Almost every business in the Sales & Marketing category of the 2026 Proptech Map is chasing the same customer: a residential sales agent, or the principal who signs off on the agency’s tech stack. That single fact explains most of what is happening in this corner of our industry. The full map now counts 571 companies across 14 categories, and Sales & Marketing is one of the largest, with 58.

Property management has always been the steady engine of real estate. Sales rise and fall with the market, but the rent is due every week, the smoke alarms need checking every year and the lift in a 200-lot building still has to work on a Sunday. That steadiness is why the Property Management & Strata map is one of the largest on the Proptech Map with 59 companies, and it’s why it attracts some of the sector's most ambitious builders.

Buying off the plan has always asked for a leap of faith. A buyer signs today, hands over a deposit that, as The Urban Developer noted this month, can run to $100,000 or more held in trust for two years or longer, and waits for a home that does not yet exist.

BuildBuddy is a case study in what happens when that wall is approached from the inside — not by outsiders, but by an operator running one of the country's larger residential builders who set out to compete with his own business model.

The Australian proptech sector is no stranger to consolidation. Over the past decade, the market has cycled through fragmentation — agencies accumulating point solutions across CRM, property management, leasing, and websites — and is now swinging back toward the appeal of integrated, full-stack platforms. Reapit's experience navigating this cycle offers one of the most instructive case studies currently available to the sector.

Australia's proptech sector is entering a new phase. After years of innovation focused primarily on agents, developers, and property managers, a growing cohort of technology companies is turning its attention to the most underserved participant in the real estate ecosystem: the buyer.

The inaugural Proptech Pulse 2026 surveyed 146 Australian and New Zealand proptech leaders to reveal the data that shows the proptech challenge is no longer just about building tech but how to ensure the tech is adopted, integrated and trusted. Across six headline findings, the report demonstrates that the hardest challenges are no longer technical - they are deeply human.

At this year's Proptech Awards, finalists in the Data Solutions category demonstrated they were doing more than just highlighting the issues. Fifteen companies - spanning start-ups, scale-ups, and established suppliers - are actively constructing the data needed to see the whole picture piece by piece.

Artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping the property industry. From automated valuations and planning assessments to predictive analytics and customer service, AI promises to help organisations work smarter, make faster decisions and uncover new opportunities. But despite the excitement, many AI initiatives struggle to deliver meaningful results. The reason is rarely the AI itself. It's the data.

Every year when I sit down to review the Proptech Award entries, I get a snapshot of where our industry is really at. Not where the hype cycle says we are. Not where the conference keynotes say we should be. But where the actual companies — the ones building, shipping and selling — are right now. This year, we had 166 entries competing for 35 awards. That's a record. And the standard was exceptional. But what was most interesting wasn't the volume. It was the patterns.

The past two years have been extremely busy for proptech investment in Australia. At the Proptech Association Australia, we have identified 18 separate transactions. We were only able to source the values of nine of those 18 transactions but that alone represents at least $274m in investment since late 2019. Much of this activity is established players purchasing scaling proptechs to expand or deepen their product set to enhance innovation and get closer to customers. We a

Australian technology recruitment company Real Time has released an industry talent report based on hundreds of conversations with in-demand software product managers. Inside the Minds of Australia’s Greatest Software Product Talent , published in February 2024, examined what motivated product managers, along with the issues they described as current struggles. Real Time Director Ellis Taylor said it was important to find out what attracted product managers to a new role, a

Asia-Pacific companies are quickly ramping up investments in generative AI and entering a higher stage of maturity, according to new research from the Infosys Knowledge Institute (IKI). The research arm of Infosys, a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting, reported that while APAC spending currently lagged that of North America, the adoption, effectiveness and growth were among the highest globally. Forecasts revealed a 140% increase in total APAC Ge

By Kylie Davis As Australians struggle with the challenges of affordable housing, the cliches of greedy landlords, sleazy real estate agents and dodgy builders are dredged up repeatedly. And now there’s a new one – discriminatory proptech. They are unhelpful narratives that seek to assign blame onto the many, based on the behaviour of a very few, thereby avoiding dealing with the structural issues in housing, construction and investment in this country that are unique to us

By Kylie Davis One of the biggest technology trends coming down the pipe is the rise of Web 3.0 which is going to significantly change how we use, engage with and trust all technology – not just proptech. If like me, you were blissfully unaware that the web had model numbers*, it helps to review the past and current iterations of the web to understand this idea better. Web 1.0 was the first generation – when the internet started. I remember this well. My husband, who was th

By Paula Shearer Artificial intelligence and its impact on humanity has been a scorching discussion topic for decades – ever since the term was coined at a Dartmouth College conference in the United States in 1956. But, until recently, most AI has remained in science fiction novels, university studies and tech labs. Now it’s publicly available – within reach, and free to use, for anyone who has access to a computer keyboard or smartphone. But, is the real estate industry read

A new national report has revealed that a lack of adequate office technology is impacting office occupancy in Australia, with 86% of Australians reporting an office tech gap. At a time when commercial occupancy rates across the country remain stubbornly low, the report delves into how Australian office worker expectations are changing in a digital-first, hybrid work environment and how this impacts their office attendance. Next Flex: Technology for the next generation Austral

Proptech Association Australia’s inaugural Proptech Forum, Disrupting the Disrupters, explored the technology that is happening adjacent to the sector and the market forces happening around it. The day was wrapped up by New South Wales Property Services Commissioner John Minns who said the Forum had raised a number of items that he was particularly excited about. “As a passionate property person for quite a number of years, and committed to the innovation and transformation o

By John Minns To understand what people hate about real estate today take the example of Jess and Tom. The couple are excited. A new business opportunity, an interstate move, and the opportunity to build an exciting new life awaits. Their problem? Making it happen. Selling their house, finding a new one, transitioning their kids schooling, arranging relocation, and all the other stressful logistics like managing global pandemics that together take the edge off their exciteme

By Kylie Davis The most common question I get asked these days is “how do I choose the right proptech?’. The traditional way of approaching this question has been to understand all the new tech available, compare them to the problems you think need fixing in your business and to make a decision from there. But with so many proptechs out there now, real estate agents and property owners are spoiled for choice and the options can feel overwhelming. Its a bit like being a kid