content to showcase listings in a more authentic and compelling way.

We asked CEO Farhan Junaid ten questions, and he gave us ten answers. From monetization to the post-COVID property search experience, Farhan shares some transparent insights into Dubai's property market and how Viewit intends to take its slice.

Enjoy!

What problem does Viewit solve?

Viewit solves the problem of real estate viewings and fake listings by offering an app that allows real estate agents to upload video tours of listings that are also geotagged. This helps customers get a better understanding of the property and confirm that the listing is real and that the agent has in fact visited the property.

What was the inspiration behind Viewit?

During COVID, Dubai was under severe lockdown. I ran a real estate agency with 12 agents and we were unable to go for viewings. We had to figure out a solution whereby we could earn our commissions without in-person viewings.

The easiest method was to send videos of listings over WhatsApp to show what the property looked like because clients were also locked into their homes and couldn’t leave.

To our surprise, clients would book properties sight unseen based on the video. I then decided to build a better distribution system for these video listings and so, Viewit was born.

What is Viewit’s monetization model?

We charge around $30 per agent per month for unlimited listings. This is less than 20% of the cost of our competitors and allows us to scale faster and quicker, as we are based on a per-seat basis as opposed to the per-listing one that our competitors use.

The three markets you operate in all have established, well-funded, dominant incumbents. Are you trying to take the top spot or just get a slice of the market?

We are trying to get a slice of the market. Going up against well-capitalized and established incumbents would not be wise given we are a seed-stage startup.

The market in Dubai is quite large, with over 60,000 agents in the city, over a billion dirhams' ($275M) worth of real estate transactions a day, and the top two portals take up over 90% of traffic with the same products. We feel now is the right time to take a slice of the market with improved innovation, customer service and design.

What numbers can you share with us—around funding, user numbers, traffic, listings and your personal research?

We currently have 3,500 monthly active users in Dubai and Karachi combined, 2,500+ live listings on viewit.pk and 350+ listings on viewit.ae for a total of 2,800+ listings in two countries.

We are part of the In5 incubator in Dubai and have recently been accepted into the Techstars Chicago 2023 cohort with a seed investment of $120,000. 

Our research shows that video listings generate 403% more inquiries than image-based listings, can increase revenues for realtors by 49%, and increase organic search results to listings by a whopping 157%.

When we looked at our competitors' sites, we noticed that less than 10% of listings of their sites were immersive experiences, leaving a gap in the market for us to exploit.

All Viewit’s listings have videos instead of photos. Do you have to train agents on how best to film videos, or provide tech partnerships to improve quality?

Yes, we have to train agents on how best to shoot videos. We also plan to work with either Kaputrize or Flashy.ae to provide a better experience for customers who can pay.

Our goal at the moment is to increase listings on the site to gain more traffic, more conversions and more leads for agents.

What is Viewit currently working on—and what’s your biggest challenge?

We are working on a couple of things. We are the first portal in Dubai to come up with a virtual real estate agent. We trained chat GPT on eight years of Dubai real estate data and Dubai’s geography so that it can answer any question to do with real estate. For example, you can ask it "What was the most recent transaction in Golden Mile?", and it will reply with the details of the sale, the date and the price—as well as many more pieces of information according to your needs.

Our challenge is to continue to train the AI agent to be as easy to use and friendly as possible, allowing customers to have a well-informed agent to talk to 24/7.

What is the most common request from your agent partners?

The agents we're speaking to are portal agnostic and do not mind listing with us. However, two issues that crop up are A) getting used to a new workflow (ours is not the conventional XML feed) and, B) the lack of leads. They want us to find a way to increase their leads but keep in mind we are currently free.

We plan to double down on our video and AI niche and market our portal using these key points as leverage, something that other portals do not currently offer.

Which PropTech companies out there do you look out for in the news?

Good question! We didn’t really know of any until we saw OnlineMarketplaces.com. This site looks like the kind of portal we need to keep watching to see other portals that are attacking similar problems and coming out with unique solutions. 

How do you see the market evolving, and how will you stay ahead of the curve?

Another good question.

As Dharmesh Shah (founder of HubSpot) recently pointed out on the 20VC podcast, I see markets becoming more efficient.

The way to do this is by improving the efficiency of middlemen. Real estate to many is a black box that needs to be navigated with the help of an agent. I think that this is not the case—in fact, as information becomes more transparent, the initial discovery and negotiating phases can be done with a lot less friction.

We have built tools to help agents and customers learn as much as possible about the property before committing to a viewing or making an offer.

