Frequently Asked Questions

Propelr is designed for real estate franchise groups, independent agencies, project marketers and property developers who want a smarter, branded way to manage digital property campaigns. It’s for progressive agencies who value the most advanced technology and want to seize an opportunity to build their own website traffic, leads and brand online and on social media.

Yes. Propelr is designed to sit behind your brand, giving your business its own branded property marketing platform. Whilst we offer ‘off the shelf’ products, we can configure your own products with its own special name, price-points and attributes.

We take a simple feed from your CRM. Simply ensuring we receive the feed in the same way you send listings to property portals and your own website is enough to make it happen. Everything is automated thereafter.

Yes. We are the most AI enabled real estate digital marketing platform in market - built ground up to be AI first.

We use AI to enhance ad targeting, create powerful video ads from just your photos, select the best range of photos to feature, create additional text content to improve ad performance as well as auto monitor and tune ad campaigns, and much much more…

No, it is illegal to use AI to falsely and misleadingly improve images for marketing property. We don’t do that. We dont alter images, we animate them as-is into our video ads. Animating an image is not misrepresenting the image and it is not illegal to do so.

Currently we use Meta’s Facebook and Instagram as well as Google’s Display Network. Because of our Perfect Placement technology that builds more ads in more sizes, your ads will be seen in more places.
On Facebook you will be in Feeds, Stories, Reels, Marketplace and all other Facebook placement locations. On Instagram you will be in Reels, Feeds and Stories also. On Google you will appear on websites including special interest and mastheads, you will be in ads on games, in Youtube overlay ads, Gmail ads and more.

Propelr is not just a third-party ad product. It is designed as a white-label platform that gives real estate businesses more control over their brand, campaign data and client experience. Build as a 4th generation digital marketing product it has technical superiority from day one, with the capacity for much faster product development when compared to legacy code bases. Our ad engine produces better looking ads, in more places, with greater impact - powered by AI to deliver cutting edge results.

We are an Australian company, based in Sydney and we service the entirety of Australia and New Zealand - with the rest of the globe in our sights :)

Propelr has advanced reporting built-in. You will receive a link to this when the campaign has launched, which you can re-access any time you like. We also send a weekly update email that contains the links to any currently running or recently complete campaigns.

For many locations, buyers often come from out of area. Sometimes this is another group of suburbs in the city beyond the immediate suburb/surrounding suburbs of your for sale listing. Sometimes its from much further away, such as other towns or cities if you’re selling regional, rural or lifestyle properties. Most Propelr packages allow out of area targeting, and our approach is to make this seamless by letting you control which suburbs you want to extend targeting to. This is saved in your agency’s configuration and is completely automated thereafter.Its another reason to add Propelr on top of your portal listings, because we can use your knowledge to give your listings another advantage, and also give you another selling point for prospective vendors.

We are currently able to take a feed from Vault, AgentBox/Reapit & REX. If you use a different CRM, we can arrange connection with that CRM easily - if permitted.

Normally, this is how we receive your listings to be advertised online. Standard practice is you push your listing to us when you push it to the property portals.

Once connected, Propelr Digital will appear in your list of portals you can push to, simply enable us for all listing - unless you want to order Propelr on an ad-hoc basis.

Click on the link below to see how to request connection is enabled from your supported CRM.

https://www.propelr.digital/crm-enabling

In order to run ads on Facebook & Instagram that are connected to your Facebook Page (& Instagram page if you’ve linked them) - you need to give us permission to run ads on your behalf. When we set you up, we will request access permission using our Facebook Business Manager, and your Admins should get notified. If you didn’t get notified, or want to jump in and grant access - or invite us to have access, just watch the video on this how-to page. It’s simple and once-off. You can remove access at any time.

Important: If you haven’t already told us your Facebook page, please email us at hello@propelr.digital so we can request access. Once we have requested access, the simple steps in the video on the link below will show you how to grant it.

https://www.propelr.digital/facebookpageaccess

Watch this 1 minute video to learn how to explain why they should have Propelr Digital Marketing in their property’s marking campaign

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0kSjE_aHJw

What is a "passive buyer"?

A passive buyer is someone who isn't actively searching for property but would buy if the right home came along. They aren't setting up portal alerts or attending open homes every weekend. They might see a property in their social media feed, drive past a signboard, or hear about it from a friend, and it's enough to prompt them to act.

How many properties are sold to passive buyers in Australia?

No official figure exists. Neither the ABS, the major property data providers nor the industry bodies track whether a buyer was actively looking before they found the home they bought. The figures that do circulate come from different sources and measure different things:

• The pool of potential buyers is large. Australians tend to sell only about once a decade, so most homeowners spend most of their time out of the market rather than actively searching [1]. A UK survey found that passive buyers make up around two-thirds of the market [2].

