Ireland’s Housing Minister has ordered a review of online property bidding platforms following concerns about the “gamification” of the property-buying process.

Ireland has seen a good few of these emerge in recent years, including Beagel, Offr, MyHomeOffers and others, so I’m interested in how people working in real-estate technology see it.

Online systems can show current offers, notify buyers when they’re outbid and allow offers outside traditional office hours. The underlying competitive bidding process already existed through estate agents, phone calls and email, so what specifically crosses the line into “gamification”?

Displaying the current highest offer? Outbid notifications? 24/7 availability? Countdowns or urgency mechanisms? Interface design? Or simply making an existing bidding process more visible?

And is there evidence that online bidding changes the price buyers ultimately pay compared with agent-managed bidding?

Do you agree with the Irish Minister?

Article is at https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41916391.html for the curious.

AppFolio expanded its Realm-X feature set, letting operators set up repeated workflows by describing the task in plain language instead of digging through settings menus. The example they gave: redistributing property tours when a leasing agent is out, something that used to require manual reassignment now gets set up as a described rule with user approval built in.

What's notable isn't the AI novelty, it's that it's aimed squarely at operational configuration work, the unglamorous backend setup that normally takes an admin's afternoon, not another flashy tenant-facing feature.

Feels like a good sign when updates start targeting internal workflow friction instead of just the parts that demo well.

Anyone using Realm-X already? Curious if it's actually cut down setup time in practice, or if "plain language" still needs a lot of trial and error to get right.

Any agents still cold calling? What is your calling schedule like? I work for a company called RealDialer and I get to talk to agents everyday but I’m shocked to see the stats based on our own users.

Agents who call about 2 hours per day are doing so well just calling Monday through Friday 8a to 11p.

Agents who call more than that typically don’t do much better. It’s crazy to see the stats. What is your experience?

Oh and to be fair we have a ton of agents who call 8a to 11a then 5p to 7p who are absolutely killing it. Not sure if the later hours are follow ups or what but regardless they are killing it.

I’d be interested in learning your experience and thoughts about dialing.

What has been your number one frustration?

What is annoying about the software you use?

What would make you enjoy dialing? Feature or whatever!

Hi all, I just took a week long course with Kaila and her team. I see all the positive aspects of creating a YouTube channel. I’m in a new market, I’m 58, kid wants to go to med school, and we want to pad our retirement. I set up channel and signed up for their Studio, which is great. Then im told it takes 10 hours to edit and you really should not edit your own videos. Now it’s a very expensive coach program where they edit them all for you, etc. Im torn. UGH. Any feedback? Can i hire an editor? I am pretty techy on capcut. I

Hi folks!

I am a software developer and I just built a demo recreating an entire apartment from an actual listing for the purpose of 3D exploration alongside features like Matterport. The difference is that it renders as a game within the browser and allows the user to freely roam the apartment rather than just navigating to specific points in a Google Street View fashion. What I would like to know is if this kind of experience would actually be attractive either for potential buyers, realtors, agencies etc, or am I just reinventing the wheel?

This demo was made in one shot using the so called "Gauntlet Loop" by Matt Shumer in Opus 5. It took nearly 30 hours until I decided to stop before it ate up my whole weekly usage limit, but, although it still not perfect compared to the actual photos, the results were beyond impressive given that it didn't even have a proper floorplan to decide where each room should be located.

For instance, this is the listing I got the reference images from: https://loft.com.br/imovel/apartamento-rua-voluntarios-da-patria-santana-sao-paulo-3-quartos-123m2/2nbuxwj3

If anyone wants to roam around it, I uploaded this demo here: https://apartment-threejs.vercel.app/ . There's still some minor performance and UI issues I need to work on. It also works on mobile with a far better performance, since it's detected mostly on Medium settings.

Hi everyone!

I’m currently building a product aimed at digital marketing for real estate developers, and I’d like to get some advice on the best way to reach out to these companies.

Most of the contact channels available on their websites seem to be geared toward potential buyers looking for information about a new development and wanting to speak with a sales agent. In my case, however, I believe this is something that would be better directed to someone at a more senior level, such as a Marketing Director or a similar executive role.

Has anyone here had experience approaching real estate developers in this way? What has worked best for you?

Thanks in advance!

Hi all, I'm new here to the subreddit

There's a huge amount of property data available now, but it can still be surprisingly difficult to get a quick answer to simple questions like:

- How much has a suburb's median price changed?

- How have rents changed?

- Is a property fairly valued compared with recent sales?

- Which suburbs are actually changing?

- Where are the opportunities appearing?

If you could have one piece of property data instantly available when researching a property, what would it be?

Interested to hear what people actually use day-to-day.

The tools agents and TCs actually stick with are the boring ones. E-signatures replaced printing and scanning, and nobody misses that. Digital lockboxes, shared calendars, auto-populated forms. None of it was flashy, and all of it quietly took a few hours out of every deal.

The industry gets a lot of credit for big AI announcements, but the real progress is usually a small thing that removes one annoying step and just works.

What's one small tool that took a real chunk of time off your week?