Viewit gives people a much better perspective on listings than the traditional pictures and text on most listings. We're the next logical step in the iteration of PropTech marketing technology. We want to provide buyers and agents with tools that lead to a more efficient sales process and, ultimately, a more efficient market.

Founded in 2021, Homely (not to be confused with the Australian portal of the same name) is a British consumer-facing home buying and renting platform. The company harnesses technology and partnerships to support people’s homeownership journey by improving their financial position and connecting them to tailored guidance, support, and products.

The platform, which will include a rental marketplace and a consumer reward system, is set to go live at the end of the year. We caught up with CEO and co-founder Lewis Scott (pictured) to talk about Homely's model and what he'll be using the investment recently raised from UST for...

What is the problem that Homely solves?

Homely is solving the problem facing consumers, especially younger people, around what they can do to become homeowners and achieve their goals of stability but also long-term wealth protection.

In addition, we all know how painful it can be to purchase a home. Hence, we bring everything into one place to make the transaction easier, more convenient and actually enjoyable!

What was the inspiration for the Homely idea?

Previous struggles of renting and paying more rent than what a mortgage would be but the build-up of a deposit being difficult as well as navigating the housing options available.

And that’s just the ready stage! When buying, the process is tedious, painful, long and extremely stressful!

Other technologies have helped consumer actions become a lot more convenient yet no one has truly solved the issue for homebuying.

How will Homely generate revenue?

Homely has a reward system called HomelyBricks which will generate monthly recurring revenue alongside other referral income then we are involved across all touch points at the transaction so we make income at the point of transaction but that also means we are aligned with the consumer as well as business stakeholders.

You recently raised a pre-seed investment round at a ‘double-digit million’ valuation. What will you be using the funds for?

The funds are being used to build our back-end tech infrastructure, which is coming along brilliantly with UST. This allows us to have a flexible and scalable platform to easily plug in with banks/lenders, estate agents and other key stakeholders.

Additionally, it’s supporting our partnership development with some key industry partners (to be revealed very soon!) and to get our house in order so that we can grow very quickly!

Most people looking to rent don’t usually sign up for a platform service like Homely’s. How do you think about changing renter behaviour?

Historically it’s been a lack of hope or inspiration for people, they feel shut out from the market and are living day by day in many cases.

Homely’s platform and our marketing output will be educating and simplifying information for people to understand little things they can do every day that can support them and before they know it they are in a much better place than they’d expect! This includes building up for the property transaction through our HomelyBricks reward scheme.

How important is the marketplace element to your plan and where will you source listings from?

Without giving away too much at this stage, it’s about time the journey from the estate agent through to the transaction is in one place. The beauty of Homely is our business model isn’t based around listing fees or subscription fees for CRM services so it gives us some competitive flexibility!

What is Homely currently working on and what’s the biggest challenge on the horizon?

We are preparing for our launch, which is exciting and we have a fantastic team working hard behind the scenes! We will likely raise capital again very soon as our biggest challenge will be serving the partnership and the users that come through them to the highest levels of customer service.

What is the most common request from partners?

Utilising data to help them achieve their business goals, and getting ahead of the market. It’s better to know than not to know.

Which PropTech companies out there do you look out for in the news? Have any helped inspire the idea behind Homely?

I think there are some fantastic companies in different areas doing things very well, I wouldn’t say any inspired us per se. The main inspiration was more the fact that there are a number of niche companies but actually, the value for consumers and the industry is to bring a number of these together into one place.

How do you see the market evolving and what will you be doing to be ahead of the curve?

The biggest direction will be banks/lenders and other home-buying schemes coming to the market with new home-buying products, which is great but can become overwhelming for consumers.

So our job is to make it as easy as possible for consumers to understand the options available to them and making sure they can do it all in one place. We will stay ahead of the curve as we have the flexibility and speed to plug in these products for consumers a lot quicker than others in the industry.

Combe co-founded Mexico City-based DD360 in 2017 after working in capital markets with real estate developers. The company works in both FinTech and PropTech and recently built out its B2C marketplace and appraisals platform, Monopolio.

We asked Combe (pictured below) a few questions to find out more about the opportunity that exists around providing data and transparency in the Mexican market...

What problem does DD360 solve?

We aim to solve two main challenges: as a fintech company - becoming a more efficient and value-added lender for our clients (both b2b and b2c), and as a proptech company - directly connecting participants through a seamless and personalized AI-driven marketplace.

DD360 Products

How does DD360 generate revenue?

Since our founding, DD360 has consistently achieved solid earnings. Our financial products outperform traditional bank alternatives, allowing the profits from our fintech branch to subsidize proptech products for end users.