• Most of the buying journey happens before buyers start searching. A 2025 survey of 700 property-engaged Australians found buyers take about 20 months on average to move from first dreaming about a purchase to buying, but the active phase of making offers takes only about three months [3]. For most of that time, buyers aren't searching the portals every day. Social media was one of the top sources of property information, particularly for Gen Z (58%) and Millennial (33%) buyers [3].

• Buyers find homes beyond the main portal. A 2013 New Zealand survey of recent buyers found fewer than half found their home on the country's leading property portal. The rest found it in other ways, including being contacted directly by an agent, seeing a flyer or signboard, attending an open home, or driving or walking past [4].

Is New Zealand data relevant to Australia?

Yes. The two markets work in much the same way. In both countries, the vendor pays for advertising rather than the agent, there is no central listing system, and the property portals charge per listing, with one dominant portal in each market [5]. That makes New Zealand buyer behaviour a closer guide to Australia than data from markets such as the US, where buyers and sellers usually each have their own agent.

What about Baby Boomer buyers?

Baby Boomers are a significant part of the market. They made up 27% of residential purchases in 2025, behind Gen X (35%) and Millennials (28%) [6]. Downsizers, who are mostly Boomers, are reported to hold the highest levels of home equity and personal wealth of any group [7].

Boomers also choose and buy differently. When choosing an agent, 74% of Boomers rate local expertise as important, compared with only 8% who rate an agent's technology and marketing tools [8]. Some still value newspaper advertising (17%), while it is younger buyers who say they prefer social media ads [8].

For properties likely to appeal to downsizers, this means digital advertising should reach Boomers where they actually spend time online, such as news and lifestyle websites as well as social media, and sit alongside strong local marketing.

Our estimate

Taking all of this together, our estimate is that roughly 5–15% of Australian residential sales go to genuinely passive buyers. The share is likely higher for prestige, lifestyle and coastal properties, and for apartments that appeal to first home buyers active on social media.

Why extend a campaign beyond the property portals?

A portal listing is essential, but it only reaches people who are already searching. Everyone else, including the large pool of people who would buy if the right property found them, never sees it.

Digital and social media advertising closes that gap. It places a property in front of people who match the likely buyer profile, wherever they spend time online, whether or not they've started looking. It also reaches active buyers a second time while they're scrolling, which keeps the property top of mind between portal searches. Vendors increasingly expect this: in a 2025 survey, vendors named a social media strategy among the must-haves of an agent's marketing plan [3].

The return doesn't depend on passive buyers making up a large share of sales. A sale price is set by competition, and one additional motivated buyer can be the difference between a sale at reserve and a competitive result. With passive buyers involved in an estimated one in ten sales or more, extending reach beyond the portals is a sound addition to the marketing mix and works alongside a portal listing rather than replacing it.

References

1. Online Marketplaces, "How social media is influencing the housing market" – https://www.onlinemarketplaces.com/articles/how-social-media-is-influencing-the-housing-market/

2. Spicerhaart, "Robots will find your new home" – https://www.spicerhaart.co.uk/news/robots-will-find-your-new-home/

3. View Media Group research, reported by Real Estate Business, "Aussies slash property buying time since 2020" – https://www.realestatebusiness.com.au/industry/30153-aussies-slash-property-buying-time-since-2020

4. Perceptive research for Trade Me, reported by interest.co.nz, "Research commissioned by Trade Me found 47% of buyers found home via Trade Me" – https://www.interest.co.nz/property/68330/research-commissioned-trade-me-found-47-buyers-found-home-trade-me-while-9-found

5. Mike DelPrete, Inman, "Are property portals worth what they cost? A case study" – https://www.inman.com/2019/11/18/are-property-portals-worth-what-they-cost-a-case-study/

6. View.com.au Path to Purchase Report 2025, reported by The Canberra Times, "Gen X reshaping Aussie property market in 2025" – https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/9005719/gen-x-reshaping-aussie-property-market-in-2025/

7. Downsizing.com.au, reported by the Property Council of Australia, "COVID-19 drives downsizing" – https://www.propertycouncil.com.au/property-australia/covid-19-drives-downsizing

8. LJ Hooker research, reported by Smart Property Investment, "How are Australians buying and selling property in 2025?" – https://www.smartpropertyinvestment.com.au/investor-strategy/26551-how-are-australians-buying-and-selling-property-in-2025

Do premium listings on realestate.com.au and Domain lead to a better sale result?

