Is It Finally Time to Put Homebuyers First in Real Estate Tech?

"For the better part of a decade, venture-backed proptech startups chased revenue from the fastest payer in real estate. That payer wasn't the buyer sitting nervously at a closing table or the seller trying to figure out if they were getting a fair deal. It was the agent. Or the brokerage. The companies that controlled the transaction and already had budgets set aside for exactly this kind of thing."

"Every time a proptech company designed a feature, the question was never, 'Does this make it cheaper or more transparent for the person buying the home?' The question was, 'Does this help the agent close more deals or generate more leads?' Those are very different questions, and over time, [this shaped the entire proptech ecosystem]."

"Lead generation platforms, agent CRMs, brokerage marketing suites - the proptech ecosystem got flooded with products that made intermediaries more efficient and more visible. From a pure business standpoint, it made sense. Agents were willing to pay monthly subscriptions. They wanted better tools. The revenue was predictable, and the sales cycles were manageable."

Proptech has failed to deliver on its promises not due to technological limitations, but because venture-backed startups chose to monetize through agents and brokerages rather than consumers. For over a decade, companies built lead generation platforms, CRMs, and marketing suites that made intermediaries more efficient and visible. This business model made sense financially—agents had budgets and paid predictable subscriptions—but fundamentally misaligned incentives. When designing features, companies asked how to help agents close more deals rather than how to make home buying cheaper or more transparent for consumers. This optimization for middlemen ultimately disadvantaged end-users, mirroring how other industries like travel and finance successfully eliminated intermediaries to empower consumers directly.

Read at Entrepreneur