This unique advantage permits us to provide clients with industry insights, information, pricing, appraisals, and other services derived from the marketplace at no cost.

Your activities seem similar to those pursued by real estate portals. Have you engaged with major portals in Mexico?

We have engaged in discussions with a wide range of stakeholders, from the most prominent portals in Mexico to niche marketplaces. What we are observing is an inclination to employ familiar technology for more of the same.

However, we have yet to encounter compelling strategies for building an ecosystem that leverages new technologies to bridge demand and supply. Additionally, there is a noticeable trend towards increasing prices to achieve profitability. This situation has escalated to the point where the Mexican Association of Brokers has issued a statement against these predatory practices.

The Monopolio price dashboard has captured our interest. Could you elaborate on the data source and its accessibility?

Gathering this data has proven more challenging than ideal, but we have largely mastered the process. Our value prediction models rely on what should be publicly available cadastre records. However, in Mexico, this information is either digitized or not at the discretion of each county.

Once obtained, our data science team merges it with listings for sale and rent, our internal database of ongoing real estate developments, and models for indicators such as walkability, transit, security, depreciation, and appreciation.

Monopolio has developed a property marketplace that aggregates listings from major portals. What was the rationale behind this, and do you plan to expand this aspect of the business?

Through our fintech operations, which involve funding developers and end customers, we recognized the challenges in bridging these two groups. While some players attempt to connect them, they often neglect the natural intermediary, the brokers.

The broker's role is vital. By incorporating listings and broker-centric features, we aim to streamline the process and empower all participants, without charging fees. We envision Monopolio becoming an ecosystem tool that adds value throughout, from supply creation to demand fulfilment, leveraging data and technology to enhance efficiency and establish fair pricing.

Numerous PropTech companies from Latin America have expanded into Mexico. What makes this market appealing?

This trend is widespread across various startup sectors. Mexico boasts the largest Spanish-speaking population in Latin America (130 million people), with 90% owning phones and engaging online. These factors make Mexico an attractive prospect for any company aspiring to establish a billion-dollar enterprise in the region.

DD360 operates in both the B2B and B2C financing markets. What differentiates these two sectors, and which was easier to penetrate?

We commenced as a b2b enterprise in real estate due to the identification of issues with traditional financial options for builders. Banks were slow in approving credits, managing tranches, and lacked technological innovation. Leveraging our expertise, we swiftly delivered a competitive product. Moreover, b2b is a concentrated domain with a handful of significant players, enabling us to deeply understand them and devise solutions as a swift and efficient financial partner.

Although we are only starting in the b2c sphere, we believe our unique proposition can contribute significantly to the Mexican market. We provide mortgages to individuals typically excluded from the conventional financial system or seeking flexible loans, a critical concern for real estate investors and first-time buyers. Our mortgages and the Monopolio platform aim to ensure equitable access to wealth creation through real estate, offering fair loans and unbiased information. There is an entire generation needing these products.

What is DD360's current focus, considering your historical profitability? Are there any upcoming financing endeavours?

We are reinforcing our fintech products by introducing a platform that assists developers in managing operational progress, financial needs, and the sales pipeline. Our current focus centers on aiding developers in harnessing cutting-edge technologies.

We are on the brink of unveiling AI-powered tools to simplify the uploading of available properties and inventory management. For instance, we can enhance renders, convert them into layouts and 3D models, and soon provide virtual reality tours. Our objective is to offer these plug-and-play tools to brokers and developers.

What is the most frequent client request?

The most common request is to be integrated into our platform! The broker, developer, and end-user community is enthusiastic about updating or uploading their property information to Monopolio. We are even testing a crowdsourcing tool that enables users to propose edits to properties they are familiar with, along with another tool for developers and brokers to directly upload their information.

How do you foresee the market's evolution, and what steps will you take to remain at the forefront?

We envision a future dominated by AI-powered superagents, capable of assisting consumers across various searches, tasks, and issues. As part of this vision, we have introduced our own WhatsApp RE Agent, named PAM. PAM can locate listings, address real estate queries, and provide assistance across different search scenarios.

We also believe in the unrestricted flow of information and a world where free products empower consumers to directly access the best financing, appraisals, brokers, renewals, and fair prices.

Some have the potential to completely re-shape markets and some involve businesses that are leading the way for others around the world to follow. All are worth paying attention to as they develop...

CoStar vs Zillow (USA)

What has happened so far: Commercial real estate and data giant CoStar has started its march towards Zillow's residential real estate kingdom buying several assets including the Homes.com portal.

CoStar hasn't yet turned on the marketing taps but has taken every opportunity to have a pop at Zillow's business model and the portal's user experience. CEO Andy Florance has also been bigging up the marked traffic gains of Homes.com, claiming CoStar's network is now in second position in the U.S. residential portal market.