The portals report that their premium listing products attract more views and enquiries than standard listings. realestate.com.au has claimed its Premiere listings receive many times more views and enquiries than a standard listing [1], although more recent figures quoted by third parties are much lower, at around two to three times the enquiries [2][3]. Domain reports that its Platinum Edge listings receive roughly three times the views and enquiries of its Silver package, based on its own internal data [4].

What these figures don't show is a higher sale price, which is the outcome a vendor is actually paying for. We haven't found any independent, published research showing that a premium listing achieves a better price than a standard listing for the same property.

There are good reasons to treat the portals' figures with care:

• They come from the portals themselves. They are internal data, not independent studies.

• They compare different properties. Premium listings tend to be bought for higher-value, well-presented homes and for motivated vendors. These properties would usually attract more interest and sell faster regardless of listing type.

• Position is relative. A premium listing's advantage comes from appearing above the others. The more listings in a suburb that upgrade, the smaller that advantage becomes.

Won't buyers miss my property if it's a standard listing?

Serious buyers rarely scroll through every property in a city. They filter their searches by suburb, price, bedrooms and property type, and receive alerts for new listings that match. The result is usually a short list, and an active buyer will open every property on it, whether it's a standard or premium listing.

The extra views a premium listing attracts tend to come from casual browsers and buyers who are only partly engaged. These are the same people that Propelr’s targeted digital and social media advertising is designed to reach. Propelr is a much less expensive way to do this, and would likely reach many more people.

Why combine a standard listing with digital and social media advertising?

A portal listing is essential, because that's where active buyers search. But a portal only reaches people while they're on the portal. Most of the time, potential buyers are elsewhere online, reading the news or scrolling social media.

The portals themselves recognise this. realestate.com.au sells an add-on that follows buyers to other websites and brings them back to the listing, and says it typically adds 10–15% more enquiry on top of a Premiere listing [5]. Domain offers a similar social media amplification product with its paid listings [6]. In other words, the portals charge a premium to extend a property's reach beyond the portal.

A standard portal listing combined with a targeted digital and social media campaign does the same job: it covers the active buyers searching on the portals, and it extends the property's reach to likely buyers wherever they spend time online. For many properties, it does this for a similar or lower total spend than a premium listing alone.

How much do premium listings cost?

Premium listing prices vary by suburb and property value. In some Sydney suburbs, premium listings on realestate.com.au have been reported to cost more than $4,000, and up to around $5,000 [7][8]. REA Group's revenue rose 15% in the 2025 financial year, largely because of higher listing prices [9].

Do I have to list on every portal?

In September 2026, REA Group agreed to remove terms from its agency contracts that required agencies to list every property on realestate.com.au. This followed an ACCC investigation, although REA noted that no legal proceedings were issued and there was no finding of wrongdoing. The ACCC encouraged vendors to discuss listing options and fees with their agents so they can choose what best suits their property [10].
Listing on both major portals in Australia with premium/premier listings can be very expensive. A growing number of agents don’t upgrade their listings on both, repurposing the savings for powerful alternate marketing like Propelr.

For vendors, this is a good prompt to review where a marketing budget will work hardest, rather than defaulting to the most expensive portal package.

References

1. Real Estate Business, "Top shelf REA prices may be capped" – https://www.realestatebusiness.com.au/industry/8334-top-shelf-rea-prices-may-be-capped

2. BuyMyPlace, "Why your online property search results matter" – https://buymyplace.com.au/on-the-market/why-your-online-property-search-results-matter

3. Kay & Burton, Premiere+ listing brochure – https://issuu.com/articles/22063211

4. Domain, Platinum Edge agent case study – https://agent.domain.com.au/success-stories/the-tool-helping-this-sydney-agent-reach-even-more-people-1385148/

5. Elite Agent, interview with Ben Auchettl, realestate.com.au – https://eliteagent.com/dominating-the-buy-side-ben-auchettl/

6. Elite Agent, "Domain reports solid jump in revenue and profit" – https://eliteagent.com/domain-reports-solid-jump-in-revenue-and-profit/

7. Online Marketplaces, "REA Group under investigation from ACCC over market power and pricing" – https://www.onlinemarketplaces.com/articles/rea-group-under-investigation-from-accc-over-market-power-and-pricing/

8. Mumbrella, "ACCC probe News Corp's REA Group over pricing concerns" – https://mumbrella.com.au/accc-probe-news-corps-rea-group-over-pricing-concerns-875914

9. Roger Montgomery, "REA Group's stellar financial year 2025 and record dividends, but…" – https://rogermontgomery.com/rea-groups-stellar-financial-year-2025-and-record-dividends-but/

10. Online Marketplaces, "REA Group resolves ACCC investigation" – https://www.onlinemarketplaces.com/articles/rea-group-resolves-accc-investigation/