What Traditional Property Portals Don’t Want You to Know About Your Data
Let’s start with a simple truth: if a product is free, you’re not the customer, you’re the commodity, and in property search, that’s never been more obvious.
We all use traditional property portals, and we all rely on them, but have you ever wondered why they feel so cluttered, so noisy, so… desperate for clicks? It’s because property portals don’t make money when you find a home. They make money when you scroll through one. Their business model is built on attention, not outcomes. Every second you spend browsing, filtering, clicking, hesitating, they are learning about you, your budget, your habits, and your neighbourhood preferences. Even how long you linger on a listing tells them what kind of buyer you are, and all that data is not helping you, it’s helping them sell more ads.