CoStar's 'Residential' revenue has big plans for its 'Residential' business segment.

What could happen: CoStar has a market cap of $33 billion and is no stranger to buying its way into an industry. If and when it chooses to really lean into the marketing of Homes.com that could mean trouble for Zillow but would perhaps be more likely to take market share away from other players such as Realtor.com.

Competition Commission vs portals (South Africa)

What has happened so far: The South African Competition Commission has released a report which found that Property24 and Private Property impede competition in South Africa's online property classifieds sector.

The authority has imposed several new conditions on the two leading portals that seriously change how both do business. These include data interoperability for agents to feed listings to other portals, ending multi-year contracts with big agencies and a price reduction for smaller agencies.

What could happen: The two leading portals may well mount a legal challenge to the ruling, so we may see a big legal struggle before a lot of the changes come into effect. Property24 told us they were still reviewing the report when we contacted them for comment.

We asked Adriaan Grové, CEO of Entegral, a company that offers listings syndication software as well as running one of the smaller portals mentioned in the report (MyProperty), what the new conditions might mean for competition in the South African market:

"The ruling is historical for the online real estate space in South Africa as it will empower independent proptech companies like Entegral and others to access all property listing feeds within the next 12 months. This is not only important from a portal perspective but also to build 3rd party apps that rely on listing data."

"Up until now, we were the only listing syndication service provider in South Africa that new portals could approach and know that they could get a feed. We try to support local businesses and currently have two new portals that are looking to launch on top of our feeds."

"Our aim now is to see how we can increase the listing counts with the feeds that will open up. Our other challenge is to convince agents to support more portals and start spreading their marketing spend. While it would be difficult to compete with the established portals, the tech landscape is evolving fast and it is easier today compared to 10 years ago to run a sustainable portal with a smaller team."

Zillow's business model evolution (USA)

What has happened so far: iBuying didn't work, mortgages are a struggle and the macro environment is putting a dampener on its main business. Zillow needs to find where its next phase of growth is going to come from.

There has been a lot of talk from the company about a one-stop-shop 'housing super app' and CEO Rich Barton is on record saying he expects the company to reach $5 billion annual revenue and a 45% EBITDA margin by 2025.

Zillow's so-called 'enhanced markets' are the ones to keep an eye on here. In these U.S. cities, the portal company is doing certain things differently:

• Only working with select agents (kicking many agents off its Premier Agent product to do this)
• Only working with a 'post pay' model where agents pay Zillow a percentage (typically between 25-35%) of the commission they earn on a sale.
• Offering enhanced listings for a price via its ShowingTime+ 'Listing Showcase' product.
• Going the extra mile to truly integrate its own mortgage business into the Zillow UX.

What could happen: Getting into the transaction and making consistent money from mortgages are two things that have historically been excruciatingly difficult for portal companies. If Zillow pulls either of them off or makes significant money from charging agents to list, it will be a big deal that wouldn't be ignored by rivals like CoStar and Realtor.com.

All eyes will be on the Seattle-based company's quarterly reporting.

Scout24's consumer subscription product (Germany)

What has happened so far: After changing its company paradigm, the leading German real estate portal company has developed a suite of consumer subscription products, and they're doing great.

Between them the products for ordinary German renters, landlords and sellers have almost 350,000 subscribers and are generating quarterly revenues of over €50 million at a very attractive profit margin.

What could happen: There are many roads that real estate marketplace companies are going down away from the traditional online classifieds business model. It may be that with Scout24 guiding the way, other portal companies choose to go down a similar road and build user subscription services.

Agents vs QuintoAndar (Mexico)

What has happened so far: The Mexican Association of Real Estate Professionals (AMPI) Mexico City delegation is preparing a complaint against the Brazilian headquartered real estate portal operator QuintoAndar.

The complaint alleges that QuintoAndar has been using its market dominance to impose conditions on agents as it owns the two leading real estate portal websites in the country (Inmuebles24 and Vivanuncios).

One brokerage firm (EasyBroker) has gone as far as to stop paying the portal and has reportedly had its ads removed. Online Marketplaces has also heard that third-party CRM providers have been denied access to Quinto Andar's APIs.

What could happen: We have seen this same story play out in several markets around the world. It rarely ends well for the agents.

QuintoAndar has achieved a dominant position and any brokerage or agent that doesn't want to pay the portals will have to explain to vendors why their listing isn't on the most popular real estate websites.

When contacted, QuintoAndar turned to the tried and true PR line of emphasizing the value of what it does for agents rather than talk about the price of its services.

