Portal Milestones Roundup: Zoopla, Ingatlan, Bayut and Domain

Here are the milestones portals around the world wanted put out there this week...

Zoopla Lures Crest Nicholson Back as It Signs Three Housebuilder Deals

Zoopla has landed new and renewed deals with three major UK housebuilders, Crest Nicholson, Cala Homes and Allison Homes, as the portal sharpens its new-homes pitch.

Top-ten builder Crest Nicholson returns after a four-year absence, listing all of its developments on Zoopla and using the portal's Home of the Week product to chase higher-quality enquiries. Allison Homes, active across the East of England, East Midlands and South West, has also rejoined. Cala Homes has extended and broadened its agreement through to 2027.

The wins follow a claimed 53% rise in builder leads over 2025 and February's acquisition of new-homes-only portal newhomesforsale.co.uk.

"Zoopla are genuinely focused on new-homes lead quality and conversion, and their improvements to new-build visibility for consumers back that up," said Julia Brass, Group Marketing Director at Allison Homes Group.

The new-build drive extends a busy year for Zoopla, which tied down Connells and Taylor Wimpey in January, and lands as rival Rightmove fields questions over a softening market.

Ingatlan.com Says AI Search Doubles Buyer Engagement in Early Beta

Hungary's largest property portal, Ingatlan.com, says its new AI search has sharply lifted buyer engagement in its first weeks, the latest European portal to put conversational search in front of home seekers.

Live in beta for logged-in users since early June, the tool lets seekers describe a home in plain Hungarian and returns matching listings in real time, picking up details in advert text that standard filters miss. Several thousand users have tried it.

A company blog post said that page views were broadly flat across both groups. More than half of AI users saved at least one listing, around 2.5 times the rate of traditional search. Nearly 12% messaged an advertiser, again about 2.5 times higher, and close to 13% made a phone call, roughly double the rate of conventional search.

Ingatlan.com's experts read the flat view counts as a sign that the AI surfaces suitable homes faster rather than driving idle browsing. The company says that the feature will remain in active development.

Bayut Academy Trains Agents From 104 Agencies as UAE Brokerage Bar Rises

Bayut Academy, the training arm of UAE portal Bayut, says agent demand for structured courses is climbing as a more crowded brokerage market pushes standards higher.

Endorsed by Dubai Land Department, the academy has run 38 specialised sessions since March 2026, drawing representatives from 104 unique agencies across the UAE. Topics span off-plan fundamentals, regulation, area specialisation and investor advisory, with the programme feeding Bayut's TruBroker ecosystem that recognises responsive, professional agents.

"The UAE real estate sector can be defined as being in a pretty advanced phase, where professionalism, transparency and market knowledge are just as important as access to listings," said Sahar Khan, VP of Marketing at Bayut.

The skills push lands as Bayut, part of Dubizzle Group, keeps layering services around its core marketplace, from TruEstimate rental reports to agent Stories and a partnership with rental rewards platform Tern.

Domain Reports 19% Audience Rise and Record App Use in May Figures

Domain has reported a 19% year-on-year rise in total audience for May 2026, citing Ipsos Iris data as it presses its claim to be Australia's fastest-growing property brand.

The CoStar Group company said its exclusive audience hit a record 1.4 million, up 51%, while it claimed rival realestate.com.au saw its exclusive audience shrink 12% over the same period. The Domain app reached a record 1.3 million monthly users, with downloads up 47% year on year. Commercial audience rose 37% to 1.2 million.

"Our focus is single-minded: keeping our foot on the pedal to drive genuine value and innovation for the industry," said Domain President Jason Pellegrino, who flagged the launch of Matterport 3D tours through the Domain Skylight app next week, bundled into the Platinum Edge product at no extra cost.

The figures land as CoStar keeps pouring investment into Domain, and its own Matterport technology, to chip away at REA Group's long-standing grip on the Australian market.