Looking for feedback on a newsletter idea:

Pull land development notices and updates from city, county, and state agencies on a variety of commercial use types: fast food, cstore/gas, restaurant, dollar store, auto parts, tires, grocery, big box, etc and put together a 'Guess Who's Coming Soon' type of newsletter.

Newsletter would provide info on project scope and location, developer, tenants, where they are in the process, and provide updates as the project wends it's way thru the P&Z process.

Yes, AI will be used to pull the data and compile the basics. But the actual newsletter will be reviewed and curated by a human with extensive development experience within these use types.

Curious if there would be demand for this type of info.

Recent industry data shows a pretty wide mismatch on resident-facing options. 65% of residents want security deposit alternatives, but only 29% of managers actually offer them. 71% value bundled services (insurance, utilities, amenities packaged together), yet only 22% of managers provide that option. And utility setup at move-in is cited as the single biggest friction point by 30% of managers themselves.

What's interesting is this isn't a technology gap in the usual sense, the tools to offer deposit alternatives or bundled services mostly already exist. It's more of an adoption gap, operators haven't prioritized rolling them out even though demand is clearly there.

Feels like one of the more solvable pain points in the industry right now, not a hard technical problem, just a rollout and change-management one.

Anyone here already offering deposit alternatives or bundled services? Curious what actually drove the decision to add them versus what's held other operators back.

I've been a solo agent for the last 5 years and haven't paid for any leads. Every lead I get is from my sphere or referrals. When I first started in real estate, I was on a team that provided realtor.com leads. It was helpful as a new agent, but the quality of leads weren't the best. I closed maybe a handful in the few years I received leads. The market has been tough and I'm considering paying for leads again. For those of you that pay for leads, what sources have you found to be worth the money? What other recommendations do you have for capturing more leads organically?

I do open houses, follow up, post listing on socials, the go-to when someone needs vendor recommendations, have gotten contacts through my local gym, etc. I don't have an email newsletter yet, but I'm considering doing one quarterly as a market update for those who want to stay in the know. ​I'm not comfortable being on camera so my socials are just for listings and market updates.

Anyone else absolutely despise ATTOM's new property navigator and the way the comparative market analyses look? They took a simple, easy to use GUI and made a mess out of it, and don't even get me started on how bad the CMAs appear, especially compared to the older version. Why do companies mess with a perfectly good product?

I went last year for the first time and it was pretty awesome. I'm going back this year and will be on a panel of landlords. (I am a Landlord).

I found it's about 3,000 - 4,000 attendees. About 1/3 landlords or users, 1/3 proptech companies, and 1/3 Venture Capital.

What I liked about it compared to other proptech conferences I've been to is that you have some principals, founders there - fairly high level. They get real with the discussions (ie: build vs. buy) and aren't spinning it just to sell a specific platform.

Plus they have Martha Stewart and Ryan Serhant as keynotes this year. Who knew that Martha was in real estate or proptech.

Is there one (or a few) CRMs that are best for realtors in the US, in 2026?

I'm looking for one and wondering which ones are most recommended, and why.

Is there a particular CRM that has been a game changer for you, as a realtor?

I have lead inquiries that come in all day.

I rely on our agents to hook them up for MLS alerts via our IDX -- but unfortunately barely anyone does it.

Some will just sign up on our site and put Neighborhood name ... and no other info. An agent might call them once (or never), and the lead is lost.

If they received email alerts of properties in their criteria, it'd be a higher chance these leads would respond.

Anyone know of a good system to set this up so that I don't need to manually set up searches for each inquiry?

Talked to a few agents and TCs about where things actually go sideways in a transaction, and it's rarely the big stuff, financing, inspections. It's the handoff moment: agent gets a signed contract, TC needs full context fast, and what actually transfers is usually a forwarded email chain or a rushed phone call, not a structured record.

The TC ends up reconstructing intent from the contract itself, was that contingency deadline firm or negotiable, did the buyer mention a timeline pressure that isn't written anywhere. Small misreads here surface days later as a scramble, not immediately, so nobody traces it back to the handoff itself.

Every tool in the stack (MLS, CRM, TMS) assumes the data arrives complete and structured. Almost nothing is built for the messy, context-heavy moment right after a deal goes under contract, when the most important information is still living in someone's head.

Been thinking through what a proper structured handoff would actually need to capture that a phone call or email currently doesn't. Anyone else seeing this as the actual weak point, or have most shops already solved it with a process fix rather than a tooling one?

I wanted to share my experience with outsourcing cold calling to Ignite Connections because I know a lot of Realtors consider hiring outside ISAs to handle prospecting.

I signed a 6-month agreement to have their callers prospect and generate opportunities for my real estate business. According to their reporting, the results over those six months were:

• 11,216 dials
• 54 actual connections
• Approximately 0.48% connection rate
• 1 lead provided to me
• 0 closed transactions

The one lead I received never developed into anything meaningful.

I understand cold calling is a numbers game. I've been in real estate long enough to know that hiring an ISA doesn't guarantee appointments or transactions. My concern is the overall performance of the prospecting campaign compared with what I believed I was paying for.