The Moehrl class-action antitrust suit (USA)

What has happened so far: A class action lawsuit was brought by home sellers against the National Association of Realtors as well as the so-called 'big four' real estate brokerages in the United States.

Basically, the complaint is against the NAR rules that require all brokers to offer buyer-broker compensation when listing a property on an MLS. The suit claims this has driven up costs to the seller and stifled competition.

What could happen: The case, which looks to be heading to trial despite efforts from the NAR and brokerages to overturn it, could potentially mean that home sellers in 20 MLS markets are entitled to an estimated $13.7 billion in damages. It might also mean that buyer agent commissions come under threat which would in turn threaten Zillow's main business model.

Who comes out of the hard times on top and what do they look like? (China)

What has happened so far: Most real estate markets around the world have suffered recently but none more so than than China's. The Evergrande crisis, a mortgage meltdown, stringent government COVID-19 policy and a range of other factors have left the country's real estate marketplaces struggling.

• Yan Jinbo, chairman, founder, and CEO of 58.com (the operator of leading portal Anjuke) reportedly told employees that business units will be "cut off" if they don't turn a profit in the next 12 months.
• With its share price through the floor and despite heavy cost-cutting measures FangDD has had to raise money via a direct offering.
• Fang.com (not to be confused with its competitor FangDD) was kicked off the NYSE after failing to meet minimum bid requirements.

Below, Chinese market expert Brett Hartley Wilson explains the Chinese real estate market.

What could happen: Apart from the possibility of some market consolidation occurring, the one to watch in China is KE Holdings.

The company that started in Beijing as a pure full-service brokerage offering guaranteed sales is now a fully-fledged do-it-all, end-to-end behemoth and is pioneering the 'transaction platform' model that Zillow and others are jealous of. KE Holdings (aka Beike) already has some huge numbers and they may get even bigger.

KE Holdings' renovations business has taken off recently and is definitely one to watch.

Can Hemnet ride the vendor's wallet to REA Group level profitability? (Sweden)

What has happened so far: The leading Swedish real estate portal Hemnet floated on the stock market in 2021 with ambitions to become one of the world's leading, reference point real estate portals.

It has been churning out great quarterly numbers pretty much ever since.

Sweden is one of the very few markets where the person selling their house is the party responsible for paying the marketing costs rather than the agent. The other big market where this happens is Australia where the dominant portal company REA Group generated $763 million in revenue in its last financial year.

What could happen: Sweden has about 40% of the population of Australia but Hemnet only made about 11% of REA Group's revenue over the same period.

Even though it has been cranking out gains in its unit economics and shifting customers to ever more expensive marketing packages, it looks like there is still a long way to go for Hemnet.

REX vs Zillow / NAR (USA)

What has happened so far: The discount brokerage REX has brought a case against the NAR and Zillow. The allegation is that since Zillow started displaying listings from non-MLS sources on a tab marked 'other listings' on its results pages, this has unfairly impacted discount brokerages such as REX who did not wish to pay the NAR fees or be on MLSs.

There has been a lot of back and forth with neither side able to get the judge to settle the matter before the trial date which is set for September 18th.

What could happen: If REX wins it could mean that Zillow has to display listings from non-MLS sources (including FSBO listings) on its main results page tab. This would be a big boost for discount brokerages and potentially for for-sale-by-owner sellers as well.

Confusingly, Zillow is actually in favour of doing things this way but isn't able to because, as a nominal brokerage, it has to abide by the NAR's rules.

Launched in the first week of June 2023, ALCUBO is perhaps the youngest proptech we have ever spoken to.

Built on the promise of making homeownership more accessible for young people, ALCUBO is a lease-to-buy platform that wants younger generations to get on the housing ladder—without a deposit.

We spoke to Antonio (pictured below on the right next to fellow co-founder, Alberto García) on topics including ALCUBO's origins, his priorities this summer, and the affordability issues facing would-be homeowners.

Where did the idea for ALCUBO come from?

The idea for ALCUBO originated 1 year ago when I was looking to buy a house and I realized that, despite the fact that I was in a strong financial position, it was really difficult to access one.

Because of that, we started to work on finding a solution for people in a similar situation. After six months of developing the idea, analysing the market and dedicating countless hours to learning from key real estate figures, we were able to shape a 360 proptech where young people can A) buy without paying a deposit, B) sell their homes using our profitable model or, C) invest in homes on behalf of our clients.

What problem does ALCUBO solve?

Purchasing a property in Spain is currently a highly concerning issue and young people are the most vulnerable, particularly those paying exorbitant rent without having the capacity to save the necessary funds required for a mortgage.

This is the problem we want to solve with ALCUBO.

What is ALCUBO's USP?

I believe that we are a very competitive company for all stakeholders:

The value proposition for our end customer—young people who agree to participate in a lease-to-purchase model—is that we do not ask for abusive down payments; if the issue is the initial capital expenditure, we aim to eliminate it from the equation.

For those selling their houses: they get a profit much faster and higher than if they sold it tomorrow.

And for investors, we only present them with opportunities that match their needs.

How will ALCUBO generate income?

ALCUBO invoices for each transaction we facilitate. When we provide an opportunity, we charge a fee to investors. Additionally, when we make a successful match, we also receive a fee.

How does the ALCUBO lease-to-own product work for prospective owners?

Our goal is to be a competitive model company, first of all. We do not charge an entry commission, so prospective owners begin by paying the monthly rent where 70% covers the rental payment, with the final 30% representing going towards the mortgage/loan.

How is the company financed? Will you be raising funds in the near future?

The company is currently sustained by the investment from the founding partners and the revenue we are generating. To accelerate our growth, we plan to start a fundraising round with business angels in Q4 2023.

Where will you focus your resources in your first summer in business?

We are focusing on technology and expanding the team. We aim to onboard 10 profiles in the near future.

You have produced figures that outline how only 16% of people aged 23-35 can afford a mortgage. How many more young people will be able to own a home through platforms such as ALCUBO in the next three to five years?

In the first year, we project to assist 130 young individuals and families in achieving their goals. From there, we are projecting a three-fold growth over the next five years.

The iBuying space in Spain includes names like Kodit, Clikalia, Tiko and Casavo; meanwhile, you are bringing a lease-to-own product to the market. How else do you see property transactions and ownership options changing in the near future?

The past three months have seen fewer property sales, and experts are already talking about a price adjustment.

I think it's a great moment to be creative. Recently, I read about a company that sells rooms directly. Despite the real estate market being crowded with players, I still believe it holds a lot of possibilities. Like in any crisis, I think it's crucial to be highly creative, and new alternatives will continue to emerge to meet all market needs.

What should the real estate industry be talking about that it's not talking about?

I believe we should drive innovation in the sector and bring more visibility to the new solutions being offered. It seems that there isn't enough discussion about this. We are focusing too much on informing about the problem and not putting enough emphasis on the solutions. Hopefully, all newly established companies like ours will have the opportunity to showcase their solutions in the media. The market is vast, and there is room for new alternatives.

Keyway's products let owners either sell and leave their property, sell and stay, rent-to-own or expand their footprint and are specifically aimed at medical professionals, veterinarians and multifamily owners.

We spoke to the company's co-founder Matias Recchia (pictured below) about Keyway's technology, business model and whether the travails of the residential iBuyers mean anything for his business...

What is the problem that Keyway solves?

Keyway offers institutional investors and family offices a simplified and streamlined way to invest in the highly profitable, yet often overlooked, small-scale commercial real estate asset class. 

Keyway aggregates and centralizes highly-fragmented market and property data into a single solution capable of handling an entire real estate transaction. Our technology platform – which is powered by AI, machine learning and data science – connects sourcing and deal flow, market and property research, underwriting, transacting and asset management in one platform.

This provides us and our investors with a significant competitive advantage when navigating complex transactions as we can accelerate the investment process and close deals quickly.

How does Keyway generate revenue?

Keyway generates revenue through commercial real estate investment returns, including both fee income and asset appreciation.

Our current commercial real estate strategies focus on Multifamily and Net Lease investments. For Multifamily, we are focused primarily on small-scale, Class B properties in the Sun Belt due to its population and job growth. As values-based investors, we believe in making housing more affordable and accessible, while also improving the health, safety and wellness of our residents through ESG integration and other resident-first upgrades. 

In addition to Multifamily investing, we partner with small businesses, particularly in the medical sector, to optimize the value of their underlying real estate portfolio. Our goal is to scale up the acquisition of net lease properties by becoming long-term capital providers and expansion partners to business owners, operators and investors.

What can you tell us about your technology?

Keyway leverages AI, machine learning and data science to make better real estate investment decisions and achieve superior outcomes. We use technology at every stage of the real estate lifecycle – sourcing, underwriting, transacting, managing and selling – to achieve smoother, faster and lower-cost deals.

Our proprietary technology aggregates highly-fragmented data into a centralized platform, providing increased transparency in a traditionally non-transparent asset class.

In addition, we are integrating generative AI and machine learning into our platform to create a real estate investment co-pilot named Mickey, which provides speed, efficiency and flexibility while also accelerating research and analysis, deal document automation and workflow and predictive analytics.