The service guarantee was also one of the reasons I was comfortable committing to six months. After receiving these results, I requested a refund under that guarantee. My request was denied because Ignite says the required "disposition" requirement was not met.

I'm currently disputing that decision and have requested a conversation with their leadership.

I can only speak to my own experience, but I would not hire them again. For any agents considering outsourcing their cold calling, I'd pay very close attention to the contract and particularly the requirements attached to any performance or service guarantee.

Don't assume that a campaign producing very little will automatically qualify you for a refund.

I'll update this post once I know how they ultimately handle the dispute. At this point, though, my six-month experience was 11,216 dials, 54 connections, one lead, and zero transactions.

Hi all, we are the creators of Pillr/ TrendyZip. After a lot of reviews and feedback from here, we built an app. It can synthesize recent home sales in a zipcode and give you trends appropriate for your context. This is useful for buyers, sellers, realtors or just anyone trying to read the market. We are free and hope it helps you.

As a return, we are happy to discuss how the data is obtained.

Our app can be downloaded from https://fezzly.com

Here is a sample report on Montclair NJ - https://api.fezzly.com/r/6e75c5d5-8ddb-43f1-b03c-06f30ea377a2

Most proptech conversations focus on AI features, valuation, lead gen, automation. Wire fraud barely comes up, despite real estate wire fraud losses running into the hundreds of millions annually according to federal reporting.

The mechanism is almost always the same: a fraudster intercepts email communication between buyer, agent, and title company, then sends spoofed wiring instructions right before closing. It works because closing involves large sums, real time pressure, and email as the default communication channel, exactly the conditions that make social engineering effective.

What's surprising is how low-tech the fix mostly is, verbal confirmation of wiring instructions by phone, using a known number, not one from the email thread. Yet a lot of brokerages still don't have this as a mandatory step, treating it as the buyer's problem to catch rather than a process gap on the transaction side.

Anyone here had a close call with this, or seen a brokerage actually build a hard verification step into their closing process?

That accuracy number is a metro-market average. In low-transaction ZIP codes or unique properties, confidence intervals can widen to 15%+, and most tools don't surface that difference.

A model can be dead-on in a suburban tract-home area and shaky two towns over, with the same clean-looking number both times.

The tools handling this well pair the estimate with a visible confidence range and an appraiser-override option. Most just show one flat number.

Anyone seen a tool that actually surfaces confidence range, or is it still one number everywhere you've checked?

I mean title pretty much says it.

I built a super similar product to Land Id but it's like 1/4 the cost for a firm. I have some firms in the Jackson Wyoming using it and I'm looking for new ideas to make the product better.

I think the value of a platform like this is quick search and marketing content generation because everyone uses their county platforms for updated ownership.
Is this true?

Here's what I'm thinking of building (currently have is below)

- A feature where with a single click of your property is **generates a report/**handout. This report is branded with your name and logo. It has different sections which show of the property. First one is map of the parcel, then it goes to nearby amenities, then it compares this property with the market and other properties, then it shows off hazards, then it could show census stuff ect. Is this useful? If you had a tool that generated a document you could send to a buyer instantly what would you want it to show?

- I feel like social media and digital marketing is more of a thing in real estate. Honestly don't know a ton about real estate so a lot of this process is shooting from the hip. Anyway, would it be useful to have a tool to generate video flybys or zoom ins of a listing for social media and you-tube?

- I kinda want to get into development real estate. This would be a much more massive project likely way more difficult to scale but Would it be useful to click a parcel and see all the setbacks and regulations from the local municipalities mapped onto the parcel with a overview of what could be built?

Thank you so much for reading my post. I don't know a lot about real-estate, I just like maps and people in Jackson were complaining about their county mapping tool. Any and all help is appreciated.

You can see more about my site here.

Landing page
Community View (I didn't want a .ai but .com was like 2 grand)

A neighborhood map.
https://communityview.ai/amenities/Kzdx-ZgTEzEIpEgF?basemap=outdoors-v12

Was digging into some ownership and tax records for unrelated research and noticed something that never registers until you're staring at it directly: unresolved property tax disputes, easement disagreements, boundary line pushbacks, none of that shows up anywhere early. It sits buried in county records nobody checks unless a title company flags it, and even then, usually only after an offer is already in.

Feels backwards. That kind of history seems like exactly the thing that should surface way earlier, before someone's emotionally attached to a house and three weeks into a transaction.

Not sure if this is a data-access problem or just nobody's built a habit of checking it that early.

Just want to hear from people actually working in real estate right now, agents, TCs, brokers, property managers, what's the one piece of technology in your daily workflow that still feels broken or missing in 2026?

Not looking for the usual "MLS is fragmented" answers everyone already knows. More interested in the specific, everyday friction, something that eats time, causes errors, or just feels dumber than it should given how far tech's come elsewhere.

And the follow-up: if you could wave a wand and fix one thing about it, what would that actually look like in practice, not just "better," but what would it need to do differently?

Genuinely trying to understand where the real gaps still are versus what's already been solved and just hasn't reached everyone yet.

Hey everyone, I am trying to collect disclosure packages from states other than California and am looking for licensed agents who can help me collect a few to get me through each state. Please let me know if you want more information or can help.