What is Keyway’s biggest challenge?

Building disruptive technology in an old school industry set in its ways takes time to develop, integrate and scale. We continue to educate investors about how our technology can streamline the entire investment process and how that leads to better outcomes for investors. 

Can you share some numbers? How much real estate have you acquired?

Since we launched in 2020, we have invested more than $100 million in commercial real estate.

Obviously what you are doing isn’t exactly the same as iBuying single-family homes, but you are using technology to buy property. Do the recent setbacks faced by residential iBuyers concern you at all?

We operate in a different space than traditional iBuyers focused on single-family rentals, which is mostly a commodity asset with highly-transparent data.

In contrast, small-scale Multifamily is characterized by highly-fragmented, difficult-to-acquire information with a predominantly mom-and-pop owner base. Unlike single-family rentals, small-scale Multifamily properties are disparate assets. So, our proprietary technology is an essential tool to aggregate this fragmented data and disparate assets into a centralized platform.

Without technology, scaling small-scale commercial real estate properties into a robust portfolio, particularly in Multifamily, would be a daunting task.

The setbacks that residential iBuyers face now are an opportunity for Keyway to excel. Why? Institutional investors who have saturated the single-family rental market should begin to redirect their focus toward small-scale commercial real estate, particularly in Multifamily, which we believe will create a compelling investment opportunity over the next five to 10 years.

What is one thing our readers might not know about but would probably find interesting about the commercial real estate industry in the U.S.?

The commercial real estate sector is not all doom and gloom. Don’t think that what’s happening in the office space in San Francisco or New York applies universally. There are multiple asset classes within the broad landscape of “commercial real estate,” and geographic differences matter as well. 

As an example, let’s take multifamily demand in Dallas, Texas. For the past two years, multifamily sales in Dallas have led the nation with $44 billion in total sales, pointing to the burgeoning demand for multifamily housing to accommodate the region's strong job growth. Dallas isn’t the only city seeing multifamily growth, but it’s a great example of one of the bright spots in the CRE market and one that is core to our portfolio thesis. 

Your last investment round (Series A) was nearly a year ago. Are you looking to raise a new round soon?

Keyway is well-capitalized, and investor demand remains strong. While we’re always looking for new ways to grow, we have no current plans to raise another round of funding.

What is Keyway currently working on from an investment perspective?

We are actively investing in commercial real estate, particularly in Multifamily in the Sun Belt as well as acquiring Net Lease assets. We are also proud to serve as a long-term capital provider and expansion partner to owners, operators and financial sponsors.   

We recently announced a sale-leaseback transaction and multifamily investment, with additional investments closing in the near-term.  

What is the most common request from investors? 

We receive many requests to invest in new verticals or geographies. We also hear regularly from investors who are excited to use our technology and experience AI and machine learning in commercial real estate.

How does Keyway stay ahead of the curve?

Our team is hard at work scaling our technology platform and integrating ChatGPT and machine learning. We are excited about building our investment co-pilot, Mickey, that is transformational in commercial real estate. 

We are constantly staying ahead of the curve through innate focus on the latest developments in AI, machine learning and data science. As investors, we leverage data to make better investment decisions. That requires not only continual data analysis, but also a deep understanding of macroeconomic and microeconomic trends, which help to inform our views on real estate investing across sectors and geographies.

While we analyzed the similarities and differences between online marketplaces from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe in 2023, we used it as an opportunity to identify property portal business models that don't monetize the real estate industry quite like everyone else.

From coupon sales to profitless portals, here are the 6 best examples of portal business models that flip the industry upside down. Who knows, maybe there's a business opportunity in here somewhere!

Leju makes money by selling coupons

When Chinese portal Leju Holdings Limited listed on the Nasdaq in 2013, its prospectus outlined the company's intention to operate primarily as an e-commerce business—specifically by selling discount coupons for new property developments.

The idea is straightforward: make purchasing a new property cheaper for the buyer via coupons, while also facilitating viewings, transactions, and customer support.

The company had grown from a loss-making entity in 2011 (net loss $11.6 million) to a profitable business by the time it floated on the stock exchange in 2013 ($63.4 million).

Leju's discount coupons allow buyers to purchase specified properties from real estate developers at a discount greater than the price they paid for the coupon. Leju only recognizes such e-commerce revenues when the discount coupon has been redeemed to purchase a property.

Leju also offers advertising and listing services, and it owns various real estate and home furnishings websites—but these make up a significantly smaller proportion of Leju's revenues.

The question is, is this model working?

Leju's financial results say no: revenues from coupon sales dropped 32% YoY as the company recorded a net loss of $89.7 million for FY22.

The bigger picture shows that shares in the company have dropped from an all-time high of 174.5c in August 2014 to just 1.13c as of 17th April 2023.

PAP.fr has banned agents

PAP is a property portal just like any other, but agents are banned from getting involved. PAP gets its name from its model; Particulier à Particulier means 'Individual to Individual' in French.

Of course, that means there's an important skill set missing in the transaction, but that's where PAP gets interesting—its premium package includes real estate coaching so Average Joe can educate himself on seeing through a deal himself.

The regular package is a typical pay-to-list offer, but customers can choose to pay a flat fee of €790 to get coached through their sale without sacrificing a penny of the sale as a commission.

It's a decent saving—most agents in France charge between 4%-10%—and a popular model. PAP says it receives 3m visitors to its portal every month, and its zero-commission offering will certainly be a part of that.

It's not an easy existence though. French agents hate PAP and the feud dates back to 1992.

Indeed, the French Real Estate Association (FNAIM) sued PAP for defamation of the entire real estate profession in 2020, when it alleged that PAP was illegally acting as an agent itself. PAP won, by the way.

Interestingly, PAP broke new ground earlier this year when it opened its first physical offices in February (in Lille and Toulouse) to improve its brand presence and give prospects an avenue by which to explore local buying and selling opportunities.

Realtor.ca doesn't make money (technically)

Realtor.ca is Canada's most popular real estate website with over 50% market share and 564 million visits in 2022. The site and app are updated daily with up-to-date listing information about commercial, residential, and rental properties.

But the portal doesn't generate revenue.

Realtor.ca is owned by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) consisting of 160,000 members including real estate brokers, agents and salespeople operating out of over 60 real estate boards and associations throughout Canada.

The platform is a major lead generator for estate agents in Canada, who are happy to pay a membership fee to keep CREA, and by extension Realtor.ca, live. Membership fees for CREA hit $51 million in 2022, so there is clearly demand for the association.

It all might be set to change soon as CREA recently announced it is in talks to spin off realtor.ca to become a for-profit model in the face of competition coming from south of the border.

Interestingly, CREA's 2022 annual report outlined how Realtor.ca is shifting from a traditional search to a research platform in 2023, so it will be interesting to watch the portal's progression in the next 12-18 months.

Australian and Swedish portals charge vendors to market their property

Names like Hemnet and realestate.com.au are regular features on Online Marketplace, but we rarely mention that their native markets charge the vendor, and not the agent, to market their property.

Marketing a property can cost the vendor up to $8,000 in Melbourne and $10,000 in Sydney, while the agent still pockets a commission of 1% to 3% for negotiating the deal.

It's a controversial topic for some. Real estate portals, particularly in Australia, are often criticized for overcharging members of the public to sell their property; the typical homeowner doesn't sell a house very often, so it is difficult for a vendor to know whether they are getting value for money.

Meanwhile, agents purchase a listing package from the portal relative to how visible they want their stock to be, which means Australian and Swedish portals are in a privileged position of monetizing both the agent and the seller!

Swedish, Danish and Dutch portals charge users to speak to landlords

Not content with monetizing the seller, Sweden shares a trait with Denmark that involves charging would-be renters to speak to landlords.

In Sweden, Bostadhub offers new users a 3-day trial to message landlords, after which they pay a monthly subscription to have access to landlords' contact details.

Meanwhile, Danish rental platforms Boligportal and Lejebolig have taken this model one step further by charging would-be renters to contact landlords in any capacity.

On Lejebolig, landlords can pay a flat fee to give the listing premium placement for seven days as a lead generation tool.

Kudos to Boligportal, though. Landlords can pay Boligportal to allow applications from unsubscribed prospects. Talk about squeezing the lemon.

In The Netherlands, HousingAnywhere charges home-hunters a subscription fee to contact landlords, while tenants in international markets including Germany, Austria, and Belgium are charged 35% of their first month's rent as a service fee.

Estonian portals charge based on the property's value (and how long you list for)

In Estonia, City24 and KV have three revenue-generating segments to their businesses, including traditional subscription and advertising models.

But it's their fees to private and sellers and landlords that are most interesting.

For individuals listing their properties, City24 and KV charge on a listing-by-listing basis, with the listing cost calculated according to the property's value (according to the seller), how long it is listed for, and how much prominence they want to give to their listing.

On KV, listers pay €10 per day to list. Meanwhile, they can buy up to five "stars" for €1.49 each to give the property more visibility, with five-star properties appearing at the top of search results.